Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
From this week’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me: Carl Kasell: “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” Peter Sagal: That was Carl imitating a sound everybody, or at least World Cup soccer fans, know all too well. What is it? (Correct answer by the call-in contestant) Sagal: …Just last week on this show we had to explain to you all what […]
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Hannah Sung of the CBC wants to know. In the meantime, we have this Top 10 to put together. I myself have just discovered The Global Game website, which I’m finding fascinating, and I’m reading through their book of the same name, which we will look at this month. Some of you on Twitter have […]
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Yesterday, actually (close enough for jazz), that Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho changed how the movie industry dealt with sex and violence, for better or worse. There are several interesting analyses, including David Thomson’s The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder, which I’m reading at the moment, as well as this from […]
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To Van Lingle Mungo, made famous in a song by Dave Frishberg: And to Eddie Gaedel, because he could probably fit on a bookshelf.
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To Phil Linz, 71, because I keep several harmonicas on my bookshelf. Kinda feel sorry for him. He spent seven seasons in the majors, but when he dies, the obituary will highlight the Harmonica Incident. Of course, Linz would probably disagree, since it’s kept him in the spotlight for all these years.
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If you happen to be in Cooperstown this weekend: National Pastime, a new musical comedy about a fictitious, unbeatable baseball team, will be presented during a special performance on Saturday, May 1, at 7 p.m. in the Hall of Fame’s Grandstand Theater. The play — written by Tony Sportiello, with words and music by Al Tapper — tells […]
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About fifty years ago, it was pretty much verbotten for ballplayers to lift weights. The managers thought it would make them too bulky and tight. Nowadays it’s not uncommon to find the athletes gracing the cover of fitness magazines. Case in point: Matt Holliday of the St. Louis Cardinals, who appears on Muscle and Fitness‘ […]
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Great. Something else for Mets and Yankees fans to argue about. Now you can sing along. And I couldn’t help but add this one. A song about the Washington Nationals? How retro.
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there are scores of guys with far less talent, but who make up the backbone of the game. Think about it: even if your favorite team is lucky to have, let’s say, seven or eight all-stars, that still leaves 18 regular Joes. Norm Miller was such a player. He managed to stick around for 10 […]
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This article appeared in the April 15 edition of the New Jersey Jewish News. Tempered with the excitement of Opening Day, some baseball fans have to contend with the end of a tradition, even if it was only a few years old: 2010 marks the final release of the Jewish Major Leaguer card set. According […]
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Here’s an idea: Don’t play games in such lousy weather.
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The May issue of Playboy features the magazine’s annual baseball feature, by Tracy Ringolsby. Meanwhile, Maxim takes a less traditional approach in picking its favorite players, as contributed by Jeff Pearlman. Sorry, no links. This is, after all, a family blog.
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Heard about the video of Carl Kassel of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me throwing out the first pitching before a Cardinals’ game last week. I got to thinking, how many of the Cardinals — or any pro athletes — have heard of the program? How many of them have ever heard of NPR? How […]
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Of course, in my case, it’s more a math thing than science.
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Hey, I totally commiserate. I am the world’s worst speller, as any follower of The Bookshelf must have learned by now. So have some compassion for these guys. To say nothing of all the player’s names misspelled over the years. You try spelling Kluszewski! This falls under the aegis of Uniwatchblog.com, so here’s their take […]
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Books about pitchers, and books about batters. Titles on deep and historical matters. Trips to Fall Classics that started in spring, These are a few of my favorite things. Bios on Aaron and Mantle and Maris (The new one on Willie will soon be a classic). A new one on Reggie and all of his […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In a former life, I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted an award-winning bog about Jews and Sports.
I did a profile piece on the legendary cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was very generous in immortalizing me in this caricature.
My article on Sandy Koufax in the 1965 World Series appears in
My article on the later biographies of Babe Ruth appears in
My article on the Mets’ 1969 postseason appears in
Profiles of several Jewish baseball figures appear in
Bits and pieces
May 22, 2010
SFReeper critiques Emma Span’s look at the game from the distaff side and Jason Turbow’s do’s and dont’s. If the British read Moneyball, do they have to convert it into pounds or euros? The AV Club conducted this Q&A with Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair & Plastic Grass. You gotta wonder if he grew […]
Tagged as: baseball books
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