Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
So here’s a list of unusual injuries sustained by players this season, courtesy of SI.com’s Hot Clicks blog: — Feb. 12: Brad Bergesen, Orioles: Strained his shoulder filming a TV commercial for the team. — May 29: Kendry Morales, Angels: Broke his leg celebrating a walk-off home run at home plate. — June 30: Luke […]
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The Mental Floss website offers these quizzes: Did he throw a no-hitter? The Simpsons softball quiz The baseball card brand quiz
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Always happy for the chance to mix baseball and philosophy, as per The NY Times Sunday Magazine’s “Ethicist” column. I coach a youth all-star baseball team. After tryouts, our league director chose the 13 best players for our team, leaving about six kids unselected. Among those is a boy whose father recently died of cancer. […]
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As I’ve stated in the past, I’m not a big fan of books that employ words like “best” and “greatest.” Add to that “Most,” as in Overrated: The 50 Most Overhyped Things in History, by Mark Juddery, who adjudges baseball as “the most overrated sport.” Of course, he also considers Star Trek the most overrated […]
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Brian Cronin of The Los Angeles Times blogs about Sports Legends Revealed in which he takes on a Rob Neyer-ish tone about our cherished (?) beliefs. He is also thoughtful enough to single out the baseball items.
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When Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record in 1974, Ernie Harwell and Bill Slayback collaborated on “Move over Babe, Here Comes Henry,” a musical tribute. Wonder if some tunesmith will do the same now that Jamie Moyer has “bested” Robin Roberts on the all-time home runs allowed list? Like the pundits say, […]
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There are several popular drinking games around; one of my favorite focuses on the television show Lost. Since there are so many similar themes in baseball books, I though I’d try my hand a creating one of my own. So with your kind indulgence: If someone refers to Jaques Barzun and/or the quote: “Whoever wants […]
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if not a tiny scoreboard. Mental Floss, a bright and funny publication in which a couple of my articles have appeared (and one day again, I hope. Hint, hint, Mental Floss; I have no shame) published this brief history on the evolution of the scoreboard. The piece also links to some other cool baseball items, […]
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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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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
The gauntlet, returned
July 8, 2010 · 1 comment
Earlier today I challenged Mark Juddery to back up the claim in his new book that baseball is the most overrated sport. Tonight, he offers his answer, via email, presented without editorial comment: Here are a few words written just for the Baseball Bookshelf site. (Well OK, it’s basically a reworked version of the book […]
Tagged as: Baseball News
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