Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
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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Jay Leno returns to The Tonight Show this evening. Herewith a gallery of some of the baseball big shots he’s had on…
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One of the things you really notice at Yankees Fantasy Camp — and I’m sure it’s the same at all the others — is the omnipresence of photographers. Team pictures, action shots, posed “candid” shots, photos at the dinners, et al. People love having their pictures taken with celebrities. So why did it take so […]
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My stats-keepers indicates The Bookshelf has received more than a quarter million hits. My thanks to all you readers out there. I know there are thousands of baseball blogs and believe The Bookshelf is one of the few devoted to this particular niche. But I’m just curious as to your take on the best of […]
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Bruce Markusen, author of such books as A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s, The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, Tales From The Mets Dugout, and The Orlando Cepeda Story, provided this list of Nickname “All-Stars” for The Hardball Times
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Marty Appel was kind enough to send me a copy of the Official 2007 Yearbook of the Israel Baseball League. Appel, who used to handle PR for the Yankees back in the 1970s, has his finger in just about every Jewish/sports pie, including the IBL, the Jewish Major Leaguer Card set, and the Maccabi Haifa […]
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The current issue of ESPN the Magazine includes a cute feature titled “Over the Top,” by Amanda Angel. The Greatest Story Ever Told is about Jesus himself, but these days you’d half-expect to find that title on a bookseller’s spoets shelves. A quick glance at the genre shows many true, real and seemingly impossible epic […]
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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
