Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
When the baseball purists start calling for the heads of those who would buck tradition in finding ways to speed up the game, they might start with author Paul Auster. Auster came up with brilliant idea of two strikes and you’re out and three balls, take your base. The former is strictly two strikes, by […]
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I highly recommend Pocket as a way to hold onto links you come that you want to keep. Unlike bookmarks, Pocket keeps the entire page and makes it relative easy for you to find stuff you “pocketed.” I have keepers going back six years — more than 5,000 links — and I’ve decided it’s time […]
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“The Curious Case of Sidd Finch” — ostensibly a feature article by George Plimpton — was the cover story for the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated. Of course, we all know now (spoiler alert) it was an elaborate hoax. Over the year’s, the myth has be debunked several times, including in the pages […]
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The 1953 unanimous MVP selection (the first time that had ever occurred) passed away Friday at the age of 91. To my mind, Al Rosen was the last of his generation, a Jewish ballplayer who grew up a time when anti-Semitism was still fairly prevalent, less so than Hank Greenberg but more so than Sandy […]
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Because tomorrow is 3-14-15…
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Skip to 2:20…
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Because these could fit on a bookshelf if it was big enough. Reggie Jackson is auctioning off “the 10-foot-high letters that spelled “YANKEE STADIUM” near the edge of the roof for 32 years after the renovated stadium opened in 1976.” Jackson purchased the letters when the Stadium closed down after the 2008 season. Of course […]
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In addition to the thousands upon thousands of baseball cards, Bob had a handful of baseball publications, most of them pertaining to fantasy baseball with a few Bill James Abstracts thrown in. This caught my I so I asked for it. More than any other issues, I think I enjoyed the March edition of Baseball […]
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Charles M. Conlon, the famous baseball photographer (he might have shot other subjects, too, but I only know him from baseball), produced some wonderful close-up portraits, a number of which are included in a couple of collections: Baseball’s Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles M. Conlon and The Big Show: Charles M. Conlon’s Golden Age […]
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I don’t know what I found more bizarre: the fact that former MLB pitcher Esteban Loaiza had been accused by his late wife, Jenni Rivera, of “having a relationship” with her daughter, Chiquis, or that he’s coming out with a book. Loaiza pitcher for eight teams in a 13-year career that netted him a record of […]
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The “Just a Bit Outside” blog on the Fox Sports site would have us believe that Joe Black, the one-year wonder for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952, is the baseball equivalent of Harper Lee, whose only published work — to date — was a classic. From the entry: What we’re looking for here is a […]
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And, let’s not forget Anthony Perkins. These three popular actors made baseball films that were memorable for one reason or another and none of them displayed an ounce of athletic talent portraying, respectively, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Jim Piersall. Sure there were others who probably should have turned down such demanding roles, but those were […]
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I hope that means “hooray!” You never know how things might change subtly with Google translate. Anyway, this comes from the Anime News Network (“The Internet’s most trusted anime news source”): Takuya Mitsuda will continue his long-running Major manga series on Shogakukan‘s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine in March. This will be the first new chapter […]
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You ever have one of the experiences where a picture falls off a wall for no reason? Then you find out later that the person in the photo has had an accident or worse? This just happened as I was working on blog posts: The mini-bobblehead of Alex Rodriguez, then a member of the Texas […]
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I don’t know about you, but I didn’t particularly care for Stephen King’s novella, Blockade Billy. I found his co-authored Faithful with Stewart O’Nan much more in my alley. In this Bangor Daily News piece, he discusses his affinity for the game, among other items. Haruki Murakami, author of such best-sellers as 1Q84, also loves […]
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Just finished a review of the new John Wayne bio for Bookreporter, so I thought it would be appropriate to remind you that he starred in a 1955 television production of Rookie of the Year, aired some 36 years after the Black Sox scandal, which serves as an underscoring theme. Directed by John Ford, the […]
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Do cameras still use hot-shoe flash attachments? Anyway, this was going around Facebook yesterday so I thought I’d pass it along. For only $3,995, you can be the first kid on the block to own this (the link brings you to the page where each of the 134 cards are identified): First edition, first and […]
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I participated in this seemingly futile exercise to determine “The 25 most important people in baseball,” as posted by the Baseball Past and Present blog. Not players. Not executives. Not men. People. This opens the door for the consideration of personalities like Effa Manley, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Eleanor Engle, Hilda Chester, Ila Borders, Jackie Mitchell, […]
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Not a hard-core comic book guy, so I don’t quite get why there are two new books about the breakthrough DC character — the 75th anniversary doesn’t come for another couple of years — but in thumbing through Jill Leopre’s The Secret History of Wonder Woman, I discovered there was baseball content in the second […]
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Proving that you can connect any two things. Also an older link, which might have been more topical had I posted a month ago, but right now it’s down to Jaime Lanister vs. Bran Stark. This worked out pretty well: GoT has a lot of royalty in it and also a couple of giants. I […]
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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
