Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Several guides to baseball fiction have been thoughtfully created by a number of readers and writers. Note that the same titles are bound to appear on the various “rosters.” Tim Morris, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, developed this Guide to Baseball Fiction, which includes novels, short stories, juvenile fiction, plays, and […]
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Merriam-Webster Online recently ran this item about Franklin P. Adams’ poetic homage to the double play combination of Tinker to Evers to Chance in Baseball’s Sad Lexicon. Text and an audio version are provided. (So is it pronounced Eh-vers or Ee-vers?). Books on the Cubs stars include: Tinker, Evers, and Chance: A Triple Biography, by […]
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This review appeared on the Sports Literature Association Web site in August, 2004. The Last Best League: One Summer, One Season, One Dream, by Jim Collins. Da Capo, 2004. 288pp. $24.00 (cloth), ISBN 0738209015. Reviewed by Ron Kaplan The ballplayers on the Chatham As of the Cape Cod League are on the cusp. All of […]
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Henry Charles “Shag” Crawford, an NL umpire from 1956-75, died on July 11. He was 90. Crawford, whose brother, Joey, was an NBA official, called more than 3,000 games, worked in three World Series three times, two NL championship series, and three All-Star games. He became an iconic figure in photographs of San Francisco Giants’ […]
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Ralph Kiner, a fixture in the Mets broadcast booth since their debut in 1962, was honored on July 14 with a “night.” A mix of baseball celebrities were on hand, including former Mets players (Bud Harrelson, Ed Kranepool, Rusty Staub, Jerry Koosman, Ed Charles, and Tom Seaver, who did a fairly shaky job in his […]
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Birdie: Confessions of a Baseball Nomad by Birdie Tebbetts and James Morrison. (Triumph Books, 2002.) By his own description, George “Birdie” Tebbetts was a “Joe”–that is, he wasn’t the type of player who could hit 40 home runs or bat .300 or win any awards: “Joes are the guys who win you the pennant.” Tebbetts […]
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An Associated Press story in the Washington Olympian about a new book and exhibit highlighting The Glory Days: New York City Baseball, 1947-1957, edited by John Thorn. Note that this should not be confused with Harvey Frommer’s New York City Baseball: The Last Golden Age 1947-1957, published originally by Macmillan in 1980, and re-released by […]
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<p>The recent death of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock brings to mind other tragic incidents of ballplayers dying before their time.<br />Books about such players who died during the baseball season include <em><span class=”bigger”>Ed Delehanty in the Emerald<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=240,height=240,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/00dela.jpg”><img width=”125″ height=”125″ border=”0″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/00dela.jpg” title=”00dela” alt=”00dela” style=”margin: 0px 5px 5px […]
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<p>According to an Associated press story, Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda "was arrested on suspicion of felony possession of a controlled substance, along with possession of a hypodermic needle or syringe and possession of marijuana…." </p> <p>This makes a natural segue to the following critique I did for the <em>MultiCultural Review</em>: </p> <p><em>The Orlando Cepeda […]
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I was listening to the Mets-Rockies game as I was driving home from work last night. Orlando Hernandez was pitching for New York and Howie Rose commented on how economically he was working, getting the ball where he wanted it. A few days before Oliver Perez threw more than 25 strikes in a row. I […]
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“Before Bill James, before Moneyball, all the way back in 1964, we published one of the touchstones of mathematical analysis of the sport: Percentage Baseball by Earnshaw Cook. As a result of a conversation about the productive value of the sacrifice bunt, Cook … began putting probabilistic values on every aspect of the game in […]
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<p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=350,height=277,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/kuhn_williams_nixon_top.jpg”><img title=”Kuhn_williams_nixon_top” height=”118″ alt=”Kuhn_williams_nixon_top” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/kuhn_williams_nixon_top.jpg” width=”149″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a><a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/sports/baseball/16kuhn.html”> Bowie Kuhn</a> passed away yesterday at the age of 80. For some reason, he makes me think of Richard Nixon. Probably because he held office at the same time as the President and […]
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by Kerry Yo Nakagawa. Rudi Publishing, 2002. Since Horace Wilson, an American schoolteacher in the “land of the rising sun,” introduced baseball to his students in 1872, Japanese have been mad for the game. The author, a writer, actor, filmmaker, and director of the Nisei Baseball Research Project, chronicles this fervor. Like their European counterparts, […]
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The Baseball Timeline, by Burt Solomon (Dorling Kindersley Publishing). The Chronicle of Baseball: A Century of Major League Action, by John Mehno (Carlton Books). A Stitch in Time: A Baseball Chronology, 1845-2000. by Gene Elston (Halcyon Press). Day-by-Day in Baseball History, by Carl R. Moesche (McFarland). Baseball Extra: A Newspaper History of the Glorious Game […]
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The Big R: An Internal Auditing Action Adventure, by D. Larry Crumbley, Douglass E. Ziegenfuss and John J. O’Shaunessy. Academic Press. $25. There is an old cartoon of a person with a cartful of groceries on a supermarket checkout line under a sign that reads “10 items or less.” The person behind him asks, “Are […]
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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
