(This could also be considered on of those “Things We Keep” entries.) Happy “Golden Anniversary” to The Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia! Fans of a certain age no doubt have (or had) a copy of this massive door stop. My edition, pictured below, weighs in at more than 2,700 pages and five pounds. Now, there have been […]
Tagged as:
"The shot heard 'round the world",
The Macmillian Baseball Encyclopedia
When last we spoke with Paul Dickson, it was about his excellent biography, Leo Durocher: Baseball’s Prodigal Son. This time it’s not about a new book, per se, but an old one that got a second life. Dickson, who recently turned 80, has re-released The Hidden Language of Baseball: How Signs and Sign-Stealing Have Influenced […]
Tagged as:
baseball reference,
Paul Dickson,
scorekeeping
Welcome back to a new “season” of Bookshelf Conversations. Now that the summer is over, I hope to be doing these on a regular basis. Leading off, we begin with Seth Kramer, “hyphenate” for the documentary, Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel, about the almost-Cinderella story that was the Israeli National Team in the 2017 […]
Tagged as:
Heading Home,
Israel National Team,
Seth Kramer,
World Basbeall Classic
If they ever put this out in a miniature form, tell me where I can get one; it’s going straight on the bookshelf. As per the Los Angeles Times, “Legendary pitcher Sandy Koufax will get a statue at Dodger Stadium.” Wouldn’t be surprised if this shows up in the next edition of Josh Pahigian’s 101 […]
Tagged as:
Jos Pahagian,
Sandy Koufax
In this digital age, deciding to bring forth an actual print publication takes some cajones. Baseball magazines have come and gone. Back when I was growing up, there were a slew of them. Gone are such classics as The Elysian Fields Quarterly: The Baseball Review. And does anyone out there remember Dugout: Baseball Beyond the Boxscore or […]
Tagged as:
Austin Stahl,
Baseball magazines,
Bookshelf Conversation
Continuing on our theme of celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the “Miracle in Flushing,” we catch up with Wayne Coffey, author of They Said It Couldn’t Be Done: The ’69 Mets, New York City, and tew Most Astounding Season in Baseball History. The last time we spoke with Coffey, it was for his work on […]
Tagged as:
Gary Cohen,
New York Mets,
Wayne Coffey,
World Series
As I said in my recent roundup review of New York-centric baseball books: A lot of New Yorkers think the world revolves around their city. When it comes to baseball books, that’s probably true. More words have been written about their teams than all others combined, and fans can usually count on a number of […]
Tagged as:
Chris Donnelly,
New York Mets,
New York Yankees
At long last Leavy. First off, an apology. This was originally meant to be posted way back in December but something went kerfluie with the recording. You could hear my side of the conversation, along with the ticking of the clock on the wall and assorted noises from the various pets, but you couldn’t hear […]
Tagged as:
Babe Ruth,
Jane Leavy
I’ve decided to bow to the times and include separate lists for e-books and audio books. Be aware that while many titles also appear in print versions, pretty much anyone can produce an e-book these days, so I’m not going to comment at all about the quality. As far as the audio goes, I’m a […]
Tagged as:
Baseball America,
baseball analysis,
baseball prospects,
baseball rookies,
Chicago Cubs,
college baseball,
Joe Maddon,
Little League,
Lou Gehrig,
Michael Lewis,
minor leagues,
New York Yankees,
prospects,
rookies
Full disclosure: Bryan Hoch and I go back a long way, although it’s one of those internet relationships in which you rarely, if ever, get to meet the people you befriend online, regardless of how long you’e been in touch. One of the first freelance jobs (emphasis on the “free”) I had was providing book reviews for his […]
They say the Golden Age of a thing — in this case a sports thing — is often what you remember from your childhood, a time when you had a love for the game that wasn’t affected by too much “grown up” knowledge of salary disputes, gossip, scandal, etc. Roger Kahn got the ball rolling with The Boys of Summer, […]
Tagged as:
Bob Gibson,
Denny McLain,
Detroit Tigers,
Sridhar Pappu,
St. Louis Cardinals
Remember these things? Been awhile since I had the pleasure of posting a Bookshelf Conversation. They get a bit tricky when you don’t do them regularly. I forget how to use GarageBand, how to export, how to convert and shrink down to a usable size. But it’s worth it, especially when I see I’m getting a […]
Tagged as:
Chicago Cubs,
Rich Cohen,
World Series
Well, I can cross that off my bucket list. I’ve wanted to take part in this program ever since I published my first book but things never quite worked out. In fact, I was originally supposed to join Richard Sandomir last month to talk about two iconic first basemen with New York roots but couldn’t […]
Tagged as:
Gelf magazine,
Greg Prince,
Jay Jaffe,
Mark Feinsand,
Ron Kaplan
I had the enormous good fortune to catch Claire Smith, the newest recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award at the recent Society for American Baseball Research convention. Smith was the first African-American female reporter to cover baseball for a newspaper as a staffer with the Hartford Courant in 1983. She later became a columnist […]
Tagged as:
Claire Smith
It seems only fitting that I should follow up last week’s chat with Paul Dickson, author of Leo Durocher: Baseball’s Prodigal Son, with Marty Appel, author of Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character. Both books tell the stories of men who enjoyed a lifetime connection with the national pastime. Appel, a former PR director for the NY […]
Tagged as:
Casey Stengel,
Marty Appel
NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on […]
Tagged as:
baseball statistics,
Casey Stengel,
Chicago Cubs,
Chipper Jones,
David Ross,
Leo Durocher,
Marty Appel,
Michael Lewis,
Oakland As,
Rick Ankiel,
sabermetrics,
Theo Epstein,
World Series
Mazel tov to Michael Leahy, winner of the 2016 CASEY Award presented by Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine, as the best baseball book of the year for The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is certainly one of my all-time favorites; if I ever get a chance […]
Tagged as:
Bergino Baseball Clubhouse,
Los Angeles Dodgers,
Michael Leahy
If I had the wherewithal, I think I’d be doing something like Jon Leonouakis‘ streaming TV show, The Sweet Spot: A Treasury of Baseball Stories. I mean, he interviews people, I interview people. But as the saying goes, “Show me, don’t tell me,” and as a veteran filmmaker, he’s the man behind several well-crafted baseball […]
Tagged as:
baseball documentary,
Jon Leonoudakis
Thanks to social media and email, there are probably people you’ve known for years but have never actually met. For me, Mike Shannon is one of those people. I would venture to say I’ve been corresponding with Shannon for 20 or so years but I only recently had a chance to actually hear his voice for our […]
Tagged as:
Mike Shannon,
Spitball Magazine
What’s wrong with the national pastime? Seems like everyone has an opinion, but some strike me as more informed than others. That’s the feeling I came away with after reading Lincoln Mitchell‘s new book, Will Big League Baseball Survive?: Globalization, the End of Television, Youth Sports, and the Future of Major League Baseball. I can […]
Tagged as:
baseball broadcasting,
how to fix baseball,
Lincoln Mitchell
is available on Amazon.com,
