Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Google Books now includes magazines. A quick search for the phrase “baseball” returns almost 1,300 hits, including such sources as Ebony, Jet, Baseball Digest, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics (going all the way back to the early 1900s), and New York Magazine. Presumably more publications will be added. If nothing else, it’s an interesting look to […]
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Humbly submitted via the pages of ForeWord Magazine, this non-fiction list of RK’s “essential” baseball reading. I’ll be working on a fiction version soon.
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A lot of fans proably forget that the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is also a library. I spent a great week up there several years ago, doing research for a book about baseball during the Korean War years. the staff couldn’t have been nicer, and the access of walking around like I belonged was […]
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I remember when it used to be a real coup to get the AL Red Book and NL Green Book. As a kid, I used to write a very polite, respectful letter to the powers that be, requesting these fun, fact-filled books (I especially like the pronunciation guides and detailed descriptions of the teams’ uniforms […]
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The School Library Journal Web site reports: Just in time for baseball season, the Library of Congress (LOC) has assembled a Web clearinghouse devoted to America’s pastime. The simply named “Historic Baseball Resources” features multimedia offerings from the library’s vast trove, including rare images of early games and the original sheet music to “Take Me […]
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Sports Illustrated launched its new digital archive earlier this week. After a quick glance, and realizing it’s still in beta, I have mixed feelings. Bear in mind I’m only talking about the baseball here, but I’m assuming the same applies for everything else. As of today, there are 14,985 articles, 3,750 pictures, 69 “galleries” (photo […]
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With the Academy Awards on the horizon, I thought it would be appropriate to mention some of the excellent books that discuss the twin American treasures of baseball and the movies. Baseball and the movies are like peanut butter and chocolate: they were meant to go together. Baseball is the eternal struggle of man seeking […]
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This library Web site suggests that stat-heads have a long and proud history in Spalding’s Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 which is available on-line thanks to the Guttenberg Project via Internet Archive.
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In 1997, I wrote the following annotated bibliography about the integration of baseball for the MultiCultural Review, reproduced here in honor of Black History Month. It should be noted that there have been several additional books published during the interim on both African-American players and the Negro Leagues, including three biographies about Curt Flood, and […]
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Compiled by Peter L. de Rosa. Includes works prior to 2000 in the categories of: General Histories Reference Works Anthologies and Collections Biographies Memoirs and Oral Histories Season and Team Histories Novels and Related works Specialized Works Periodicals Simulations and Games Movies and Documentaries
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Some books about the teams in the League Championship Series to browse through while you’re waiting for those interminable changes. These are by no means the only or best titles, just general, all-purpose suggestions. As an aside, It’s interesting to note that the ALCS features two of the original teams, while the NLCS has two […]
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by Mike Shannon (McFarland, 2007) As one who collects baseball books, I was happy to come across Mike Shannon’s latest offering. After reading it, however, I find myself depressed, contrary to the author’s philosophy. I — along with everyone else, according to the author — will never be a “completist,” that is one who acquires […]
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They don’t make ’em like this anymore. At least not lately. The Whole Baseball Catalogue, edited by John Thorn and Bob Carroll (A Fireside Book, published by Simon and Schuester, 1990) has an excellent chapter on “Going by the Book: Baseball Between the Covers.” “You can have a complete library for approximately what it costs […]
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The New York Public Library is hosting this marvelous collection of old-tyme baseball images. Some are in uniform, others more formal, and others staged “action” shots. The Albert G. Spalding Collection includes photographs, prints, drawings, caricatures, and printed illustrations related to baseball and other sports gathered by the early baseball player and sporting-goods tycoon A. […]
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This list includes more than 125 reviews. Some are the books are duplicated by different reviewers.
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As a stand-alone from the previous entry about baseball fiction, I found an extensive list of science fiction/baseball stories, as compiled by Steven Silver. Many of these have appeared in various SF pulp anthologies, rather than as full out novels. I don’t know if I’d agree with each entry; for example, I wonder if some […]
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From Strangemaps.wordpress.com, a blog that considers, well, strange maps, I guess, this geography lesson.
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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
* At the risk of tooting my own horn…
November 26, 2008
Thirteen years in the making. In 1995, I delivered my first “scholarly paper.” It was at Hoftsra University’s centennial celebration of Babe Ruth’s birth and it was a hoot. I spent three days there, listening to all sorts of presentations, visiting exhibits and finally — nervously — making my own. My topic was “The Books […]
Tagged as: Babe Ruth
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