Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
And Ozzie, too, of course. Made a major faux pas, thanks to the evil Facebook, which notified me that Logan Miller, whose film Touching Home garnered major praise, was also celebrating a birthday today. What it didn’t mention (duh!) was that it was also his twin brother and collaborator, Noah’s, birthday as well. The management […]
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My review of the new Stephen King novella (plus an additional story) is up on Bookreporter.com. For your convenience, I’ve reprinted it below: There was plenty of buzz in the mystery/thriller/horror and baseball fiction communities when it was announced that Stephen King would release a novella titled BLOCKADE BILLY. Online book merchants quickly took pre-orders […]
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by Billy Lombardo (Overlook, 2010) The last couple of titles I’ve blogged about have father and son issues (Steinbrenner and Home, Away). So, with Father’s Day coming up, I figured I complete the trifecta. The great love of Henry Granville’s life is baseball. It is a time-honored tradition he knows he will pass on to […]
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by Jeff Gillenkirk. Chin Music Press, 2010 Just in time for Father’s Day, Home, Away is the tale of the sacrifices we make for our children. In the case, it’s a multi-million dollar contract that pitcher Jason Thibodeuax is giving up to raise his wayward son, Rafe, the product of the first romantic encounter the […]
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The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball’s Mr. October, by Dayn Perry. Morrow, 326 Pages, $25.99 Whatever words are used to describe Reginald Martinez Jackson, the Hall of Fame outfielder for the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees (with less effectual stints on the Angels and Orioles), “complex” has to be among them. And that’s […]
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A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s, by Dan Epstein. Thomas Dunne, 2010. For many fans of a certain age, the 7os are too quickly becoming “the good old days. ” Man, that sounds strange. But as the fan base changes in demographics, books like Big Hair and Plastic Grass will […]
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And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom, by Emma Span (Villard, 2010) As much as I love baseball, there are times when I take a step back and wonder, “What am I doing with this nonsense? Surely, there are better ways to spend my time and energies.” And at the risk of being […]
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by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder (2003; Picador Translation 2009) I can’t even remember where I heard of this title but I’m glad I did. Ogawa tells a touching story about a Japanese housekeeper, her 10-year-old son, and her professional charge, a former mathematics professor with an unusual disability, which was the result of […]
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by Dan Fost. MVP Books, 2010. A book such as Giants Past & Present caters to multiple readerships. On the one hand you have long-time fans of the team, both in the East and West Coast incarnations. You also have younger fans, who grew up on the San Francisco version. In addition, there are the […]
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My annual Spring Baseball Roundup appears on the current edition of Bookreporter.com: 2010 Spring Baseball Roundup In a baseball era when much of the discussion has centered on who may have taken shortcuts to superstardom, it’s refreshing that 2010 sees several titles harkening back to a simpler time and heroes who won their glory through […]
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Knowing I would have a lot of down time during my recent Jamaica trip, I loaded up on the baseball books, no small feat since I was only taking a carry on and a Jack Bauer bag. Among the titles: the new Roger Maris bio by Calvin and Peary; Baseball America Prospect Handbook 2010; Fay […]
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The Life, The Legend, by James. S. Hirsch. Scribner, 2010. The long-anticipated (authorized) biography of the Say Hey Kid was worth the wait. Hirsch, a former journalist for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal certainly didn’t have an easy time in getting the gig. He had been after Mays for almost seven […]
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By Bob Mitchell. Kensington, 2008. As a lover of the TV show Lost and sci-fi in general, I always welcome the chance to mix the genre with baseball (see, Baseball Fantastic, edited by W.P. Kinsella). So it was with a sense of joy when Bob Mitchell’s Once Upon a Fastball swerved from a regular work […]
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A Hall of Fame Pitcher & A Hall of Fame Hitter Talk About How the Game is Played, by Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson with Lonnie Wheeler (Doubleday, 2009) When I first heard about this book, I immediately wondered, who had the bigger ego? How was the process handled? Did Gibson tell Jackson to meet […]
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Semi-shameless self promotion: this assessment was written by James Bailey and yours truly. Titles include: Heart of the Game: Life, Death and Mercy in Minor League America As They See ‘Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend Catcher: How the Man behind the Plate […]
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by Kurt Willinger (Sabre Press, 1995) Moe Berg is certainly one of the most interesting characters to ever done baseball flannels. A mediocre player — an apocryphal story quotes Casey Stengel saying “He can speak seven languages but can’t hit in any of them — Berg played for five teams over 15 seasons. Had he […]
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From Perth to Sacramento, by Nicholas R.W. Henning (Booksurge.com, 2009) Regular readers of the Bookshelf know I rarely offer my own reviews of baseball fiction. I find it too subjective and my education and skills in critiquing the genre too inferior. But once in awhile a book will find its way here that bears some […]
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Attila the Hun and Other Yankee Stories, by Ira Berkow (Triumph) Not that anyone needs an excuse, but the Yankees winning another world championship is fodder for the book mill. There are no less than five publications in the sports magazine section of my local Barnes and Noble hoping to capitalize on the afterglow. They’re […]
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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
* Bookshelf Review: The Underground Baseball Encyclopedia
May 6, 2010 · 1 comment
Baseball Stuff You Never Needed to Know and Can Certainly Live Without, by Robert Schnakenberg. Triumph, 2010. Schnakenberg takes his love for pop culture (anti-culture?) and puts a national pastime spin on it in this little faux-reference volume. The connection between PC and baseball has been handled in more serious veins by Jonathan Fraser Light […]
Tagged as: baseball humor, baseball reference, trivia
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