This list includes more than 125 reviews. Some are the books are duplicated by different reviewers.
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From the category archives:
Review by Ron Kaplan
The August edition includes: Reviews on Baseball Confidential: Secret History of the War Among Chandler, Durocher, MacPhail, and Rickey; The Lords of Baseball; and 1947: When All Hell Broke Loose in Baseball Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006 An annotated bibliography on Yankees books “What One Book” Survey (Note: Requires […]
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With the passing of Phil “The Scooter” Rizzuto today, I thought it appropriate to “reprint” a precious entry on his “poetry-inspired” book, O Holy Cow. —– A program on the Feb. 10, 2007 broadcast of NPR’s Only a Game had an interesting topic, Shakepeare as Sport. It reminded me of a review I did on […]
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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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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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1941: The Greatest Year in Sports by Mike Vacarro (Doubleday, 2006) While he does cover other sports in his newest offering, Mike Vaccaro, New York Post sportswriter and author of Emperors and Idiots, one of the endless stream of titles about the Red Sox-Yankees 2004 season, spends most of his prose on a quartet of […]
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“Casey at the Bat” has served as fodder for generations. Ernest L. Thayer’s poem (subtitled “A Ballad of the Republic”) has appeared in several incarnations as a juvenile picture book, portrayed by the likes of Leroy Neiman and C.F. Payne, among others. In one of the most visually and socially dazzling versions, Joe Morse depicts […]
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My review of Tom Stanton’s new book appeared on Bookreporter.com. Kudos to Stanton for finding a heretofore un- (or under-) reported event in the backstory of baseball. And further credit for bucking the conventional wisdom that Cobb was just a nasty S.O.B. Stanton also discussed his book on NPR’s Only a Game.
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The SABR Baseball List and Record Book, edited by Lyle Spatz (Scribner) The ambitious Record Book contains almost 750 categories. The cover heralds the volume as “Baseball’s most fascinating and unusual statistics” with an asterisk that draws the eye to a tiny footnote claiming that the information is “not available online or in any other […]
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Some very interesting little books arrived today, full of nice surprises: Three pocket-sized “Wise Guides” to Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, and Fenway Park. Each slim volume concentrates on each franchise’s unique ballpark experience in a manner that’s sure to please the novice game-goer, as well as amuse the season ticket holder. The books (booklets?) contain […]
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A few times I year I do a “roundup” of reviews for Bookreporter.com. This year’s batch includes: Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinon’s Furst Season, by Eig The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America, by Posnanski The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, by Zumsteg Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan’s Guide […]
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by Burton A. Boxerman and Benita W. Boxerman, 2007, McFarland Publishing, Jefferson, NC, 232 pages, $32.95. While there have been other books about Jewish baseball players, none packs as much of a scholarly punch as this new title. Every player considered Jewish as defined by the Jewish Major Leaguers baseball card set is accounted for, […]
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<p><em>The Best of Baseball Digest</em>, Edited by John Kuenster (Ivan R. Dee, 2006)</p> <p></p><i.baseball></i.baseball><p><em><a href=”https://www.centurysports.net/baseball/”>Baseball Digest</a></em> has been a staple since 1942. Each month, stories from around the country have found their way into the compact publication.<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=425,height=594,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/bbdigest.jpg”><img title=”Bbdigest” height=”209″ alt=”Bbdigest” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/bbdigest.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px […]
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<p><em>Why Time Begins on Opening Day</em> by Thomas Boswell (Doubleday, 1984)<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=100,height=153,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/boswell.jpg”><img title=”Boswell” height=”229″ alt=”Boswell” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/boswell.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> </p> <p>This was the book that started it all for me (even though it was not the author’s first release). When I read Boswell’s […]
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Who would have thunk it? The co-author of the printed version of Ken Burns’ Baseball documentary claims he was never much of a baseball fan, prior to the project. The reason is reminiscent of Ray Kinsella’s rationale in Field of Dreams: I’ve never liked baseball much, in part because my father has always loved it […]
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In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here are some items that consider the contributions of the Irish in the establishment of the national pastime. Ed Delehanty in the Emerald Age of Baseball, by Jerrold Casway (University of Notre Dame Press, 2004) One of the charming qualities about baseball is that a fan from a hundred […]
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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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is available on Amazon.com,
