From the category archives:

Review by Ron Kaplan

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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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{ Comments on this entry are closed }

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 […]

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{ Comments on this entry are closed }

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 […]

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{ Comments on this entry are closed }

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 […]

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{ Comments on this entry are closed }

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 […]

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{ Comments on this entry are closed }

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 […]

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{ Comments on this entry are closed }

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 […]

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{ Comments on this entry are closed }

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 […]

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{ Comments on this entry are closed }

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 […]

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  Via Bookreporter.com.      

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  My latest feature for Bookreporter.com includes Glenn Stout’s The Selling of the Babe: The Deal That Changed Baseball and Created a Legend Murray Klein’s Stealing Games: How John McGraw Transformed Baseball with the 1911 New York Giants Erik Sherman’s Kings of Queens: Life Beyond Baseball with the ’86 Mets

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ESPN the Magazine (Cover price: $5.99) Maybe it’s an age thing, I found ESPN’s attempt to replicate old English (or whatever the hell they were trying to accomplish), pretty difficult to read. It would have been enough if they had just used it on the cover, but they compound the error (IMO) repeatedly Once again, […]

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A while back I wrote about The Quitter (twice, in fact) which, IMHO, is one of the worst “baseball movies” ever made. I put that in quotes because, of course, it’s not really about baseball. They could have just have easily made the lead character the proprietor of a laundromat. But researching one baseball movie […]

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Called third strike redux

February 11, 2016

Spoiler alert: This entry will discuss the end of The Quitter, which I blogged about in the previous entry. On the other hand, I consider this as saving you a few bucks and/or 90 minutes of your valuable time. You’re welcome. Against my better judgment, I watched The Quitter to its stunning conclusion. I have […]

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Since I posted the first of these on a Thursday, which is known on social media as a time of reflection, I thought to make it a regular thing under this rubric. These are kind of fun; it’s like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re gonna get. (Actually, I never understood […]

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In a sense, this is the book that launched more than a thousand books, the first in what became an obsession. This Great Game, published in 1971 by Routledge Press under the imprimatur of Major League Baseball, was an anthology, a of marvelous collection of photos and illustrations and narratives from some of the great […]

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I know most of you have more pressing things to do today, you procrastinators, you. But here’s something for when you take a break. ♦ Like the Bookshelf, DiamondHoggers has a podcast segment. This episode features Rob Miech, author of the 2012 release, The Last Natural: Bryce Harper’s Big Gamble in Sin City and the […]

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