Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
From the Washington Post, this none-too-complimentary review. Upshot: …[W]here a prudent historian might see a daunting challenge, this first-time author sees opportunity. His book is a riot of unlikely coincidences, composite characters, and long, maudlin speeches apparently recalled verbatim. Moore tries to gloss over this problem in his introduction with a note of humility, writing […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From the New Haven Review, this lengthy critique by Peter Ephross of this overlooked classic by Eliot Asinof.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From Onlyinhouston.org. There are players — such as the Astros’ perennial favorite — who have magnificent careers, do all the right things, etc., but fail to put up those lofty numbers that Hall of Famers achieve. So should he be a candidate? Where does he fit in? Jeff Kent, for example, is a former MVP […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From Philosopher Stone.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This review of David Halberstam’s last book comes from the Seattle Times.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
from the Scooter Chronicles blog. Upshot: As far as baseball books go, I can see why this ranks amongst the best. I don’t know from experience, or from reading anyone that has said so, but I get the feeling that it’s a very accurate description of what life could have been like playing for a […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From our favorite baseball blog across the pond.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Per a blog about baseball cards.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Mike Shropshire’s book, as reviewed on The National Sports Review site.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
An emotional review of Clay Eal’s new biography of Steve Goodman, who composed “A Dying Cubs’ Fan’s Last Request.”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Baseball in Palau: Passion for the Game, “tells the story of the history of baseball in Palau since 1925 when Motoji Kono gathered together a group of young Palauans and said, “Let’s play ball!”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From the Advocate Weekly, serving the Berkshire and Bennington (MA) Counties, in which the former commissioner discusses his book and current events in the game.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From The Juice blog on Baseball Toaster: Let’s start with a baseball book. You should read Buzz Bissinger’s (yeah, that guy) Three Nights in August. It’s not a perfect book, as Bissinger’s dislike of Moneyball elements demonstrate. Even if you have a sabermetrical view of the game, it is hard to deny the charms of […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From Bleacherreport.com.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
“And now for something completely different….” From the Baseball in Great Britain blog.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From a broader review of Texas-pertinent books from the Abilene Reporter News: Baseball history: Two historians at the University of Texas at Arlington, Donald G. Kyle and Robert B. Fairbanks, have edited a collection of six scholarly essays on Baseball in America & America in Baseball (Texas A&M University Press, $29.95 hardcover). The essays were […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From the SF Chronicle‘s Web presence, SFGate.com. Metaphor alert: “Baseball is more than a game. It is a microcosm of America….”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Kevin Baker, author of Sometimes You See it Coming, did this review of two books about the Negro Leagues targeted for younger readers in the June 15 issue of the NY Times‘ Sunday book section. I never realized this was the same Baker that wrote the very entertaining historical fiction Paradise Alley, about the violent […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From the Boston Globe Upshot: With the baseball season in full swing, what better time to reflect on the almost hypnotic hold that our national pastime maintains on our collective psyche? Despite recent talk of baseball’s decline, it is a sport with deep roots in our country’s past, and, for many readers, our own personal […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From the pages of Sports Illustrated.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
