Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
From Hour.ca, a Canadian Website, these briefs on: Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Takes a Swing at Baseball Baseball’s Best 1,000: Rankings of the Skills, the Achievements and the Performance of the Greatest Players of All Time The Worst Call Ever! (not strictly a baseball book, but close enough for jazz) Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World’s […]
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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 […]
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From the New Haven Review, this lengthy critique by Peter Ephross of this overlooked classic by Eliot Asinof.
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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 […]
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From Philosopher Stone.
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This review of David Halberstam’s last book comes from the Seattle Times.
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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 […]
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From our favorite baseball blog across the pond.
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Per a blog about baseball cards.
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Mike Shropshire’s book, as reviewed on The National Sports Review site.
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An emotional review of Clay Eal’s new biography of Steve Goodman, who composed “A Dying Cubs’ Fan’s Last Request.”
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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!”
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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.
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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 […]
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From Bleacherreport.com.
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“And now for something completely different….” From the Baseball in Great Britain blog.
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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 […]
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From the SF Chronicle‘s Web presence, SFGate.com. Metaphor alert: “Baseball is more than a game. It is a microcosm of America….”
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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
* And speaking of The Natural
August 4, 2008
Cynthia Crossen wrote this awkward analysis of Malamud’s classic for a couple of weeks ago, trying to put it in a modern context. Guess what? You can’t. The piece is subtitled, “The Hero of Malamud’s ‘The Natural’ Wouldn’t Make [sic] With Today’s Pros.” Some time ago, I interviewed the sons of the late Mark Harris […]
Tagged as: The Natural
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