Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
for those interested in such things. Spring 2008 Newsletter This issue’s reviews and features include: Dreaming Baseball, by James Farrell. Reviewed by Leverett T. Smith, Jr. Baseball Magic, by Jay Martin. Reviewed by Robert W. Hamblin. Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, The Lies, and Everything Else, by Rob Neyer. Reviewed by […]
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Today’s Publisher’s Weekly ran this starred review of Feinstein’s latest: Though the season-long profile—in which a sportswriter follows a player, team or coach through a single season—grows increasingly familiar, this entry from Feinstein, one of the genre’s pioneers (Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today’s NFL;The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and […]
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A set of mini-reviews, mostly of older titles, from the Desert Sun, including: Playing With The Enemy, A Baseball Prodigy, A World at War and a Field of Broken Dreams, by Gary Moore. Teammates, A Portrait of a Friendship, by David Halberstram. Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero, by David Maraniss. The […]
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From the Columbus Dispatch, this review of the new young adult fiction on love, loss, and baseball. Upshot: [Author Jennifer E. Smith] might be a rookie, but she hits a home run with a poignant and touching novel about hope, perseverance and the strength of the human spirit.
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As reviewed on Stltoday.com, a St. Louis-based web site. The End of Baseball is a Bill Veeck-inspired historical fiction, which is on my shelf for near-future reading. Upshot: Mainly, as somebody in baseball puts it, “The End of Baseball” sails straight down central. As somebody else in baseball used to say, it’s a winner.
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Catching up a bit: Bob Murcer’s autobiography as reviewed on MLB.com The Griddle on Baseballtoaster.com considers Peter Morris’ latest, But Didn’t We Have Fun? wickedlocal.com, a Massachusetts Web site, reports on an appearance by author Jim Collins at a Cape Cod high school. Collins is the author of The Last Best League: One Summer, One […]
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A lengthy treatise of the Peter Morris book via Popmatters.com.
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By Alison Gordon (left). Interesting concept, this “Blue Jays Library in a Box,” from battersbox.ca. Might catch on. Pity there aren’t a lot of books on the subject.
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Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City, gives Fay Vincent’s book the treatment in The New York Times. Upshot: Mahler considers the effort serviceable. Nothing especially glowing, nothing especially critical. I have often thought that having reviews coming from […]
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Some new stuff, some old in this mini-review.
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From Fredericksburg.com/The Free Lance-Star, this piece opines that the recent success of the Red Sox has meant the death of those books that complain (whine?) about the decades of disappointment suffered by the franchise’s fans.Upshot: The book is composed of numerous interviews by columnist David Laurila with assorted players, former players, coaches and personalities associated […]
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From the interestingly-named blog about Baltimore sports, The Loss Column. Upshot: The end result is the kind of book I love to have around, one I can just pick up anytime, open to a random page, and enjoy for a few minutes.
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But the story on these books — Anatomy of Baseball, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman, and Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of Take Me Out to the Ball Game — did not appear in the Sunday Book Review section, but rather these Big Apple-centric titles appeared in “Reading New York” on May 11.
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From the Johnstown, Pa. Tribune Democrat, this review of the aforementioned book by Bernstein. Upshot: The problem is, Ross Bernstein’s [book] has more holes in it than Mario Mendoza’s swing. Ouch.
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From The Hardball Times Website, this evaluation. Upshot: In general, Rosengren does a good job telling these tales, and the book makes a nice, light read. If reading about the above sounds interesting to you, check it out.
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Another example of using your place of work to promote your extracurricular activities. Here Chris DeLuca, a Sun-Times’ writer, teams up with artist John Hanley in a collaboration, Classic Cubs: A Tribute to the Men and Magic of Wrigley Field. Upshot: The book celebrates the rich history and bittersweet moments created by the players, managers, […]
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The Conn. Post writer takes an awfully long time getting there, but this piece is ultimately about John Feinstein’s latest baseball book.
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The Columbus Dispatch ran this review of Everything They Had: Sportswriting from David Halberstam. The LA Times published one, too. Regardless of their politics, I’ve always had great admiration for authors like Halberstam, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and George F. Will, among others, who have the ability to write about “serious” issues and those of lesser […]
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The Mystique, Superstition, and Lore of Baseball’s Uniform Numbers by Jack Looney. An assessment by Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated as he seeks to determine who the best player was for each uniform number. An error in the on-line article: Deitsch writes, “For research we culled through dozens and dozens of media guides, some terrific […]
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The Toronto Globe and Mail published what I assume is a roundup of baseball books that includes Vindicated. It’s hard to tell because YOU CAN’T READ IT UNLESS YOU BUY IT. What kind of nonsense is that? Shame, shame. G&M.
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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
