Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
♦ I love finding baseball-related stories in unusual publications. Here’s one from The Atlantic featuring former MLB pitcher Steve Trout and what he’s doing in his post-playing career. ♦ Here’s another from the White Coat Investor site: “I Figured My Childhood Obsession Would Make Me a Millionaire; Boy, Was I Wrong.” This harkens back to […]
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Which used to be code for “it must be true.” This is why you have to read until the end of the article. “Trump Has Lost Touch with Reality,” a “conversation” between Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens in an opinion piece in today’s print edition of The New York Times, concludes with a tribute to […]
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What is going on these days? So many legendary figures passing away. I guess it’s inevitable. The heroes of our younger days have grown older and death comes to us all. While neither Jesse Jackson nor Robert Duvall were directly associated with baseball, they both had seminal if ancillary moments around the national pastime. Jesse […]
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The relief hurler who won 18 games and saved another ten for the 1959 Pittsburgh Pirates, died February 12 at the age of 97. Here’s his obituary from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The New York Times by Richard Goldstein. ElRoy Face got a relatively late start: he made his debut as a 25-year-old in 1953. After spending […]
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The MVP of the 1968 World Series passed away February 4 at the age of 85. Lolich went 217-191 over a 16-year career, spent mostly with the Detroit Tigers. In their World Championship season he was “only” 17-9,pitching behind Denny McLain’s 31-win campaign. He won 20 twice, including a league-leading 25 victories in 1970. Lolich […]
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To paraphrase Hamlet, we will not see his like again. If ever there was a modern day workhorse, it was Wilbur Wood, who passed away on January 17. The hefty lefty knuckleballer pitched for 17 years, amassing a record of 163-153. But he won 20 or more games for four straight seasons (1971-74) with the […]
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I’ve been very good… Newly Uncovered T206 Honus Wagner Heads to Auction According to the article, the bidding will start at
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♦ With the latest scandal, I wonder if books about the Black Sox will get a bump in readership? To catch up, here’s a piece from The Atlantic: “Baseball’s Big Whiff on Gambling.” ♦ Journalist Terry Moran posted this piece on “The Storyteller: Joe Posnanski on what sports tells us about love, loss and belonging” […]
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As predicted, we have our first book commemorating the 2026 World Series: The book is published by USA Today. More info here. In addition, the Los Angeles Times just released Dynasty: The Dodgers’ Journey to Back-to-Back World Series Titles. And from the Los Angeles Daily News, we have Out of This World: How the Los Angeles […]
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Sports Collectors Digest ran a series on the artists who drew on the cartoons on the backs of Topps cards back in the day. Fun stuff. Part one here. Part two here. FWIW, I was able to read this review of Jane Levy’s New Make Me Commissioner in The Wall Street Journal, but that doesn’t […]
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Certainly the debut of Jen Powal, MLB’s first female to umpire in a regular season game, will warrant a book of some sort, be it a bio of her or female umps in general or women in baseball. Here’s just one article on the event, which took place yesterday in the first game of the […]
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Saddened to hear about the passing on Monday of Ryne Sandberg at the age of just 65. After making his debut for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1981, Sandberg spent the next 15 years with the Chicago Cubs, where he became a 10-time All-Star with nine Gold Gloves seven Silver Slugger Awards and the NL MVP […]
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From the pages of On This Day in Baseball History: A Day-by-Day Account of Baseball’s Most Indelible Moments, by the Baseball Time Machine… 1941: Lefty Grove of the Boston Red Sox wins his 300th game in a 10-6 victory over the visiting Cleveland Indians. It would be his final win in his final season. Lefty […]
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The Hall of Fame outfielder who spent most of his illustrious career with the Pittsburgh Pirates died on June 28 at the age of 74. Parker, who had been suffering from Parkinson’s for more than a decade, also spent time with the Reds, Athletics, Brewers, Angels, and Blue Jays during his 19 big league seasons. […]
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“Norm” from Cheers passed away yesterday at the age of 76. Here’s his obit from The New York Times. Wendt, who was born in Chicago, was a hard-core White Sox fan, even if he did throw out a first pitch first-pitch came in a Rays jersey. He got to play some ball in the 1986 movie, […]
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Andrew Forbes is out with a new book: Field Work: On Baseball and Making a Living. If it’s anything like his last book, it will be quite thought-provoking. Another Bookshelf Conversation is in the offing. The New Yorker‘s “Sporting Scene” section takes up the issue of the Yankees’ new torpedo bats. Peter Drier offers this […]
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UPDATE: As of earlier this afternoon, the Pirates have decided restore Clemente’s sign. (Yiddish for “a shame.”) I try to keep politics out of the Bookshelf (I have another blog for that: The Worried Journalist), but with all this anti-DEI BS impacting baseball, I think it’s appropriate to address the situation. The Pittsburgh Pirates recently […]
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♦ Congratulations to Larry Gerlach, winner of this year’s Seymour Medal for Lion of the League: Bob Emslie and the Evolution of the Baseball Umpire. The Seymour medal is awarded by the Society for American Baseball Research for the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year. Gerlach is also […]
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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
