Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
Years ago I wrote a piece for E, The Environmental Magazine about how some Major League teams were getting on the “green” wagon, recycling, cutting back on water usage, etc. I kept hoping to return to the topic, but this piece by Elliott Negin, Director of News & Commentary, Union of Concerned Scientists, on the […]
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(Because you can put your baseball bracelets on a bookshelf.) R.A. Dickey, the best player on the NY Mets right now and one of the best pitchers in the Majors, might be forgiven for losing a bit of concentration in yesterday’s 6-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. In an age where ballplayers wear their uniform […]
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Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan recently announced a new joint venture. Shortly after the Boston Red Sox won their first Word Championship since 1918, King and O’Nan published Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season, which was basically a series of back-and-forth emails. This time it’s a fiction eBook, A […]
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The New York Times ran a couple of interesting pieces in the July 8 issue. (Yeah, I know I’m late, so sue me.) * Tyler Kepner wrote, “The 83F project: Sign here, please,” about one man’s attempt to have his entire 1983 Fleer card set signed by the subjects, all 660 of them. he’s 99 […]
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“Dial”: the means by which previous generations selected their TV and/or radio programs. Precedes “remote control” and buttons. For your viewing pleasure, now and in the future: * You have to wonder whether teams may regret allowing TV entities to shadow them for a season. It’s almost like the Sports Illustrated cover curse. This time, […]
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I’ve been informed that Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story will be aired on Long Island’s WLIW tonight at 10 p.m. Particularly appropriate in light of the story about the “Judaism & Baseball Retreat” I just posted, since several of the presenters — including Rabbis Rebecca Alpert and Michael Paley, Martin Abramowitz, and Ira […]
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Two years ago it was Derek Jeter, who won an Academy Award for best fake hit by pitch. Now it’s Dewayne Wise, who got way too much benefit of the doubt when the umpire credited him with catching a ball in foul territory that the Yankees outfielder did not catch. Pardon the Interruption featured the […]
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They’ve been talking about a Mike Piazza memoir for a few years now. Looks like the time is almost at hand for its release by Simon & Schuster. But exactly when is still up in the air. Pizza promised a “tell-all,” but would that include material about suspected performance enhancing drug usage? According to Chass’ […]
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The world lost one of its greatest writers when Ray Bradbury passed away Tuesday at the age of 91. The author of such sci-fi classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and The Martian Chronicles, among many others, got his start with short stories such as “The Big Black and White Game,” which appeared in […]
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I was watching Johan Santana’s no-hitter on Friday and rejoiced as the Mets stormed onto the field to celebrate after the final out was recorded. I saw one fellow, in a Mets jersey and shorts, in the scrum and assumed he was a trainer; the players didn’t seem to think anything was amiss either. How […]
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(Actually I guess you don’t lick postage stamps anymore.) Because you can keep stamps on your bookshelf: The USPS has announced four new baseball stamps honoring Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Larry Doby, and Willie Stargell. From the press release: Baseball fans can celebrate their favorite All-Stars as a group or individually. Responding to overwhelming demand […]
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A periodic attempt to catch up on recent items and links. ♦ I love this entry by SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee on the 17-inning game between the Red Sox and Orioles on May 6 because it’s so damn literary, comparing the sportswriter’s hyperbole to the epic storyteller. ♦ And this one brief from The Hardball […]
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From The Washington Post: Daniel Rapoport, a Washington journalist, author and publisher who in 1983 founded Farragut Publishing to produce non-blockbuster and out-of-the-ordinary books ranging from pasta salad and cold soup cookbooks to a history of U.S. presidents’ connections with baseball, died April 11 at his home in East Chatham, N.Y. He was 79. The writer […]
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You can’t really put it on a bookshelf, but if there’s a real estate brochure… The suburban Boston home where Babe Ruth lived after he had been traded to the New York Yankees is for sale. Asking price: $1.65 million. According to the story on ESPN.com, the estate, known as Home Plate Farm in Sudbury, […]
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According to a Facebook post by Tim Wiles of the Baseball Hall of Fame Library, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who bid by phone in this weekends Ted Williams auction, bought Ted Williams’s World War II and Korean War flight log books for $35,600 and planned to send them to The National World War […]
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That’s what it’s coming to these days. Topps is undoubtedly looking for a new audience, according to these recent pieces in The New York Times and Time magazine (both of which use the same photo to illustrate the story). According to the Time story, [T]oday, as Angry Birds and iPads beckon, the baseball card has […]
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Can it really be 25 years ago since Al Campanis appeared on what might just be the most (in)famous episode of Nightline (when it was a real news program)? Campanis, then the general manager of the LA Dodgers, was on to discuss the lefacy of Jackie Robinson and ended up losing his job for his […]
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Believe it or not, today is Opening Day for Major League Baseball. The Seattle Mariners defeated the Oakland Athletics, 3-1 in 11 innings. In Japan. Sigh. Call me old-fashioned, but I remember when the Cincinnati Reds — the first professional team, back in 1869 — always had the honor of playing the first game of […]
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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
Arbitrator who ruled in Braun’s favor fired by MLB. Coincidence?
May 15, 2012
Shyam Das, the arbitrator who voted to overturn MLB’s suspension of Ryan Braun for allegedly violating its drug policy, has been fired. This was the only instance in which the MLB’s ruling was overturned. They were “outraged” at the time, when Das ruled that there were questions about the “chain of custody” of Braun’s urine […]
Tagged as: Bud Selig, Michael Weiner, Ryan Braun, Shyam Das
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