Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
When Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record in 1974, Ernie Harwell and Bill Slayback collaborated on “Move over Babe, Here Comes Henry,” a musical tribute. Wonder if some tunesmith will do the same now that Jamie Moyer has “bested” Robin Roberts on the all-time home runs allowed list? Like the pundits say, […]
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Yesterday, actually (close enough for jazz), that Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho changed how the movie industry dealt with sex and violence, for better or worse. There are several interesting analyses, including David Thomson’s The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder, which I’m reading at the moment, as well as this from […]
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The Brooklyn Cyclones evidently still like Ike Davis, who played for the Mets’ Single-A affiliate in 2008, hitting .256 with 15 doubles, 17 RBIs and 17 runs scored in 58 games. So what higher tribute than to honor him with his own bobble head? Oh, but not just any bobble head: The game will be […]
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The first of several attempts to try to get current with information about baseball books, etc. Edward Achorn, author of the new Hoss Radbourn bio, wrote about his experience at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books held earlier this month. Mark Kurlansky, author of Eastern Stars, was a guest on Southern California Public Radio. […]
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Jane Jarvis, the stellar Mets organist during their early years at Shea Stadium, passed away in January, but she has not been forgotten. Several of her friends and fans gathered for a musical tribute. From Richard Sandomir in today’s New York Times: … [I]t was fitting that at her memorial service Monday, the giant organ […]
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Today’s Wall Street Journal ran this extensive article about the differences (and similarities) between Met and Yankee fans. I took a brief on-line interactive survey, which rendered me — incorrectly — a fan of the Bronx bombers. (Only 14 people took the poll, which indicates that WSJ readers have better things to do with their […]
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The Hall of Fame pitcher passed away today at the age of 83. Roberts was still in the majors when I was coming to the game. I can picture one his last baseball cards in my mind (and here on the page). One of the things I always admired about him — especially in this […]
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The Hall of Fame broadcaster died today at the age of 92.
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Great. Something else for Mets and Yankees fans to argue about. Now you can sing along. And I couldn’t help but add this one. A song about the Washington Nationals? How retro.
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Hitting home runs and pitching no hitters are great, but they pale in comparison to what former big leaguer and current Tampa Bay Rays broadcaster Kevin Kennedy accomplished with some fellow passengers on a recent flight. According to an item in The New York Times punlished April 23, “…Kennedy, the former major league manager now […]
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This article appeared in the April 15 edition of the New Jersey Jewish News. Tempered with the excitement of Opening Day, some baseball fans have to contend with the end of a tradition, even if it was only a few years old: 2010 marks the final release of the Jewish Major Leaguer card set. According […]
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Here’s an idea: Don’t play games in such lousy weather.
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Of course, in my case, it’s more a math thing than science.
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Hey, I totally commiserate. I am the world’s worst speller, as any follower of The Bookshelf must have learned by now. So have some compassion for these guys. To say nothing of all the player’s names misspelled over the years. You try spelling Kluszewski! This falls under the aegis of Uniwatchblog.com, so here’s their take […]
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From today’s NY Times: “A Piece of Mets History, Rewritten in Stone” Doesn’t anyone look at these things? Leave This Blank:Leave This Blank Too:Do Not Change This:Your email:
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It’s been way to long since a “serious” biography about Willie Mays was published. That’s about to be remedied with Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend by James S. Hirsch, to be published this month by Scribner. Bruce Weber, author of As They See’ Em, wrote this piece for the Sunday Times. Perhaps it’s because […]
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How often was his seminal novel of youth struggling for identity and acceptance mistaken for a baseball story? Maybe that’s because of former major league catcher — and later TV personality and broadcaster — Bob Uecker’s homonymic book. (Quick aside: In the mid-90s, I worked part time for one of those statistical companies that track […]
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Actually I have a neat little hat rack for most of my baseball caps, but it is lying on top of a bookcase, so I’m gonna count it. When a Hall of Famer plays for a few teams over his career, there’s always hand-wringing over what hat his plaque will bear. Several years ago, there […]
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The baseball lifer — and one of my earliest recollections of my baseball card collection — died on Thursday at the age of 92. From the Dallas Morning News. And Randy Galloway contributed this appreciation in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Bragan published his memoirs (right) in 1992.
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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
* Asterisk th*s
January 24, 2010
There’s been a lot of talk about what to do with the statistics from the Steroids Era. Some want them expunged from the record books. Others, like Tony Kornheiser, want a special note on any Hall of Fame plaque, bringing into account the possibility (probability?) that said honored player partook of PED. My take is: […]
Tagged as: PED, statistics, steroids
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