Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The latest scourge upon us: Roving library gangs! A war of words.
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Twice this week, the national pastime was part of the unofficial national quiz show. On Wednesday, the topic was teams that had never won the World Series (although perhaps it was teams that had never been in the Series; I should have kept track). One of the answers was wrong at the time of airing, […]
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A lot of pundits and fans have been alternately making fun of and expressing outrage over the MLB All-Star voting mechanism that had members of the Kansas City Royals ranking first for eight of nine position players (including the DH, which has no “position” other than in the batting order). It’s currently down to only […]
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You know a current event has gravitas when a pop culture entity like The Daily Show or Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me includes it in its weekly program. WWDTM referred to the recent computer hacking “scandal” by the St. Louis Cardinals in their most recent episode: PETER SAGAL: All right, here, sir, is your last […]
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I tuned into the Yankee game on Friday just as Alex Rodriguez was coming to bat, looking for his 3,000th hit. Timing is everything: ARod launched a home run for the milestone. It was the third time a player hit a home run for the magic number, including former teammate Derek Jeter. The difference is […]
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‘Nuff said. The New York Times obituary, by Margalit Fox. And an interview Dior did with MLB.com:
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Although known more for his classic, The Art of Writing Well, William Zinsser — who passed away May 12 at the age of 92 — also published Spring Training, a “memoir” of the Pittsburgh Pirates in spring training in 1988. Not surprisingly, it was well-received. Here are the obits from the Washington Post and The […]
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I recently compared book excerpts with movie trailers. It’s my contention that the publications concentrate on the most salacious or controversial passages they can find because, let’s face it, people love the dirt. So when you see headlines such as “Jorge Posada bitter toward Yankees management in book,” or “Yankee great Jorge Posada still steamed […]
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The Yog turns 90 today, God bless. I ran this piece four years ago, listing several titles about and (ostensibly) by the Hall of Famer. Except for the age, the info remains valid except for the addition of my NJ neighbor Harvey Araton‘s excellent book, Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest […]
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Okay, it’s not actually advertising, but The Player’s Tribune, an on-line “magazine’ founded by the recently-retired Derek Jeter, has come under some scrutiny lately. TPT purports to “publish first-person stories directly from the athletes” (emphasis added). Maybe there’s a difference of opinion on the definition of “directly.” Richard Sandomir, the New York Times’ sports media […]
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I still have a few of these hanging around the house. MLB has decided to eliminate the paper ballots available at ballparks (and retail outlets? Have they still been doing that over the past few years?) and have fans vote for their favorite All Stars via electronic devices. Perhaps they were worried about hanging chads? […]
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Because these could fit on a bookshelf if it was big enough. Reggie Jackson is auctioning off “the 10-foot-high letters that spelled “YANKEE STADIUM” near the edge of the roof for 32 years after the renovated stadium opened in 1976.” Jackson purchased the letters when the Stadium closed down after the 2008 season. Of course […]
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This is getting ridiculous. Jeff McKnight was a member of my Mets in the early 1990s (with time out for a season with the Orioles). He has passed away at the age of 52. It’s getting to the point where I’m living a Pete Seeger song: I get up each morning and dust off my […]
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Alex Johnson, the 1970 American League batting champion, died Feb. 28 due to complications from cancer at the age of 72. Johnson played in the heyday of my baseball card collecting — the late 1960s to 70s. As such, he is, unfortunately, one of an increasing number of players from that period who are shuffling […]
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A shande (Yiddish for “a shame”). Of course, everyone knows Nimoy, who grew up in a observant Jewish home in the Boston area, as Mr. Spock. But one of his earliest appearances came in an uncredited role in the 1951 baseball feature film. Rhubarb. Pay careful attention at the 2:08 mark. But perhaps […]
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So now, after all this time and all the denials, Alex Rodriguez has “formally” apologized. And not through a statement read by his attorney or PR functionary, but in the form of a hand-written letter. (I wonder what soer of planning went into the decision to present the apology that way, rather than typed out. […]
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So now the NY Yankees are getting set to retire another number: Andy Pettitte’s 46. This has led to a couple of speculative ponderings. One, should they reward an admitted PED user? And, when is this retirement stuff going to stop?
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Ain’t Facebook wonderful? It gives one the chance to find so many interesting people. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the number of current and former athletes who are social networking and how “just plain folks” they are. Case in point, Ellis Valentine. Just like the rest of us, he […]
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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
Change for change’s sake? Pass.
June 4, 2015
Found this on Facebook this morning via Marc Ernay, sports director at 1010 WINS: In the words of my good friend, Howard Walawitz: What kind of market study did the knobs at MLB.com do to determine that this was cutting edge, that this is what it takes to retain the interest of younger fans? If […]
Tagged as: baseball box scores, MLB.com
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