Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The New York Times ran this article in the front section about trying to find a way to make maple bats more shatter-resistant. I don’t know what David Wright uses, but in the Wednesday night game, his bat broke against his head on a swing. Yikes. He didn’t even get out of the batter’s box […]
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That same paper by Chad Sabadie also uncovered another John Ford TV play touching on an ersatz Black Sox situation featuring some high-powered names . Flashing Spikes was an episode under the Alcoa Presents umbrella starring Jimmy Stewart as a former player who had conspired with six other players (Seven Men Out?) to throw a […]
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Funny how stream of consciousness works. I was tooling around on the web and came across a paper by Chad Sabadie on “America’s Presstime: How Images Of Baseball Reporters Have Shaped the Prception of Our National Sport and The Profession Of Journalism.” Quite interesting, if not wholly accurate. Any baseball reader or movie-goer knows about […]
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Talk about your odd couples. A few weeks ago on Kaplan’s Korner, I posted about a Jewish-themed episode of the old Bill Cosby Show. This one titled “Dennis and The Dodger,” doesn’t have a Jewish slant, aside from the appearance of Koufax himself. And this was in 1959, before Koufax began his streak of five […]
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R.A. Dickey was the subject of a profile on last Sunday’s 60 Minutes. I’m curious about the timing; one would have thought it would have come last year, in connection with his book. As has been the case, Dickey is well-spoken.
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I love baseball. I love the movies. So the combination of the two is like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup: the best of both world. So I was really looking forward to the first episode of MSG’s The Lineup: Best Sports Movies, an eight-part series which debuted with a discussion of baseball features. I was […]
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The best way to play catch-up is via a “Bits and Pieces” entry so here goes: James Bailey offers this appreciation for W.P. Kinsella’s The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Rob Neyer, Grant Brisbee, and Murray Chass on Mike Piazza and his new book, Long Shot. Don’t know where this excellent Simpsons/Moneyball mashup came from, but Brisbee […]
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Value Over Replacement Grit offers a baseball-themed crossword puzzle. At the risk of appearing sexist, I must say this is the first time I’ve encountered a woman who collects baseball cards with such a passion as Cee Angi, who wrote this mournful “Requiem for the 00s: The Decline of Topps Baseball Cards,” in which she […]
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As opposed to fantasy baseball… Bruce Markusen over at Hardball Times posted this examination of “The Mighty Casey,” a classic episode of The Twilight Zone that originally aired during the series’ first season in 1960. The episode featured Jack Warden as the manager of the Hoboken Zephyrs and Robert Sorrels as the ballplayer of the […]
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I was tooling around the TV dial last night, killing time between the end of the Redskins-Seahawks game and Downtown Abbey (’cause that’s how I roll), and hit on a discussion on the MLB Network about statistics. I believe the show was Clubhouse Confidential and the guests were former manager Larry Bowa and stats guru […]
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Every Christmas you can count on a couple of celebrities to cast off this mortal coil. This time, sadly, it’s two of my favorite actors, Jack Klugman obit by Bruce Weber) and Charles Durning. One of Klugman’s signature roles was, of course, the sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison in beloved TV series The Odd Couple, for […]
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501 update: Received the index back for a bit of very minor revising. Then it’s really done. Gratified by the very early interest by members of the media in doing reviews. Bruce Markusen over at The Hardball Times offers another in his series of “baseball card mysteries.” This time it’s Dave Nelson’s 1973 Topps. Speaking […]
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This goes back aways, but David Roth wrote about R.A. Dickey, mold-breaker for the concept of the cliched athlete, in the July 9 issue of New Yorker. More recently, Will Leitch offers these thoughts about the Mets in a “reasons to love New York” retrospective. Bruce Markusen at The Hardball Times posted this piece about […]
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Brings a lump to my throat. Don’t remember who gave me my first glove. Maybe it was my parents, or maybe an uncle. The guys on my softball team make fun of me because the one I use now is so old and floppy (keep the jokes to yourselves). But maybe it’s time to buy […]
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Quite a year for Dickey: First the book, then the movie, then Cy Young season, and now this. Dickey does a nice turn regarding his writing. At least Jon Stewart is a legitimate Mets fan, not like a lot of interviewers who fake it. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / […]
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A review in The New York Times practically guarantees increased sales, so kudos to co-editors Tracy and Foer and all the contributors to this fine collection. Readers of the NJ Jewish News know I also do a weekly Torah haiku. Therefore I have to support my fellow poets. Here’s a haiku look at the players […]
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♦ Rob Neyer is evidently not finished with naming things. He continues on the concept here. ♦ This year’s Tigers-Giants World Series was the lowest rated ever for TV. How to fix the situation. Perhaps. ♦ Speaking of TV, The Hardball Times compiled this list of “must-see MLB.TV” that was derived “by combining the average […]
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Not that I ever watched him on the show. Or the show ever. But for what it’s worth, here.
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(Kids, ask your parents/grandparents.) One of my pre-season amusements is to purchase baseball magazines and study their predictions, especially for who will get to the post-season. Somewhere on my other blog is an analysis of how they’ve done in seasons past. This year PunditTracker has done the work for me. The San Francisco Giants get […]
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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
Swung on and missed
January 15, 2013
As in I missed posting this earlier. So how’s Peter Rose looking now, given the latest Hall of Fame debacle? Perhaps in an attempt to bring him back into the spotlight, he and his family are the subject of a new reality TV series, Pete Rose, Hits & Mrs., which airs Sunday nights on The […]
Tagged as: Pete Rose, reality TV
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