Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The Columbus Dispatch ran this review of Everything They Had: Sportswriting from David Halberstam. The LA Times published one, too. Regardless of their politics, I’ve always had great admiration for authors like Halberstam, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and George F. Will, among others, who have the ability to write about “serious” issues and those of lesser […]
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From the Lost and Gone Forever blog: (Spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen the episode in question “Something Nice Back Home”, avert thine eyes). By virtue of the Yankees/Red Sox and Indians/Mariners scores in the newspaper article, only one date is viable for the publication of the paper: August 31, 2007. Article states Yankees finish […]
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Alex Belth appends his theme of essential baseball books, with lists from Richard Sandomir, The New York Times‘ sports media columnist and Roger Kahn, along with a slew of comments.
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This collection of mini-reviews includes: Anatomy of Baseball The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Pittsburgh Pirates Almost a Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies Ty Cobb: Safe at Home Keeping Score Change Up: An Oral History of 8 Key Events That Shaped Baseball
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Two of my favorite things are baseball and Lost. Last night’s episode puts the two together: Jack’s annoyance that the Yankees had swept his beloved Red Sox in a series: This was part of the latest column on the show on the Entertainment Weekly Web site, and is sort of apropos to my review of […]
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Yes, according to this bitty item in The New York Times: STRAWBERRY TO WRITE A BOOK Darryl Strawberry is writing a memoir, “Straw,” that will come out in 2009, according to the publisher Ecco. Ecco is a Harper Collins imprint. Strawberry collaborated on his story once before, with Art Rust, Jr. in Darryl, published by […]
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The School Library Journal Web site reports: Just in time for baseball season, the Library of Congress (LOC) has assembled a Web clearinghouse devoted to America’s pastime. The simply named “Historic Baseball Resources” features multimedia offerings from the library’s vast trove, including rare images of early games and the original sheet music to “Take Me […]
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The baseball lifer played only three seasons and managed two in the Major Leagues, but he still managed to put out a hefty tome about his experiences in Safe by a Mile, which gets a lengthy “preview” treatment from Google Books.
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The “spring edition” of my semi-annual Bookreporter.com baseball review roundup takes an “anti-Vindicated” spin, concentrating on books that look at the good behind the game, including: But didn’t We Have Fun? An Informal History of Baseball’s Pioneer Era, 1843-1870 My Bat Boy Days: Lessons I Learned from the Boys of Summer 101 Baseball Places to […]
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According to Jon Friedman on MarketWatch.com, it’s Sports Illustrated‘s Gary Smith. Perhaps a secret to his success is that he maintains a distance from his peers. “I don’t read that much sports journalism,” he said. He prefers fiction and philosophy, which shouldn’t surprise his fans because he’s a master storyteller and amateur philosopher.
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The Phillies catcher/author has the best-selling baseball book at the moment, according to Amazon.com. The only other baseball title is Cubs Forever: Memories from the Men Who Lived Them, by Bob Vorwald (not bad considering it’s not even in stock yet.) Coste’s auto-bio, The 33-Year-Old Rookieis ranked #1 in biographies & memoirs/biographies/baseball; History/United States/State & […]
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From Salon.com’s resident sports guy King Kaufman (I’d like to see his birth certificate), this review/profile of Neyer and his latest.
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The tabloid is including the six-part magazine supplement on the House That Ruth Built in its Sunday papers. They do something like this every so often to boost sales. Nice touch. I think it’s worth the price of the edition. But remember, everything — commemorative magazines, thimbles, diner menus — is a “collectible” if you […]
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Born this day in 1958, the star-crossed pitcher died in 2006 as the result a car accident, and not, surprisingly, drug use. Howe was a sometimes brilliant reliever who played mostly for the Dodgers and Yankees. Suspended several times from substance, abuse, Howe got more second chances than just about any athlete in history. The […]
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Not the first — that honor went to Jim Brosnan — but perhaps the best of the genre he tackled, Bouton turns 69 today. “The Bulldog” enjoyed a couple of good years for the New York Yankees, winning 20 games in1963 and 18 more in 1964, the last good year the team had for more […]
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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
* State of the "art"?
April 10, 2008
Michael Rowe wrote this analysis of modern sportswriting on the Utne Reader Web site. He laments the art of the craft, as was evidenced by such wordsmiths as Ring Lardner, Huey Fullerton, and, more recently, the likes of Roger Angell. “Does sportswriting suck,” he asks, bemoaning the lack of reporting “that tackles an actual ethical […]
Tagged as: Sportswriting
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