Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
From the category archives:
The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Oct. 30 at 1 p.m. Title Rank General The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood , by Jane Leavy 1 Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, by Josh Hamilton and Tim Keown 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Answer: It’s a trick question. These are all fictional characters with huge craniums (crania?). And while we’re at it… I’m as patriotic as the next guy, but isn’t there a better way to spend our resources than to have expensive flyovers during sporting events? Seriously, how much do these things cost. And for what? A […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
(Because I keep LPs on my bookshelf.) How cool would it be if the Giants’ closer actually used “Little Surfer Girl” as his march-in music?
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Find any link you can, because goodness knows, if it’s not “about them,” they ain’t interested. Fox TV Blackout Tests Old Giants Fans’ Ingenuity Anything Can Happen in a San Francisco Series A First in Either San Francisco or Texas On the other hand, there’s a neat feature on World Series gloves through the years. […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
It’s World Series time, but the cover story is about violent football hits. No quarrel there. Tom Verducci: Can You Say Cliff Hanger? Joe Sheehan: A November to Remember
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
One of these days, some enterprising person is going to go back to all those historic baseball games and write about the secondary events that helped pave the way for a Kirk Gibson, a Joe Carter, or a Bill Mazeroski to become part of the lore of the national pastime. But don’t forget the Hal […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The news that a kinescope recording of the final game of the 1960 World Series was found in the wine cellar of the late Bing Crosby is being hailed as such an important discovery, one would think we were talking about the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Sure, it a cool find, kinda like an […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, July 16. Title Rank General Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 2 The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime, by Scott Turbow […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Eddie Lopat, born this date in 1918. From 1948 through a partial season in 1955, The lefty from NYC won 113 and lost 59 and was 4-1 in seven World Series starts. He was one of the subjects of Sol Gittleman’s Reynolds, Raschi and Lopat: New York’s Big Three and Great Yankee Dynasty of 1949-1953, […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Yankees.baseball-news-update.com posted reviews of two titles: Dayn Perry’s Reggie Jackson, and 1921, by Spatz and Steinberg. While the writer deems both to be “serious and thoughtful volumes displaying highly impressive research…. neither book quite fully succeeds.” A celebrity first pitch I’d love to see: A profile in Smithsonian Magazine outs Harper Lee, author of the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Both the topics and the release dates of these books could be considered appropriate here. The first looks at Frank Deford’s The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball, while the second considers Mike Vacarro’s The First Fall Classic.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, March 26. Title Rank General Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 2 Baseball Prospectus 2010 3 Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, by Dave Jamieson […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Feb. 5. Title Rank General Baseball Prospectus 2010 1 Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch 2 Baseball America 2010 Prospect Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide to Rising Stars from the Definitive Source on Prospects 3 2010 Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler’s Baseball […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, January 23. Title Rank General Baseball Prospectus 2010 1 2010 Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster) 2 Baseball America 2010 Prospect Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide to Rising Stars from the Definitive Source on Prospects (Baseball America Prospect Handbook) 3 Satchel: The Life and Times […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com on Friday, January 8. HAPPY LATE YEAR! Title Rank General 2010 Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster) 1 Baseball Prospectus 2010 2 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 3 Baseball America 2010 Prospect Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide to Rising Stars from the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
A Hall of Fame Pitcher & A Hall of Fame Hitter Talk About How the Game is Played, by Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson with Lonnie Wheeler (Doubleday, 2009) When I first heard about this book, I immediately wondered, who had the bigger ego? How was the process handled? Did Gibson tell Jackson to meet […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com on Friday, January 1. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Title Rank General The Yankee Years, by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis 2 The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
