Killing two birds with one stone

"Oddballs"

This enterprising entrepreneur combines baseball cards with plank pages to create a new kind of baseball book. There are three versions, one for Andy Seminick, one for Don Kolloway, and the third for Sibby Sisti. Why these guys? I’ll ask the artist, “erinzam,” from San Diego. Maybe they just had a bunch of these particular […]

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The Bookshelf Podcast: Jane Leavy, Part 2

2010 title

Jane Leavy played to a full house in October at the Yogi Berra Museum and learning Center in Little Falls. Photos courtesy Andrew Mordzynski. Part 2 http://www.ronkaplansbaseballbookshelf.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/RKBBLeavy21.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Too much partying is no excuse…

2011 title

to forget to post about Hank Greenberg‘s 100th birthday, which would have been Jan. 1. Andy Wolf posted this tribute on Dec. 30. Mark Kurlansky, author of The Eastern Stars, is about to release  anew biography —  Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to be One — from Yale University Press in March. Previous […]

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Literary birthday greetings: Early Wynn and…

2009 title

Hall of Famer Early Wynn was born this date in 1920. He hung around for 23 Years, missing the whole 1945 season for military service. I was under the impression that he retired right after he won his coveted 300th game, but I was in error. He actually appeared in another15 games after his July […]

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Moving from second base to pitching: Steve Sax

2011 title

From a press release on Business Wire: Steve Sax has written a new book, SHIFT: Change Your Mindset and You Change Your World. He will begin his book tour in February 2011. Sax, who played Major League Baseball for eighteen years, suffered from the inability to throw the ball for a brief period in 1983. […]

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And speaking of the Hall of Fame

"Ripped from today's headlines..."

Congratulations to Robert Alomar and Bert Blyleven, this year’s inductees. Alomar — who was inducted into the Canadian baseball Hall of Fame in 2010 — was elected on his second go-around with 523 (of 581) ballots cast; Blyleven made it in his next-to-last year of eligibility with 463 votes. Look for books on both of […]

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Literary birthday greetings: Kittle, Battey, and Dahlen

Biography

When I was a kid, I loved to find players with my name (Ron Hunt got extra points because he was a Met). It gave me some sort of coolness by association, I thought. So happy birthday to Ron Kittle, who turns 52 today. He lent his name to Ron Kittle’s Tales from the White […]

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Because Canadians read, too…

"Oddballs"

It’s all right, I’m half-Quebecer on my mum’s side. Anyway the Getting Blanked blog, a Blue Jays-centric site, is starting up a Baseball Book Club! The first meeting — which will discuss Michael Lewi’s Moneyball, will take place at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 27, at Opera Bob’s. Dustin Parkes, proprietor of Getting Blanked, writes: […]

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Literary birthday greetings: Dutch Daulton

Autobiography/memoirs

Who knew the three-time All-star catcher was a writer? I had not heard of his 2007 publication If They Only Knew, but I would definitely like to get my hands on a copy. Which leads to the inevitable question, if we only knew what? According to Wikipedia, that great bastion of scholarship Daulton holds a […]

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Literary birthday greetings: David Cone

Biography

The former perfect game-hurler turns 47 today. Cone teamed up with baseball commentator extraordinaire Roger Angell to produce the cerebral A Pitcher’s Story: Innings with David Cone in 2001.

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Feat your eyes: Great Museums presents the Baseball Hall of Fame

Documentary

Came across this hour-long documentary about the Hall on GreatMuseuems.org. Warning: There are actually a few commercials sprinkled within the program.

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Unaffiliated baseball birthday

Because I can...

One of the minor characters in the Black Sox Scandal was a former ballplayer named Billy Graham, who had sought to disguise his identity by changing his name to Maharg. Brilliant disguise. So in that spirit, Happy Birthday to Loyd Christopher, a close proximity-reversal of the name Christopher Lloyd, who played Sleepy Bill Burns, Maharg’s […]

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TWIBB: Dec 31, 2010

2010 title

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Dec. 31,2010. Title Rank General The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy 1 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis, by 2 Baseball Forecaster 2011, by Ron Shandler 3 Baseball Prospectus 2011 4 Beyond […]

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The Year in Baseball Books

2010 title

(and other media, of course.) With the close of 2010, I thought I take a few moments to review the highlights of the past 12 months as pertains to our favorite topic. It’s been a banner year for baseball biographies. We’ve enjoyed munch-anticipated titles from major publishers on Hall of Famers such as Hank Aaron, […]

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You say you want a resolution…

"Oddballs"

(With apologies to the Beatles). We all know how we’d like others to change. SI‘s Cliff Corcoran has his lists as well. One for the American League teams, another for the National.

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This week (Dec. 27) in Sports Illustrated

2010 title

The year-end issue pays tribute to the sports figures who passed away in 2010. Baseball notables included Bob Feller, Ron Santo, Bobby Thomson, George Steinbrenner, Phil Cavarretta, Sparky Anderson, Robin Roberts, Gil McDougald, Willie Davis, Dorothy Kamenshek (All-American Girls Professional Baseball League), Bob Sheppard, Jose Lima, Jim Bibby, Ernie Harwell, Ralph Houk, and Mike Cuellar […]

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Deny, deny, deny

Uncategorized

I know you’ve got your own version of the truth; There’s only three things left now I can do: Deny, Deny, Deny From “Deny, Deny, Deny,” by Kix Brooks and Bob DiPiero Just for the heck of of it, I thought I’d say a couple of words in defense of Raphael Palmeiro, who’s on the […]

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Literary birthday greetings, Sandy Koufax

Autobiography/memoirs

Dandy Sandy turns 75 (!) today. Can it really be? I hope I look that good when I’m his age. Or ever. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m going to refer to previous links about the Dodger (and Jewish) legend from Kaplan’s Korner, my blog about Jews and sports. Because you can never get enough […]

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The phone book’s here! The phone book’s here!

2009 title

Actually it’s the Fall 2010 issue of SABR’s Baseball Research Journal, in which I have a review-essay on four Yankee titles including The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood; Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball: Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero; and The Yankee Years. It’s so new, it isn’t even up […]

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