Maury Allen Memorial

Annoucements

There will be a public memorial service for Maury Allen, on Sunday, Oct. 10, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Yogi Berra Stadium, adjacent to the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls, NJ on the campus of Montclair State University.

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More on Maury

Lest We Forget

Maury Allen, who passed away on Sunday, was a great story-teller. I recently attended a screening of the new documentary, Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, at the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls, NJ, which was just a couple of miles from where Maury lived. I can’t recall just now, but I believe […]

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Lest we forget: Maury Allen

Lest We Forget

I was flipping back and forth between the Mets and Jets yesterday and upon my return to the baseball broadcast I caught the name “Maury Allen.” Knowing that the veteran sportswriter/author had been in bad health for the past several months, I feared the worst, but nothing turned up in an immediate Internet search. Sadly, […]

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But being a world-renown writer is nice, too.

Classic title

CBS conducted an interview with Philip Roth on the publication of his new novel, Nemesis. One of the questions posed to the author the The Great American Novel: “When you lived here, and you were growing up,” asked Braver, “did you want to be famous? Did you want to be somebody whose name everybody knew?” […]

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Time for a trip to IKEA?

2010 title

Pithy observation from the Baseball USA: Two late-season baseball books arrived in the mail. They are “Glory in the Fall,” an anthology of stories about World Series history and the Red Sox figure prominently. It is published by Union Square Press. The other is Baseball: An Illustrated History. It is essentially the print version of […]

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Bits and Pieces

2009 title

As the days dwindle down to a precious few, here’s an attempt at a major catch-up: I met Rob Fitts at the SABR convention in Washington, DC, last year. His specialty is Japanese baseball. Here’s his site on baseball cards. The NY Times‘ Alan Schwarz covered the convention’s always-entertaining trivia contest. You know the theoretical […]

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Coming never to a video outlet near you

2010 title
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You make the call — 50 years later!

Television

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 […]

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TWIBB: Oct. 1, 2010

2010 title

Can’t believe the season is almost over. The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of 2 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 1. Title Rank General Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams, by John Updike 1 The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy 2 Moneyball: […]

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Literary birthday greetings

Autobiography/memoirs

To Hall of Famer Rod Carew, who turns 65 today. Carew, by Carew with Ira Berkow Rod Carew’s Art and Science of Hitting Also marking the occasion, Mark McGwire, who perhaps could have been a Hall of Famer, turns 47. There were two “waves” of books about Big Mac. The first came in 1998 when […]

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Winner, winner, pasta dinner

2010 title

(In deference to our vegetarians out there). Steve Pona is the randomly-selected winner of the September Bookshelf Friend prize, Chicago Cubs Cookbook: All-Star Recipes from Your Favorite Players. The October book will be determined in the near future.

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Author event: “Fab Four” appears at SF LitFest

2010 title

This press release comes courtesy of Dan Fost, author of Giants Past & Present: One of the highlights of one of the country’s great literary festivals, San Francisco’s Litquake, will feature “It’s All Over But the Crying: A Night of Authors on Sports,” at 7 p.m. Friday Oct. 8, at Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk Street, […]

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Birthday greetings

Autobiography/memoirs

To beloved Brooklyn Dodger Johnny Podres, born this date in 1932. Johnny Podres: Brooklyn’s Yankee Killer And to Hall of Famer Robin Roberts, born in 1926. Roberts, one of the last great complete game practitioners, died just this past May. He penned, My Life in Baseball,with the help of C. Paul Rogers III, in 2003.

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This week (Oct. 4) in Sports Illustrated

Magazines

Sadly, the only baseball feature in the NHL Preview Issue is The Last Stand of Billy the Kid, a profile of Braves’ closer Billy Wagner by Michael Bamberger. There’s also a Joe Sheehan item about why Felix Hernandez deserves the AL Cy Young Award. Get used to it.

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Happy birthday, Warren Cromartie

Asian baseball

“Cro” was once considered a part of the best outfields in the game as a member of the Montreal Expos in the early 1980s. Then he made a name for himself — as well as a book — when he took his game to Japan. He turns 57 today. Slugging It Out in Japan: An […]

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Once in a lifetime: Ted Williams’ perfect coda

2010 title

A handful of players have been fortunate enough to enjoy a storybook ending to their career: ending with a bang. None have done it with as much mystique as Ted Williams. The Splendid Splinter played his last major league game against the Baltimore Orioles on September 28, 1960. A dreary affair, with nothing on the […]

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A reminder: The Tenth Inning

2010 title

premieres tomorrow on PBS. Consult your local listings. From The New York Times: “Baseball Continued: Between Rebirth and Calamity“ From The Atlantic: “Burns Back at Bat“

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Birthday greetings

Autobiography/memoirs

Happy birthday to Johnny Pesky, inventor of Fenway Park’s Pesky Pole, 91 years young today. Pesky was the author or subject of several books about the Red Sox, including Diary of a Red Sox Season Mr. Red Sox: The Johnny Pesky Story, by Bill Nowlin Few and Chosen: Defining Red Sox Greatness Across the Eras […]

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The cover de tuti covers

Classic title

SI‘s Joe Posnanski picks his 32 favorite covers in the 50+ history of the magazine here. They’re not all baseball, but as Spencer Tracy said in Pat and Mike, “what’s there is cherce.”

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Thanks for the memories: Banned in the Bronx

Commentary

The Yankee Hater Memoirs, 1953-2005, by Gene Hutmaker and (with some reluctance) Michael A. Hutmaker, VirtualBookWorm, 2006. Not every author has the luxury — or even necessity — of working with a large publishing company. More and more these days, writers are going solo, finding alternate ways of getting their  work to the public. Gene […]

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