* Author profile: Bill Nowlin

Author Profile / interview

From the Red Sox component of MLB.com, this profile of Nowlin, who not only writes about the team, but founded Rounder Records, which specializes in Folk-type stuff.

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* What to give…

2008 title

The Chicago Sun-Times recently offered a list of gift books, as comprised by some of its writers. Of the seven suggestions, Two baseball titles made the grade: Babe Ruth: Remembering the Bambino in Stories, Photos and Memorabilia, by Julia Ruth Stevens and Bill Gilbert; and Remembering Yankee Stadium: An Oral and Narrative History of “The […]

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* Review: Pinch Hitter

2008 title

From bloggernews.net, this review by Simon Barrett of Dean Whitney’s new novel. Upshot: I really like Dean Whitney’s story telling approach, he has taken a subject that obviously he knows a great deal about and managed to make it appeal to non baseball fans. He takes the time to explain the terminology and strategy of […]

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* What did you do over your winter vacation, Chad Qualls?

"Ripped from today's headlines..."

The Arizona Diamondbacks’ pitcher got involved in a literacy program in his hometown. Qualls, a Narbonne High graduate who is spending the off-season in Redondo Beach, helped pass out free books as part of a school spirit day focused on encouraging students to start reading.

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* "Sarge" turns author

2008 title

Another former player turns (co)author in Phillies Confidential: The Untold Story of the 2008 Championship Season. (How anything of importance remains untold in this day and age is a mystery.) Matthews — not to be confused with teammate Gary “The Secretary of State” Maddox — was with the team from 1981-83, thereby missing the last […]

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* At the risk of tooting my own horn…

2008 title

Thirteen years in the making. In 1995, I delivered my first “scholarly paper.” It was at Hoftsra University’s centennial celebration of Babe Ruth’s birth and it was a hoot. I spent three days there, listening to all sorts of presentations, visiting exhibits and finally — nervously — making my own. My topic was “The Books […]

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* Stocking stuffer: Gandhi at the Bat

Baseball movies

If Neil Leifer’s new football book is out of your league, consider Gandhi at the Bat. The short “mockumentary” by Stephanie Argy and Alec Boehm, based on an original short story by Chet Williamson, won the Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at the Baseball Hall of Fame Film Festival in September for excellence “in direction, […]

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* Well, that can't be good.

"Ripped from today's headlines..."

“…Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying books.” Look for other publishers to follow suit. And we all know where baseball/sports books fall on the foot chain.

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* RK Review: Dingers!

Older title

A Short History of the Long by, by Peter Keating (ESPN, 2006) Dingers is to literature what ESPN is to journalism. You can’t count on it to be serious, but it sure is fun. Keating’s work has appeared in a well-rounded series of publication. That is, he’s not just a sports guy, so he’s not […]

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* RK Review: The Bill James Handbook 2009

2008 title

Joe Posnanski’s great column on SI.com about which statistics are the best indicators of baseball talent reminded me that I was going to do a review of the 2009 Bill James Handbook. I must admit, I don’t make a habit of reading books of this type. I always enjoyed the Total Baseball books or the […]

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* "The best baseball book you have probably never read…"

Autobiography/memoirs

according to Michael Weinreb on ESPN.com’s Page 2 is Veeck: As In Wreck, the autobio of the game’s most maverick front office man (What, you thought the McCain/Palin campaign invented the word?) If there was ever a guy who didn’t take life too seriously, it was Bill Veeck, who made even the St. Louis Browns […]

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* "Five minutes 'til curtain, Mr. Canseco."

Reviews from other sources

What took so long? From The New York Times, this review of Back, Back, Back, an off-Broadway play about steroids in baseball. No even a walk-on part for Jose? After all, he was in that reality TV show. Upshot: Mr. [Itamar} Moses’ disappointingly drama-free drama does little more than skim the surface of the protracted […]

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* Source of the week: Life photo archives

Magazines

I miss Life magazine. None of its descendants match the mix of news and photos and even social impact that the legendary publication enjoyed during its heyday. Now, thanks to Google, you can view some 200 baseball images. It’s a nice mix, but after looking over the available shots, there’s obviously a lot missing. Not […]

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* In the name of the father

Author appearance

Julia Stevens, the daughter of Babe Ruth, recently appeared at a Las Vegas book store to promote her new book, Babe Ruth: Remembering The Bambino in Stories, Photos, and Memorabilia. It was only seven years ago that she and her co-author, Bill Gilbert, published Major League Dad: A Daughter’s Cherished Memories. (Not to be confused […]

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* Author profile: Zack Hample

2008 title

via the Sports by the Numbers blog.

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Review: Remembering Yankee Stadium

2008 title

This review on Harvey Frommer’s paean to the House that Ruth Built comes via River Avenue Blues. Upshot: Frommer has crafted a great mix as he honors Yankee Stadium, and presenting a building that has stood the test of New York time for so many decades is no easy task.

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* Review: Living on the Black

Reviews from other sources

This one on John Feinstein’s most recent baseball title comes from the DailySkew Baseball blog. Upshot: Overall, a good modern baseball book about how cerebral the game of pitching is, and how pitchers work out in-between starts. Also, an inside look into the Mets 2007 collapse (so you can read about Willie Randolph, Jose Reyes, […]

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* In these troubled Times, there is no room for Play

Annoucements

Too bad they can’t get rid of some of those annoying supplements that highlight fashion, furnishings, and vacations that “regular” folks can’t afford instead of doing away with Play, the Times‘ sports supplement. If the sports department is the toy store of a newspaper, I guess we won’t be getting much in the way of […]

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* RK Review: So Long, Shea

2008 title

Five Decades of Stadium Memories (Triumph Books, 2008) Compared with some of the wonderful books that have been published about Yankee Stadium’s last season, this slim paperback comes across like a poor stepchild, an afterthought in the world of recorded memory. I know the Mets’ home since 1964 doesn’t have the same cachet of the […]

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