Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf — If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here — Page 32

SABR announces Chadwick Award winners

James E. Brunson III, Jane Leavy, and Daniel Okrent have been named recipients of the Society for American Baseball Research’s esteemed Henry Chadwick Award, “established to honor the game’s great researchers … for their invaluable contributions to making baseball the game that links America’s present with its past.” Leavy is the author of biographies about […]

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Coming down the pike, update

As I prepare for my baseball review feature for Bookreporter.com, I went back to Amazon to see what would make for interesting reviews. The parameters are that they have to have a release date of May or earlier. Here is where I voice my standard criticism of Amazon’s search function: If they can put a […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, March 4, 2022

A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, February 25, 2022

A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, February 18, 2022

Of all things: I couldn’t post last week because the Amazon rankings weren’t available. Oh well. A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, […]

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Java Jive

The expression “a cup of coffee” is defined in The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (Third Edition) as “A brief trial in the major leagues by a minor league player…. The phrase seems to have derived from the observation that a young player’s first taste of the major leagues is usually quite short, figuratively just long enough […]

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This is progress?

Apropos of my recent post about the things we keep, don’t keep, or don’t get in the first place, I went ahead and purchased a copy of the 2021 Mets yearbook. I was especially curious because of the whole 2020 season having been played under a Covid cloud. Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, it was […]

Tagged as: New York Mets

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Revisionist History

Award-winning title

I continue to pursue possibilities for an updated version of 501 Baseball Books, now almost ten years old. After all, there have been many great baseball books since then and I need something to keep me occupied and out of mischief. And it got me to thinking: I have written a few pieces over the […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, February 4, 2022

A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast […]

Tagged as: Oscar Charleston, Paul O'Neill

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The things we don’t get (or “buyer’s remorse”)

I’ve done a series of entries on the things I keep: unusual books, cards, or other items that I’ve collected over the years. One of my “collectibles,” in addition to books, is baseball caps. I’ve got about 30 of them lining the wall of my office. I have this rule that I can’t just buy […]

Tagged as: New York Mets

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You know it’s the off-season (movie edition, The Sequel)

Baseball movies

Continuing on the cinematic theme… The next sub-genre is “best baseball movies based on a true story.” And the entries are A League of Their Own (1992) 42 (2013) The Rookie (2002) Eight Men Out (1988) Note that in general, you won’t find anything older than the 1970s, so in this instance there’s no The […]

Tagged as: A League of Their Own, All-American Girls Profesional Baseball League, Eight Men Out, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Morris

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You know it’s the off-season (movie edition, Part Deux)

Getting closer (hopefully) to pitchers and catchers reporting but there’s still time to catch a good baseball movie. Or a bad one, depending on your point of view. The folks at MLB’s website are offering their choices on various themes. In this entry, they seek to answer the question, “Which baseball film has the best […]

Tagged as: Bingo Long, Bull Durham, Major League, Moneyball

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Baseball Best-Sellers, January 28, 2022

A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast […]

Tagged as: Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Shohei Ohtani

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Keeping it 100

"Bookshelf Conversations"

Congratulations to Joe Posnanski, whose latest release, The Baseball 100, was recently selected by Spitball Magazine for the 39th annual Casey Award, emblematic of best baseball book of the year. In a press release, Spitball described The Baseball 100 as “a ranking of the best players in baseball history with brilliant essays devoted to each […]

Tagged as: Joer Posnanski

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Lest we forget: Dan Reilly

AKA, the original Mr. Met. Reilly passed away last Dec. 30 at the age of 83. According to the obituary in Jan. 7 issue of The New York Times by Richard Sandomir Mr. Reilly was working in the Mets’ ticket office when two team executives asked him to breathe corporeal life into Mr. Met, who […]

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E-Me

Whoopsie! In my Dec. 10 “Baseball Best Seller” entry, I made a Fred Merkle-type boner. I inadvertently credited Lincoln Mitchell — author of such non-fiction titles as The Giants and Their City: Major League Baseball in San Francisco, 1976–1992; San Francisco Year Zero: Political Upheaval, Punk Rock and a Third-Place Baseball Team; and Baseball Goes West: The […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, January 21, 2022

Been so long since the last one, I almost forgot the process. A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. […]

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You know it’s the off-season (movie edition)

when articles like appear: Which baseball movie has the greatest Hollywood ending? Where to begin? How about the choice of three films for this panel discussion between Ian Browne, Anthony Castrovince, Alyson Footer (who served as the piece’s writer and moderator), Adam McCalvy, and Manny Randhawa. In what appears to be a series of such […]

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TMDR

Hard to believe it’s been a month since my last entry. Life, you know? But here’s hoping for a better year ahead. Because people have shorter attention spans these days, there has become a designation for articles that readers just can handle. The shorthand is TLDR: “too long, didn’t read.” That’s a shame. I liken it […]

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‘Tis the season

This is time of the year when publications come out with their naughty and nice lists. For the purposes of this blog, of course, we will only concern ourselves with those about baseball books. I’ve come across two such pieces so far, including Esquire magazine’s “The 100 Best Baseball Books Ever Written,” by Alex Bleth. […]

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