Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf — If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here — Page 332

Bits and pieces

Bits and Pieces

<p>Normally, I reserve this blog for the written word on the national pastime. Once in awhile, however, I come across an item that extends beyond this limited scope. </p> <p>For your consideration, <a href=”http://journalsportsmedia.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-do-we-like-sports.html”>this eloquent piece on "Why Do We Like Sports"</a>  by Angela Renkoski from the blog Journal of Sports Media: An academic discussion […]

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Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

<p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=640,height=60,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/bblib_1.gif”></a><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=640,height=60,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/bblib_2.gif”><img title=”Bblib_2″ height=”46″ alt=”Bblib_2″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/bblib_2.gif” width=”500″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px” /></a>  </p> <p></p> <p>Baseballlibrary.com gives readers the chance to <a href=”http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/excerpts/index.stm#new”>sample more than 60 new and old baseball titles</a>. The books are broken down by category for easier browsing, […]

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If only he had liked horses

<p>From Vonnegutweb.com:</p><blockquote dir=”ltr” style=”MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px”><p><span style=”color: #333333;”><span class=”bulkTitle”><strong><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=250,height=307,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/00vonnegut.jpg”><img title=”00vonnegut” height=”184″ alt=”00vonnegut” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/00vonnegut.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px” /></a> Vonnegut at <em>Sports Illustrated</em></strong></span></span></p> <p><span class=”bulkLead”>Kurt Vonnegut worked briefly at SI</span> until being told to write a story about a race horse that had jumped the rail […]

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Bits and pieces

Bits and Pieces

The April 27 podcast of Audible.com’s This is Audible includes an interview with Jonathan Eig, author of Opening Day, the new book on Jackie Robinson’s debut season. The podcast also includes an excerpt from the audio book, narrated by Richard Allen. The links above will direct to the audible Web site. I’m not sure if […]

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Wise Guides

Review by Ron Kaplan

Some very interesting little books arrived today, full of nice surprises: Three pocket-sized “Wise Guides” to Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, and Fenway Park. Each slim volume concentrates on each franchise’s unique ballpark experience in a manner that’s sure to please the novice game-goer, as well as amuse the season ticket holder. The books (booklets?) contain […]

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More tributes to David Halberstam

Author Profile / interview

> The Project for Excellence in Journalism (Journalism.org) offers a collection of tributes from numerous sources. Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air, replayed a few interviews she did with Halbertsam over the years. Topics include his award-winning work covering Viet Nam for The New York Times, writing about the 1950s, and Michael Jordan’s place […]

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Whatever happened to…STATS' Baseball Scoreboard?

I was listening to the Mets-Rockies game as I was driving home from work last night. Orlando Hernandez was pitching for New York and Howie Rose commented on how economically he was working, getting the ball where he wanted it. A few days before Oliver Perez threw more than 25 strikes in a row. I […]

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David Halbertsam

Author profile/interview by Ron Kaplan

The literary world lost one of its greats with the untimely death of David Halberstam. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author is one of those writers whom I always admired for his ability to transcend subjects, whether writing about politics (The Best and The Brightest), American history/pop culture (The Fifties, my favorite of all his books), or […]

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Bits and pieces

Bits and Pieces

Ted Cox, the TV/Radio sports columnist for the Arlington Heights Daily Herald, evidently has as little patient as I do when it comes to errors in baseball books. For an industry whose main product is numbers (overwhelmingly maintained via computer technology), it’s inexcusable that so many factual errors pop up. As Cox writes in his […]

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Bits and pieces

Bits and Pieces

Baseball America’s annual book feature includes reviews on several books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. Books include The Soul of Baseball; How Bill James Changed Our View of Baseball; Opening Day; Once Upon a Game; Hideki Matsui, Sportsmanship, Modesty and The Art of the Home Run; Sports Illustrated: The Baseball Books; Brushing Back Jim Crow; […]

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<i>Percentage Baseball</i>: <br>An Appreciation

“Before Bill James, before Moneyball, all the way back in 1964, we published one of the touchstones of mathematical analysis of the sport: Percentage Baseball by Earnshaw Cook. As a result of a conversation about the productive value of the sacrifice bunt, Cook … began putting probabilistic values on every aspect of the game in […]

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Bits and pieces

Bits and Pieces

In recognition of the 60th annversary of Jackie Robinson’s Major League debut, Jonathan Eig appeared on Only a Game to discuss his new book, Opening Day. The OAG page also links to host Bill Littlefield’s review of the book. Crazy ‘o8 author Cait Murphy puts her book through the “Page 99 test.” According to author, […]

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Baseball Book Feature on Bookreporter.com

Review by Ron Kaplan

A few times I year I do a “roundup” of reviews for Bookreporter.com. This year’s batch includes: Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinon’s Furst Season, by Eig The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America, by Posnanski The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball, by Zumsteg Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan’s Guide […]

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Remembering Jackie Robinson:<Br>Author Profile: Jonathan Eig

Author profile/interview by Ron Kaplan

<p><strong>The Jews and Jackie Robinson</strong></p> <p></p> <p>At a time when unenlightened baseball fans and players hurled epithets and <a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=400,height=602,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/joneigspt.jpg”><img title=”Joneigspt” height=”225″ alt=”Joneigspt” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/joneigspt.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> brickbats to protest an African American playing in the major leagues, the Jewish community embraced Jackie […]

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Bits and Pieces:<BR>Remembering Jackie Robinson

<p>Several sources have produced extensive bibliographies on material about Jackie Robinson, including:</p> <ul><li><a href=”http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/robinson/jrrel.html”>Baseball and Jackie Robinson</a>, by The Library of Congress</li> <li>The Baseball Hall of Fame offers a "<a href=”http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/library/biblios/robinson_jackie.htm”>selected bibliography</a>"</li> <li>The Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles produced an extensive page of "<a href=”http://www.aafla.org/9arr/JackieRobinson/jlinks.htm”>Links to other Jackie Robinson and Baseball sites</a>"</li></ul>

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Remembering Jackie Robinson

The following Q&A session with Cal Fussman, author of After Jackie: Pride, Prejudice and Baseball’s Forgotten Heroes — An Oral History, appeared on ESPN.com. Fussman, a contributing editor for ESPN The Magazine and Esquire magazine, compiled interviews with over 100 former major leaguers and other prominent members of society. The dialogue below is reproduced in […]

Tagged as: Jackie Robinson

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Bookshelf review: Jews and Baseball, Volume 1: Entering the American Mainstream, 1871-1948

Review by Ron Kaplan

by Burton A. Boxerman and Benita W. Boxerman, 2007, McFarland Publishing, Jefferson, NC, 232 pages, $32.95. While there have been other books about Jewish baseball players, none packs as much of a scholarly punch as this new title. Every player considered Jewish as defined by the Jewish Major Leaguers baseball card set is accounted for, […]

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Author Profiles: Burton and Benita Boxerman

Author profile/interview by Ron Kaplan

There have been a handful of books about Jews and baseball over the years. Mostly anecdotal in nature, they have served to fuel the conception that the Jewish involvement in professional sports is practically negligible. Burton and Benita Boxerman aim to disprove that notion in their scholarly treatment, Jews and Baseball Volume 1: Entering the […]

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Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

<p><strong>Ripken nixes Imus appearance<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=180,height=266,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0’); return false” href=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/ripkin.jpg”><img title=”Ripkin” height=”177″ alt=”Ripkin” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/ripkin.jpg” width=”120″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a></strong></p> <p>From <em>Publishers Weekly…</em>In the category of "moot," <a href=”http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6432232.html”>Cal Ripken Jr. said he would not appear on the <em>Imus in </em></a><a href=”http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6432232.html”>the Morning</a> radio program because of remarks made by the […]

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Thank You, <i>Sporting News </i>

Industry/Literary Analysis

In a previous post, I wrote that The Sporting News would no longer be printing it’s annual baseball record book. True to their word, however, they have made it available on-line at no charge. The sections, rendered as PDF files, are divided into an Introduction and user’s guide; regular season (yearly leaders, career milestones, general […]

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