Review — A Legend in the Making

Review by Ron Kaplan

There is something mythical about 1939. It was a year when the rumblings of war in Europe grew louder while Einstein warned Roosevelt that the Nazis were getting closer to developing an atomic weapon. While this was going on, Americans were doing there best to ignore the coming storm by escaping to the New York […]

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Review — New Respect for Baseball Titles

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p><span style=”color: #000000;”>This review appeared in <em>ForeWord Magazine</em>, May/June 2003.</span></p> <p><span style=”color: #000000;”>Ever since academicians and historians such as Harold Seymour, David Q. Voigt, and Jules Tygiel began to make &quot;serious&quot; examinations of the national p</span><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=211,height=300,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/0786412720.jpg”><span style=”color: #000000;”><img title=”0786412720″ height=”213″ alt=”0786412720″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/0786412720.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px […]

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Author Profile: Stanley Teitelbaum

Author profile/interview by Ron Kaplan

<p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=450,height=700,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/heroesidolsspt.jpg”><span style=”color: #000000;”><img title=”Heroesidolsspt” height=”233″ alt=”Heroesidolsspt” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/heroesidolsspt.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></span></a><span style=”color: #000000;”> </span><span style=”color: #000000;”><strong>The mighty have fallen:<br />Examining hero worship in the steroids era</strong> </span></p> <p><span style=”color: #000000;”>A version of this article originally appeared in <em>New Jersey Jewish News</em>, May 18, […]

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Review — The Journal of Biddy Owens

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p>This review appeared in <em>BookPage</em>, May 2001. </p> <p>To watch our children playing together nowadays, it’s difficult to conceive of a <a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=318,height=475,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/owens_1.jpg”><img title=”Owens_1″ height=”224″ alt=”Owens_1″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/owens_1.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> time when it was taboo for blacks and whites to join in a […]

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Author Profile: Rabbi Byron Sherwin

Author profile/interview by Ron Kaplan

<p><strong>Still waiting for that miracle: Chicago rabbi combines Kabala and Cubs in novel </strong></p> <p>For the 98th straight year, the Chicago Cubs missed out on a chance to win a world championship. The team finished last in the National League Central Division, their manager was fired, and the front office is once again embarking on […]

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Review — Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems

Review by Ron Kaplan

Appeared in ForeWord Magazine, May/June 2002. The sub-genre of baseball-related poetry is probably one of the most under-appreciated in the great tradition of poetry and literature. “No matter how good a baseball poem is,” the editors write in the introduction, “some will always feel that baseball as subject matter relegates a poem to also-ran status.” […]

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Author Profile: Steve Goldman

Author profile/interview by Ron Kaplan

  Steve Goldman was only four years old when Casey Stengel, manager of the New York Yankees juggernaut for more than a decade, died in 1975. So where does the fascination come from that Goldman would devote 10 years to write the latest biography of the cagey Casey? For Yankee fans of a certain age, […]

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Review — Yankees, Red Sox books

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p>Appeared on Bookreporter.com in 2005</p> <p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=476,height=695,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/faithful.jpg”><img title=”Faithful” height=”219″ alt=”Faithful” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/faithful.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> Michael Kun, co-author of <em>The Baseball Uncyclopedia</em>, made a particularly astute observation about the state of baseball literature over the last few years. Go into a bookstore, he writes, […]

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Review — Baseball Roundup, Fall '06

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p>Apperaed on BookReporter.com, Oct. 20, 2006<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=500,height=500,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/sibbbook_1.jpg”><img title=”Sibbbook_1″ height=”150″ alt=”Sibbbook_1″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/sibbbook_1.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a><em> </em></p> <p>&quot;Baseball books are divided into several subgenres: team histories, overall histories, biographies, statistical analyses, etc. Each year offers one from each group that stands apart from the rest. […]

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Review — The Rise and Fall of the Press Box

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=500,height=500,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/rise.jpg”></a><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=500,height=500,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/rise_1.jpg”><img title=”Rise_1″ height=”175″ alt=”Rise_1″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/rise_1.jpg” width=”175″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a>Appeared on JanuaryMagazine.com in Nov. 2003</p> <p>&quot;When Leonard Koppett died earlier this year, he left a tremendous void in the world of sports journalism. </p> <p>&quot;Koppett, who was named […]

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Review: The Northern Game: Baseball the Canadian Way

Review by Ron Kaplan

Appeared on JanuaryMagazine.com, Summer 2005. “For the second consecutive year, Maple Ridge’s own Larry Walker helped his St. Louis Cardinals vie for the National League pennant. Although Walker is in the twilight of his career, his legacy as one of Canada’s favorite baseball sons, having spent his salad days with the now-defunct Montreal Expos….” Read […]

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Author Profile: Art Shamsky

Author profile/interview by Ron Kaplan

Mets favorite remembers the victories, and tensions, of a turbulent era by Ron Kaplan (This article appeared in the New Jersey Jewish News, Nov. 18, 2004) Art Shamsky may not have been a Hall of Famer like Sandy Koufax, but for Jewish fans of the New York Mets during their “amazin’” World Championship season in […]

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Review: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Review by Ron Kaplan

Originally appeared in Elysian Fields Quarterly, 2003. “One of the reasons baseball fans remain so steadfast in their devotion to the game is a sense of tradition. During interminable rain delays and constant pitching changes, broadcasters often wax nostalgic about constancy: for over a hundred years there have been nine men on the field, bases […]

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Review: The Only Game in Town: Baseball Stars of the 1930s and 1940s Talk About the Game They Loved

Review by Ron Kaplan

As former professional athletes move deeper and deeper into senior citizen status, it becomes increasingly interesting, akin to listening to our grandparents discuss what life was like “in the day.” Baseball has always “enjoyed” a reputation that is almost a necessity, given its relatively slow pace. There is plenty of time to think, to talk. […]

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Review:The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth

Review by Ron Kaplan

While Barry Bonds and his home-run hitting brethren have followed the “better living through science” route to fame, Babe Ruth did things the old-fashioned way: booze, babes and BAM! It seems every time a contemporary baseballist threatens to bypass Ruth’s 714 home runs, someone comes out with a new book in an attempt to a) […]

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Review — Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p><span face=”Verdana”><em><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=500,height=500,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/shadows.jpg”><img title=”Shadows” height=”150″ alt=”Shadows” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/shadows.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal</em>, </span><span face=”Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif”>by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams</span></p> <p><span face=”Verdana”>&quot;Shortly after Jose Canseco’s tell-all Juiced came out in 2005, with allegations […]

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Review — Baseball Roundup, Spring '06

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p>Spring 2006 Roundup Review on Bookreproter.com, including:<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=336,height=500,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/believe.jpg”><img title=”Believe” height=”223″ alt=”Believe” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/believe.jpg” width=”150″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a> </p> <ul><li><em>The Baseball Uncyclopedia</em> </li> <li><em>The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball</em> </li> <li><em>Call the Yankees My Daddy: Reflections on Baseball, Race, and Family</em> […]

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Review — Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p>Since Michael Lewis’s <em>Moneyball</em> — the behind-the-scenes story of how general <a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=458,height=700,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/11590329.jpg”><img title=”11590329″ height=”152″ alt=”11590329″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/11590329.jpg” width=”100″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px” /></a> manager Billy Beane assembled the Oakland Athletics — hit the bookstores in 2003, several authors have attempted to copy the behind-the-scenes formula.</p> <p><a […]

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Review — Baseball and the American Dream: Race, Class, Gender and the National Pastime

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p></p> <p>Appeared in ForeWord Magazine, July/August 2001</p> <p><a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=150,height=223,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/65607638.jpg”><img title=”65607638″ height=”148″ alt=”65607638″ src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/65607638.jpg” width=”100″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 5px 5px 0px” /></a> &quot;In his preface to <em>Baseball and the American Dream: Race, Class, Gender and the National Pastime</em>, editor Robert Elias notes that baseball ‘offers a common denominator that […]

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Review — Baseball Forever: Reflections on 60 Years in the Game

Review by Ron Kaplan

<p>Appeared in <em>ForeWord Magazine</em>, May/June 2004<a onclick=”window.open(this.href, ‘_blank’, ‘width=321,height=500,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/baseballforever.jpg”><img title=”Baseballforever” height=”155″ alt=”Baseballforever” src=”http://baseballbookshelf.mlblogs.com/my_weblog/images/baseballforever.jpg” width=”100″ border=”0″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px 5px” /></a></p> <p>&quot;Ralph Kiner was smart enough to realize early on that a career in sports is short and uncertain. Nevertheless, he happily contradicts that notion as he reminisces in this […]

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