万歳!

"Oddballs"

I hope that means “hooray!” You never know how things might change subtly with Google translate. Anyway, this comes from the Anime News Network (“The Internet’s most trusted anime news source”): Takuya Mitsuda will continue his long-running Major manga series on Shogakukan‘s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine in March. This will be the first new chapter […]

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Baseball best-sellers, Jan. 30,2015

"Annuals"

  Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books […]

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Lest we forget: Rocky Bridges

Lest We Forget

What was that about “threes?” Baseball lost one of its colorful characters when Bridges passed away at the age of 87 on Jan. 27. Bridges, who played for seven teams during his 11-year career, had one of the classic “chaw faces” of all time.

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Lest we forget: Charlie Williams

History

Boy, these things really do come in threes, don’t they? Charlie Williams is the answer to a trivia question: Who was traded for Willie Mays? The 67-year-old pitcher died on Tuesday. No obituary, so far, from the NY papers, but I think (hope) it’s only a matter of time. Williams was actually born in Flushing […]

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Lest we forget: Bill Monbouquette

Lest We Forget

Bruce Weber gave Monbouquette, who died at the age of 78 on Jan. 25 , the NY Times obit treatment. Monbouquette was a sturdy pitcher during his 11-year career, winning 20 in 1963 for a Boston Red Sox team that was 76-85. He was a two-time All-Star and threw a no-hitter against the Chicago White […]

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Lest we forget: Ernie Banks

Autobiography/memoirs

Over due. The baseball community lost one of its real gentlemen when Ernie Banks passed away over the weekend. Banks struck me like a Stan Musial type: a certified Hall of Famer who spent his entire career with one team that didn’t always play that well. He did well enough, though: two consecutive MVP awards […]

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O’Malley bio wins SABR’s Seymour award

2014 title

Just like the movies, this is the baseball book awards season. On Monday, I wrote about Kostya Kennedy’s biography Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, winning Spitball Magazine’s Casey award. Now the other shoe has dropped. Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, & Baseball’s Westward Expansion, by past SABR President Andy McCue was selected as […]

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Kennedy’s bio on Pete Rose wins Spitball‘s Casey Award

2014 title

Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine announced the winner of the 2014 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year is Kostya Kennedy for Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. The showing turned in by Rose was especially impressive given the outstanding field of finalists, which was extended by two books over the normal total of […]

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Uh-oh for A-Rod

"Oddballs"

You ever have one of the experiences where a picture falls off a wall for no reason? Then you find out later that the person in the photo has had an accident or worse? This just happened as I was working on blog posts: The mini-bobblehead of Alex Rodriguez, then a member of the Texas […]

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The Bookshelf Conversation: Joe Siegman

2014 title

One of the things I missed most about not blogging here regularly was the opportunity to conduct these podcast interviews. There’s always someone interesting to talk with a bout their new project, be it a book, a move, a musical album, etc. I spoke with Joe Siegman as a major player in the U.S. Maccabi […]

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Baseball best-sellers, Jan. 23, 2015

2014 title

  Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. So without further ado, here are the top ten baseball books […]

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Review roundup, Jan. 21

2014 title

I frequently wonder about the role of book critics: Must they be students of the topics of which they read and report? Fans? That’s certainly not the case in this piece by Mark Dent of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Dent writes – with my annotations in brackets — The “summer” baseball book could have its own […]

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Lest we forget: Tony Verna

Lest We Forget

The inventor of instant replay died Jan. 18 at the age of 81. In a way, I blame him for ruining sports and perhaps culture in general. Because IR is so pervasive, there is no “dead time,” pardon the expression, any more. If you watch a baseball, you will invariably see at least two replays […]

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I will be brief: A sampling of baseball e-books samples

"Annuals"

Submitted for your interest from another semi-regular scan of new titles. It may seem unfair, but I do tend to judge e-books by their cover, especially when they are offered only in that format. It’s an indication of the time and effort the author/publisher puts into the project. Similarly, I’m basing my opinions strictly on […]

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Author websites: Boon or bane?

2015 title

One of the things authors are called on to do more and more these days is create a web presence. Some are better than others, especially if they’re done by the publisher (but those are usually for high profile writers), but they all serve the common purpose of introducing their work to the public. I […]

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Bookshelf review: 100 Years of Who’s Who in Baseball

2015 title

By Douglas B. Lyons. The Lyons Press. 216 Pages. $24.95 To be fair, how do you write a book about a book that’s essentially about tables of numbers? That’s the challenge Lyons picks up in 100 Years of Who’s Who in Baseball.  While it’s fun to look at each of the covers, dating back to […]

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Baseball and Dr. King

Because I can...

Didn’t want the day to go by without a mention of Martin Luther King Jr. and his baseball connections. Here’s a piece I posted on the last MLK Day. One from two years ago by The Baseball Sociologist. And another from 2008 by the popular and thoughtful Dave Zirin on King and Roberto Clemente in […]

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Straying off topic: Non-baseball writers on baseball, and vice-versa

"Oddballs"

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t particularly care for Stephen King’s novella, Blockade Billy. I found his co-authored Faithful with Stewart O’Nan much more in my alley. In this Bangor Daily News piece, he discusses his affinity for the game, among other items. Haruki Murakami, author of such best-sellers as 1Q84, also loves […]

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Baseball best-sellers, Jan. 16, 2015

"Annuals"

  Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message. On with the show… As you may have notice in recent […]

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Coming down the pike: A league of their own

2015 title

There are so many books coming from three publishers, I thought to give them a page of their own. McFarland gets high marks for taking on subjects and people that might otherwise go under the radar. That’s not to say that every book is fantastic, all due respects to the writers, but at least they […]

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