Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
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There was an awful lot of bizzaro “news” following the death of baseball legend Ted Williams in 2002. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Williams’ son, Ted Jr., who, according to many accounts, was a no-account person with no discernible skills of his own who pushed his ailing dad hard in the memorabilia […]
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The author of everyone’s darling The Art of Fielding was interviewed on a recent segment on Talk of the Nation. You here it here:
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As long-time readers of the Bookshelf know, I feel awkward when it comes to reviewing fiction. It’s so subjective. I like dogs and you’re a cat person or I like vanilla and you can’t stand it. I’m also of a mind that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything (although that philosophy kind […]
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Extra literary: Rutner, born this date in 1919, appeared in an even dozen games for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1947. He even had one home run. But he was immortalized by Eliot “Eight Men Out” Asinof as the inspiration for the main character in his 1955 novel about the struggles of a veteran minor leaguer, […]
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When I play ball, most of my teammates call me Ronnie. When I was in college, they called me Kap, a take-off on my name coupled with the Kangolish-type of headgear I always wore (at camp in the Laurentian Mountains, they called me Casquette for the same reason). When I look for those literary birthday […]
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Baseball in Folklore and Fiction, by Tristram Potter Coffin Rvive Books, 2010 Originally published as The Old Ball Game in 1971, The Mudville Heritage considers the hugely different way in which baseball was portrayed in the early to mid half of the 20th century. Coffin, emeritus professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, takes […]
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by Peter Golenbock. The Lyons Press, 2007. When 7 came out a few years ago, many sportswriters — especially in the New York area — considered it a shande (shame). How could Golenbock — who had heretofore published only non-fiction — have besmirched the character of the late lamented Mickey Mantle with this trashy, borderline […]
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Haven’t read this one, so not endorsing and not not endorsing, but seems like this could make for appropriate beach reading. Parenthetically, I wonder what the thought process was for the book art. At the risk of appearing risque, the cover makes me think of one of those apocryphal announcer miscues about a young couple […]
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So my softball team participated in a playoff game last night. We lost a heart-breaker, up by three runs going into the bottom of the final frame to the team that finished in first place. Don’t get me started. Anyway, I bring this up in conjunction with Stephen King’s baseball novella. A passage from this […]
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My review of the new Stephen King novella (plus an additional story) is up on Bookreporter.com. For your convenience, I’ve reprinted it below: There was plenty of buzz in the mystery/thriller/horror and baseball fiction communities when it was announced that Stephen King would release a novella titled BLOCKADE BILLY. Online book merchants quickly took pre-orders […]
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The New York Times‘ sports media guy, Richard Sandomir, published this piece on Stephen King’s newest. Read the novella last week, and, frankly, I wonder if it would have received all this attention had it been written by a different (read: not as famous) author. While it’s a sufficient story, we keep waiting — knowing […]
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by Jeff Gillenkirk. Chin Music Press, 2010 Just in time for Father’s Day, Home, Away is the tale of the sacrifices we make for our children. In the case, it’s a multi-million dollar contract that pitcher Jason Thibodeuax is giving up to raise his wayward son, Rafe, the product of the first romantic encounter the […]
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Got a few extra mil you’re not doing anything with? Why not buy the Field of Dreams? Cheap at twice the price. Here’s another spin on the situation from Sportressofblogitude.
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There’s something supernatural about a review of a book that hasn’t been published yet, but it doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from opining on Stephen King’s upcoming baseball novella, Blockade Billy. From Publishers Weekly: A quirky baseball player with a past shrouded in secrecy is the tragic hero of this macabre tale from the […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
In my most recent "day job," I was the sports and features editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper, where I hosted another blog. Busy, busy, busy.
I did a profile piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
My article on the later biographies of Babe Ruth appears in
My article on the Mets’ 1969 postseason appears in
Profiles of several Jewish baseball figures appear in
