Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
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The “poet laureate”/PA announcer for the Red Sox was the guest for the “Not My Job” segment of last week’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, which was broadcast from the Wang Theater in the City Performing Arts Center in Boston. You can read the transcript or listen to Flavin — along with host Peter Sagal, […]
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The next Moneyball? * A few “inside baseball (business)” pieces coming up: In Pursuit of Pennants: Baseball Operations from Deadball to Moneyball by long-time SABR members Mark Armour and Daniel Leviit. John Pessah adds to this sub-genre with The Game: Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball’s Power Brokers. Lonnie Wheeler’s Intangiball: The Subtle […]
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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… Here are the top ten baseball books as […]
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This year marks the 10th anniversary of the debut of one of my favorite TV shows of all time: Lost. The iconic program earned extra credit for me by including baseball in its canon: And here: Happy anniversary, Lost! Update: It appears, once again, my math is off. I was basing this entry on a […]
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All right, so it’s not exactly weekly. So sue me. Congratulations to Patrick M. of Mexico City, winner of Francona: The Red Sox Years. Next up for grabs: Philadelphia’s Top 50 Baseball Players, by Rich Westcott. A reminder of the new rules: This is now a random pick. I didn’t think it was fair for […]
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Made one of my occasional visits to Amazon for the purpose of seeing what new and exciting baseball titles or coming in the next several months. Here’s a sampling of some, excluding, as usual — although with one major exception — books for younger readers. In nor particular order… * Baseball Explained. Phillip Mahoney, McFarland, […]
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In my copious spare time, I like to unwind by playing the ukulele. I’m always looking for on-line sources of music, preferring the tunes from the early 1900s and jazz classics. I’m also a Tom Lehrer fan. So it was with a degree of amusement that I found this piece on one of my go-to […]
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This it the time of year when the baseball media offer their considered opinions on their favorite prospects. Sometimes they’re spot on, other times, not so much. So I thought, why not apply this to the upcoming “rookie crop” of baseball books? That is, titles that are making their debuts in 2014 — no reprints/reissues […]
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by Robert B. Parker, 1975, Houghton Mifflin. I loved the TV series Spenser for Hire, based on Parker’s crime novels. Then I started reading the books and I became addicted. But not in the way you’re addicted to delicious potato chips or similar things that start out as enjoyable until one day you discover you’re […]
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Yes, if you subscribe for an eight-week subscription to the digital version of the paper, you can receive a copy of For Boston: From Worst to First, the Improbable Dream Season of the 2013 Red Sox . After the introductory period, the price bumps up to $3.99/week. You cancel at any time but you have […]
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Or, in the case, the podcast did. Both of these items relate to the recent World Series. An offshoot of the “National Pastime Radio” tag, this was heard in the “Who’s Carl This Time” segment of on the Nov. 2 episode of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me: PETER SAGAL: All right, Gary, here is your […]
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Well, that was relatively easy. The Boston Red Sox are your new World Series Champions! As a newspaper buff, I always like to see how the local press covers such high-profile sports events. Frequently, tabloid publications employ “wraps,” using the entire front and back page for one large photo, like these from the Boston Herald. […]
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XX Because this is an ongoing concern and I can’t be bothered to remember how many of these I’ve done before. You know how many baseball “experts” picked a World Series in which the Boston Red Sox faced the St. Louis Cardinals? According to PunditTracker, zero. Where do I apply for a job in the […]
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In The Baseball Uncyclopedia: A Highly Opinionated, Myth-Busting Guide to the Great American Game, authors Michael Kun and Howard Bloom write about the state of baseball literature.According to their calculations, there are: Books about the Yankees. Books about the Red Sox. Books about the Yankees and the Redd Sox. Books about players who played for […]
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Took a perfect game into the ninth inning, but lost it with one out. Retired 22 questions in a row before erring on the next to last one in this (Boston-based) Christian Science Monitor quiz about the Red Sox.
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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 Sandy Koufax in the 1965 World Series appears in
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
Because I’ll never miss an opportunity to bash FOX sports
November 1, 2013
I’m grateful for this piece in today’s New York Times by Richard Sandomir critiquing the network’s handling of the last game of the World Series. A main point is the use made popular in the last few years of the baseball version of the “sideline reporter,” only much less serious. In football, a SR will […]
Tagged as: Boston Red Sox, Fox Sports, New York Times. Erin Andrews, Richard Sandomir
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