Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
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Looking over the overlooked in baseball book news: Tidewater Tides manager Ron Johnson gets a nice profile based on his inclusion in John Feinstein’s Where Nobody Knows Your Name, by John Feinstein. Speaking of which, the Roanoke Times posted this review of the book. Speaking of reviews, Philly.com posted this one on Jackie and Campy, […]
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Lou Gehrig. Jackie Robinson. Two of the game’s most iconic players, celebrated for their courage under extreme conditions. Both the subjects of outstanding biographies by Jonathan Eig, and both of which appear in 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die Eig has worked as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Chicago magazine, […]
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All of these came in this week from my “alma mater,” the University of Nebraska Press. So many books, so little time.
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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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(A Baseball Bookshelf encore with revisions.) Small wonder in that they had a lot to do with Jackie Robinson. Robinson’s teammate, Don Newcombe, recalled a meeting between the two iconic figures for a piece in Time Magazine in 2007: Do you know what Jackie’s impact was? Well, let Martin Luther King tell you. In 1968, […]
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Steve Rushin was a guest on Milwaukee’s WUWM to discuss his new book, The 34-Ton Bat: The Story of Baseball as Told Through Bobble Heads, Cracker Jacks, Jock Straps, Eye Black, and 375 Other Strange and Unforgettable Objects. You can read about and listen to his appearance here. Missed this one from Nov. 29: On […]
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Dan Gilbert, author of Expanding the Strike Zone: Baseball in the Age of Free Agency, will be the featured speaker at the next Varsity Letters event hosted by Gelf Magazine on Thursday, Oct. 10, at 7:30 p.m. at The Gallery at LPR, 158 Bleecker St. Gilbert, will be joined by Michael O’Keeffe, Teri Thompson, and […]
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Jackie Robinson on Life After Baseball, edited by Michael G. Long. Syracuse University Press, 2013. Some former athletes botch attempts to remain relevant after their playing days are over. They offer opinions that, while certainly their right to have and express, do little to offer insight (or interest) as to what kind of people they […]
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Born this date: 1916 – Bob Prince, announcer (d. 1985) We Had ‘Em All the Way: Bob Prince & His Pittsburgh Pirates Lest we forget: 2008 – Jules Tygiel, author (b. 1949) Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy Past Time: Baseball As History\ Extra Bases: Reflections on Jackie Robinson, Race, and Baseball History […]
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Unless one is supposed to be a superhero and the other a supervillain. “Following the release of the film, 42, baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s story comes to life once more, this time in comic book form.” The same publisher is also releasing a comic book about Alex Rodriguez.
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The critics seem to fall into two main camps: movie critics with no special knowledge about baseball, who based their comments solely on the production values and storytelling and those baseball nerds with lots of knowledge about the topic who were mostly interested in the attention to detail, some to a most picayune level. Let’s […]
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There’s a line in the new biopic, 42, in which Pee Wee Reese tells his new teammate Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to break the (modern) color line, “Maybe tomorrow we’ll all wear 42. That way they won’t tell us apart.” That tomorrow is today. Today Major League Baseball holds its annual Jackie Robinson Day. […]
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All right, let’s get this out of the way. I haven’t seen the movie yet, and will be writing my own review, but I think I’ve heard enough and read enough to spout off. Since this is a biopic “based on a true story,” I had no qualms about listening to Slate’s Spoiler Special for […]
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Cautiously optimistic about the release of 42 this week. As reported in the Arts & Leisure section of last Sunday’s Times, it’s difficult to boil down the meaning of such an iconic figure in a 128-minute film. As such films are wont, it is “based on a true story.” The list of ballplayers and other […]
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Literary birthday greeting: 1949 – Jules Tygiel, author Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy Past Time: Baseball As History Jackie Robinson and His Legacy Extra Bases – Reflections on Jackie Robinson, Race, & Baseball History Also on this date: 1981 – The Chicago White Sox sign prized free agent catcher Carlton Fisk. The […]
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Several months ago I posted this about 42, the forthcoming biopic about Jackie Robinson. As we get closer to the scheduled April 12 release date expect to see more stories, like this one from SB Nation’s Beyond the Box Score and this from Baseball Musings. In the trailer, we see Christopher Meloni doing a pretty […]
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EW.com includes Chadwick Boseman, star of 42, the upcoming biopic about Jackie Robinson as one of the “13 to Watch in 2013.” From the item: Why He’ll Be Big: Not only does Boseman hold his own next to Harrison Ford in the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 (out April 12), he also has the acting chops […]
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Friday is the traditional movie review day in the press (anyone remember when there were two release days? Movies used to come out on Fridays and Wednesdays). Here’s the NY Times‘ assessment, by A.O. Scott. Upshot: The trouble with baseball movies like “Trouble With the Curve” is that they tempt reviewers to reach for hackneyed […]
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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
Roger Kahn for the Hall of Fame?
July 25, 2014
The author of this Huffington Post piece makes a compelling argument. Most latter-day fans of Kahn know him from his nostalgic look at The Boys of Summer, which — hard to believe — was published more than 40 years ago. But he was also a beat writer for those Brooklyn Dodgers, as well as a […]
Tagged as: Baseball Hall of Fame, Branch Rickey, Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson, Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer
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