Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
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As work on the new book about the Maccabiah Games becomes more urgent, I find I have less time to keep up with the latest baseball books news. Apologies. I guess the good part about the project is that it will be done before the time spring training — and the release of of new […]
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Among the other things I’ve neglected to post recently was the cornucopia of recent NPR programs featuring baseball, in one form or another. On All-Star Game Tuesday (July 15) Leonard Lopate interviewed Ken Griffey Sr., author of Big Red: Baseball, Fatherhood, and My Life in the Big Red Machine You can listen to that segment […]
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Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis, and the Quest to End Baseball’s Steroid Era, by Tim Elfrink and Gus Garcia-Roberts, is set to come out next Tuesday. Needless to say, it’s already getting some buzz. Unlike books by, say Joe Torre, Mariano Rivera, Mookie Wilson, or even Selena Roberts’ 2009 release, A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, there’s […]
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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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Or “Methinks he doth protest too much.” I feel sorry for a lot of today’s celebrities, especially athletes. After years of (self?) denial, Lance Armstrong admitted he used performance enhancing drugs. Ballplayer after ballplayer swears on a stack of bibles that he’s clean, only to have the evidence turn out to prove him “misstating.” The […]
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Just when you thought it was safe to return to the library comes the news — rather the Tweet — that Jose Canseco, author of Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big and Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball will give it another go with […]
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So if you had a copy of the list of 104 players who allegedly tested positive for steroids, you couldn’t use it.
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Image via Wikipedia With all the news that’s been rekindled about the PED scandal, what better time to return to those kinder gentler times when the drug of choice was cocaine. The Pittsburgh City Paper ran this review of The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven by Aaron Skirboll. Older fans can recall Tim Raines, then of the […]
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The Brian Lehrer Show ran this segment on Aug. 20 following the news of Roger Clemens’ indictment. The two guests on the show were Michael O’Keeffe of the New York Daily News, who collaborated on American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime, and William C. Rhoden of […]
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According to this Michael McCann story on the Sports Illustrated website. Clemens “was indicted Thursday on six counts of federal perjury, false statement and obstruction of Congress charges. While Clemens is undoubtedly worried about the prospect of a conviction and possible prison sentence — under Title 18 of the U.S. Code, a defendant convicted on […]
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And Ozzie, too, of course. Made a major faux pas, thanks to the evil Facebook, which notified me that Logan Miller, whose film Touching Home garnered major praise, was also celebrating a birthday today. What it didn’t mention (duh!) was that it was also his twin brother and collaborator, Noah’s, birthday as well. The management […]
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There’s been a lot of talk about what to do with the statistics from the Steroids Era. Some want them expunged from the record books. Others, like Tony Kornheiser, want a special note on any Hall of Fame plaque, bringing into account the possibility (probability?) that said honored player partook of PED. My take is: […]
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I don’t know what else there is to say about McGwire. Some, like Joe Posnanski (twice) and my literary hero, Tony Kornheiser, are more forgiving. Mr. Tony spoke about the “confessions of Mark McGwire” on both Pardon the Interruption and his eponymous radio program on ESPN 980 in DC. Others, like Ken Rosenthal, are much […]
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Several major outlets, including ESPN and Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch are running major announcements that Mark McGwire admits having used steroids “on occasion throughout the 1990’s,” including his record-breaking 1998 season. Surprisingly, the Post-Dispatch is using the Associated Press story rather than their own reporters. But it is […]
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According to a press release from the Gibson Law Firm, distributed by PR Newswire on Aug. 10: The publisher and authors of a book about steroid use in major league baseball were sued today by a Texas man who says they falsely claimed he was “pushing” steroids to professional athletes and using his gym as […]
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Last week, Charles McGrath had written about “The Red Sox Nation, Betrayed.” This week, In The Public Editor column in Sunday’s Week in Review section, Clark Hoyt seeks to explain how the Times did the correct thing in its reporting that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were part of the 2003 list of players that […]
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According to Bill James, those science fiction books we’ve read for generations about “building” superior humans is never far from he truth. In this blog entry by Dan Steinberg on The Sporting News website, James opines that “steroids serve the function of prolonging youth, that fighting aging and death has been one of civilization’s greatest […]
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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
* I double-dog dare you
January 24, 2010
Mark, I dare you to show yourself enough respect to offer the real story to your fans. I dare you to do what Canseco did to get this whole dog-and-pony show started in the first place and write your own book. Put down the truth. Put down YOUR truth, whatever it might be. Subject yourself […]
Tagged as: Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, PED, steroids
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