Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
Posts tagged as:
First it was the endless chatter about The Yankee Years. Seems the media just couldn’t keep their yaps shut about how Joe Torre dissed his players and bosses, blowing totally out of proportion thefew entries that actually addressed said topics. Well, brace yourselves, boys and girls. It’s about to happen again. When the news first […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The line comes from an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. Go look it up. But I’ll tell you it refers to ganging up on someone unmercifully. Not that I have any sympathy for Roger Clemens, but jeez, guys, enough already. How many ways can you say “ham and eggs?” (Sorry, Rabbi.) Jeff Perlman’s book on Clemens […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
In today’s NY Times, Joshua Robinson has a little piece, “Piazza Leaves Quickly, and Quietly, After Ceremony.” He writes about the ceremonial first pitch battery of Tom Seaver and the former Mets catcher. While Tom Terrific hung out afterwards to shmooze, Piazza, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen. Escorted by security, he went from the […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality, by Jeff Pearlman. Harper, 2009. Over the last several years, almost every baseball fan — and a lot of non-fans as well — have felt a sense of betrayal. Their heroes have feet of clay; the emperor has no clothes. What makes the situation all the more […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Some people don’t know when to shut up. A-Rod, for example. Doesn’t he have enough people mad at him without this self-serving piece in Details magazine? “Listen,” Rodriguez says. “I was thinking about one thing that I spoke about—it’s something that’s kind of trivial but will give me a hard time for no reason.” He […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The cover of SI shows Albert Pujols flexing his muscles and asking baseball fans to believe in him. Sports pundits on shows such as Pardon the Interruption make no bones about saying they;re having a difficult time believing anyone these days, that it’s become a matter of guilty until proven innocent. But with drugs evoling […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Until I get the Roberts’ book, I’m not going to spend a lot of time deconstructing the Rodriguez debacle. But since I enjoy finding baseball-related items from non-baseball sources, here are two pieces from The New York Times: “As Data Collecting Grows, Privacy Erodes,” Noam Cohen’s “Link-by-Link” column in Monday’s Business section. “The way Mr. […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
“In the early ’90s, the federal government came into pro wrestling and tried to put (WWE Chairman) Vince McMahon in prison for steroid use of wrestlers,” Ventura told NBC’s affiliate in Denver. “My question is: They’ve now determined 104 baseball players failed their steroid test in 2003 — 104. They indicted Vince McMahon, why aren’t […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Can you think of any better way for our elected officials in Washington to spend their time and our money these days on more hearings about baseball and PEDs? According to several articles, including this one from Newsday (Feb. 10): Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) plans to recommend to the head of the congressional committee that […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Yeah, I think it’s depressing news on top of what’s been a flurry of depressing items, when it comes to Major League Baseball. And if you’re a fan of Major League Baseball, I think it — it tarnishes an entire era, to some degree. And it’s unfortunate, because I think there are a lot of […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
According to an AP story by Ronald Blum, Alex Rodriguez has admitted taking banned substances in 2003 and is very sorry. At least it was quick. You know it’s a big deal when the Huffington Post takes notice of a sports story, both in seriousness and in jest.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Or, “here’s another fine mess.” On a recent episode of PTI, Kornheiser and Wilbon were talking about the latest Barry Bonds situation (i.e., a judge saying evidence against him might be disallowed because of improper procedure) and wondering what that might mean for the slugger’s Hall of Fame chances. Of all of his contemporaries — […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Pardon the Interruption led of it’s Jan. 22 show with a report on Jay McGwire’s ratting out his brother Mark with his own tell-all book. Fortunately, that leads off the show, so you don’t have to watch the entire excerpt.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
According to Michael S. Schmidt’s article in today’s Sunday Times, “Contradictions in Book Seem to Benefit Clemens.” Basically it’s Radomski vs. Brain McNamee in claims about who knew what when. One paragraph sums up the whole situation, “In a perjury case a prosecutor’s worst nightmare is for a witness to make public statements that contradicts […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
There’s no better way than to give an undeserving, self-serving book publicity than to disparage it in the press. That’s what Sen. George Mitchell is doing, giving the former batboy/drug supplier some added buzz (I’m somewhat embarrassed I can even recall his name without looking it up). That’s how Jose Canseco got a whole bunch […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Kirk Radomski, one of the leading figures in the Mitchell hearings on PED and baseball, will publish a book on his role in the whole mess. Bases Loaded (Hudson Street Press, an imprint of Penguin Books) is due to hit the stores next week. According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times: The 256-page […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
What took so long? From The New York Times, this review of Back, Back, Back, an off-Broadway play about steroids in baseball. No even a walk-on part for Jose? After all, he was in that reality TV show. Upshot: Mr. [Itamar} Moses’ disappointingly drama-free drama does little more than skim the surface of the protracted […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
From our favorite baseball blog across the pond.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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
* Problems with the new Clemens bio? Here we go again?
March 13, 2009
This item from The New York Times casts another shadow over a new book. In The Rocket Who Fell to Earth, Jeff Pearlman’s new biography on Roger Clemens, the author reports an account offered by an unnamed Yankee episode in which Brian Cashman purportedly took Jason Giambi to task for poor performance by shouting at […]
Tagged as: Brian Cashman, Jason Giambi, Jeff Pearlman, PED, Roger Clemens, steroids
{ Comments on this entry are closed }