Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
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A blog for news, reviews, previews, and interviews about baseball lit and other items of pop culture interest. Bringing news about baseball publications and other media to a discerning audience.
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
2d ago
Wow, it’s been a rough few days. First Fritz Peterson, now a trio of notables, for different reasons. Carl Erskine, the last of “the boys of summer,” died Tuesday at the age of 97. “Oisk” was a mainstay of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ rotation, going 20-6 in 1953. Surprisingly, he was only named to the All-Star ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
4d ago
I’ve may have mentioned a project I’m working on: collecting obituaries of ballplayers that have appeared in The New York Times with the notion of how a player is identified in the opening lines. Here’s what Bruce Weber had to say in today’s edition, which had a “refer” on the front page. Fritz Peterson, who ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
6d ago
A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (see my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks“). In addition, occasionally ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
1w ago
♦ As we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Hank Aaron’s breaking the all-time home run record, I’m kind of surprised he hadn’t already had a stamp issued in his honor. ♦ Emily Nemens, author of The Cactus League: A Novel, wrote “On the All-But-Invisible Role of Interpreters, in Literature and in Baseball” for Lithub.com. I ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
1w ago
I look at the ages of these guys on Baseball-Reference and they’re all in their 70s and 80s now. Where has the time gone? Jerry Grote, the backbone behind the plate for the Miracle Mets, passed away Sunday at the age of 81. Here’s his obituary by Richard Goldstein in The New York Times. Still ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
1w ago
Happy Opening Day (Week), everybody! A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (see my piece on “Why Amazon’s search ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
2w ago
♦ As mentioned in a previous post, the period around opening day is full of reading suggestions for greater and lesser fans of the game. Here’s one from the Chicago Tribune citing the baseball works of Brashler, Plimpton, and Updike (sorry, paywall). ♦ Here’s another: The Economist published “Six Great Books About Baseball,” which includes ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
2w ago
A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes (see my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks“). In addition, occasionally ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
3w ago
Finally, a decent trivia quiz, courtesy of George F. Will in the Washington Post. I would love to see a whole book by Will mixing history with trivia, but somehow I think it might be beneath him. ..read more
Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
3w ago
More stats. From BaseballProspectus.com: Introducing StuffPro and PitchPro For as complex as pitching is, it’s also surprisingly simple: Throw good pitches, get good results. But what defines a good pitch? Velocity, movement, location, and other variables all play roles, but condensing their impacts into a single number is difficult. Historically, teams have used a combination ..read more