Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf
Our motto: “If it can fit on a bookshelf, it fits here.”
Ron Kaplan by Arnold Roth
In my "day job," I'm the features and sports editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper. I'm also the editor of the Bibliography Committee Newsletter for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).
I did a piece on the award-winning cartoonist and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.
What I’m reading
What I'm reading now:
Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
What I just read:
Paul McCarthey: A Life:, by Peter Ames Carlin
Grade: B. Pleasant enough; no sensational material. McCartney could be a right bastard at times, but aren't we all?
What's next:
L'Époque Glorieuse des Expos, by Alain Usereau
Book contributions
My article on the later biographies of Babe Ruth appears in
My article on the Mets' 1969 post-season appears in
Statistical Theory
The Bookshelf is now a proud sponsor
of the Lou Limmer Page on Baseball-Reference.com.
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I noticed that you made passing reference to my book, “Bleeding Red: A Red Sox Fan’s Diary of the 2004 Season” in a post on “Blooks” and thought I’d share how it came into being in that way — it was never, in fact, intended to be a blook, or even part of a blog, though I always conceived of it as a book. I am a history professor who is mad about baseball, and for years I had been intending to keep a diary, a sort of fan’s memoir, of a Red Sox season in the hoped of understanding what it means to be a fan, why it means so much, and to chronicle the day-to-day, up-and-down nature of loyal fanhood in a long baseball season.
I also write a blog, dcat, (http://dcatblog.blogspot.com) about politics, history, sports, and so forth. (I am also the writer and blogger on African issues for the Foreign Policy Association — http://southafrica.foreignpolicyblogs.com/) In the spring of 2004, after I had been keeping the diary for a few months (I wrote the first entries in February after beginning a fellowship at UVA’s Virginia Foundation for the Humanities where I was working on my “real” book but had more time and sdpace to write and think) I posted one of my entries on Pedro Martinez’s historical greatness at dcat. It engendered a lot of conversation and another blogger saw that post and asked if I would post all of my entries that way — having an audience proved good for the project.
As the year started coming to a close, I began looking for publishers. Alas, I was preempted by books by Stephen King/Stewart Onan and Bill Simmons, so big publishers steered clear. I found a small academic publisher in DC that also has a trade imprint, and they accepted my book and published it in 2005. Sometime after the book was entered into a blog-derived book competition — the blloks you mentioned — though I had never heard of the concept before.
My book has been very well reviewed, albeit not reviewed as often as I would have liked! But the “blook” aspect of it was incidental, truth be told, and I still would never consider it to be a “blook” despite the fact that a lot of the individual entires did appear on a blog at someone else’s behest.
Cheers –
Derek Catsam
Ron,
As an avid reader of baseball books, I was thrilled to come across your blog. Keep up the good work and I look forward to checking back in to see what baseball books I should purchase next!
–Bullpen Brian–
Ron Hi,
Thought you might be interested in:
http://www.dovabramson.com/field_of_life
Thanks for the mention, Ron. For the record, Scott and I are not Mordecai Brown’s grandchildren. He never had any children, therefore, no grandchildren. My grandfather was Mordecai’s first cousin.
A minor point. Thanks again, and I invite your readers to visit: http://www.threefinger.com
Cindy
RK: Seems I was misinformed. My apologies for any confusion.
Great site. Love it. Check out some of these really awesome baseball books.
The End of Baseball
The Legend of Mickey Tussler
The Entitled
Once Upon a Fastball
Ron, I read many years ago about Phil Linz hitting a foul ball in the stands and it hit his own Mother. I would like to have confirmation of this, if possible. Thanks, Tom.
Ron, wonderful site… always a pleasure to visit.
We just published a bilingual children’s baseball book that tells the story of the first foreign team to win the Little League Championship Series, a team from Monterrey Mexico back in 1957. The pitcher, Angel Macias, threw a perfect game during that championship game. It’s intriguing that this year’s Mexican team pitcher in the Little League playoffs also through a perfect game.
The picture book is also based “The Perfect Game” novel which was also recently released. The movie of the same name is scheduled to be released soon by Lionsgate.
Here’s a link to the book’s website with more info: http://www.MiracleOfMonterrey.com. We’ll have more content on it soon including photos of the original team, etc.
Keep up the great work!
Art
Good Morning Ron,
I read your mention of Dell Bethel…Thank you. Dell was a good friend of mine.
My first experience with Dell was in 1959-60 as my PE teacher and 8th grade basketball coach in Sunnyside Washington. Our basketball team was undefeated – we were in better condition than the high school team. At the end of that season with Dell Bethel, I believed that I could accomplish anything I wanted to. Our PE class was featured in the national magazine, Strength and Health in 1960 or 1961. (Speaking of national acclaim, in 1962-63, my wife’s high school journalism class won a national honor when they interviewed JFK – Dell was the advisor to that class) Dell blew the doors open to conditioning junior high school students. He took conditioning to a level our community thought achievable only by Olympic athletes and the elite forces of the military. My friend Mike Wolfe climbed “the rope” in a time equal to the national record. When I spoke with Dell last year, he asked about Mike and recalled his achievement. Five years ago while training for a triathlon I hit a curb and was thrown onto a gravel berm. The results were a scrape on the heel of my right hand and a small scrape on my right shoulder blade instead of the expected torn flesh and lacerations. Why? My automatic response was the “Ranger Roll” I learned in 8th grade PE from Dell. It has saved me injury on many occasions.
In 1961, I was 14-15 years old. I sat on the bench with the Lower Yakima Valley American Legion team coached by Dell. It was on this team that Mel Stottlemeyer began his climb into the Major Leagues, and 4 other team members eventually achieved some sort of professional baseball status. The next year, Dell was my high school baseball coach at Sunnyside, Washington for the next 3 years. He made an opportunity available to me, as he did for many of his young protégés, when he had the Yankee scout, Eddie Taylor contact me. It was the highlight of my baseball career.
When my son was attending Sunnyside High School, I contacted Dell and he came to Sunnyside from Ohio to put on a baseball clinic. He sent a list of requirements that rattled the brains of the local baseball association that was to sponsor Dell’s Clinic. We had official Major League baseballs, video cameras, multiple fields, golf carts and the list goes on. Several ex-professional ball players and a host of his baseball alumni were on hand to assist with instruction. Some of the professionals played for Dell on that Legion team and others knew of him and wanted to be a part of Dell’s contribution to igniting the flame of excitement in our young aspiring players. The participants traveled from a hundred mile radius. At the conclusion of the clinic, I was exhausted – Dell had given his usual 110% and – showing a bit of wear and tear from the two-day marathon – was headed for the showers when he was turned around to oblige an infield full of eager students with shots from a fungo wrapped with rubber bands and then followed by a nite-capper of his infamous “Burma Road”. At the 7:00 PM conclusion, the kids were tired and Dell was looking forward to next year’s clinic. My son went on to play for Pacific Lutheran University and, once again, Dell lined up a number of tryouts for him with several major league scouts.
Years later I visited Dell and his wife, Polly, at their home in North Ridgeville OH. Their hospitality was unparalleled and Dell gave me a royal tour of Jacobson Field with introductions and photos with many of the players – including, then manager, Mike Hargrove. The photos hang prominently in our dental office today.
In later years, Dell was mentoring my Grandsons through our telephone conversations and inspiring the thrill of baseball to them. Three generations…it is difficult to imagine that it all started 48 years ago in Sunnyside. The stories I have of Dell, his determination, generosity, graciousness, and inspiration far exceed the format for which this comment section is intended. Dell Bethel is a Hall of Fame personality for baseball…he emulated the Spirit a game and the quality of character that we would like to associate with being a great American.
Respectfully,
Jim Stevens
Your work makes enjoyable reading. What do you think about the so-called decline in the number of people who read–do you think that applies to the reading of baseball books? I get the impression that baseball publishing remains about the same as it has in the last ten years or so. I’d like to say so in my next book, but I’d love your opinion first. I’ll acknowledge you, of course. My next book, for McFarland, bears the working title Pursuing Baseball: Our National Obsession with Our National Game, and is due to be published in 2010. I hope you’ll review it. By the way, you may not be able to open my web sites; SABR has just taken them over and hasn’t informed me yet that they’re up.
Great job, terrific site!!
Ron,
Great site. I came across it while researching Charlie Ebbets. You might be interested in “Uncle Sam’s League,” my new blog about baseball during World War I. Lots of items on Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Hank Gowdy and many others, plus some nice feature pieces from overseas — imagine the French watching their first ballgame!
Best,
jrl
Seems very slow going for the baseball book industry so far this spring. Will there be fewer titles?
It’s Frank Deford, not Dan
Right you are. Thanks for the catch.
Ron,
Here are a few more articles and reviews about my book “Chasing Moonlight: The True Story of Field of Dreams’ Doc Graham.”
http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=324213
http://www.thestate.com/gogamecocks/story/761649.html
http://artandliterature.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/sportswriter-brett-friedlander-discusses-the-true-story-of-field-of-dreams-doc-graham/
If you’re a baseball fan, love the movie Field of Dreams or are just a sucker for feel-good stories about genuinely good people, you’re definitely going to want to read this one. You can get it at any major book chain or on amazon.com.
Dear Ron:
Thanks so much for mentioning my book, “Root for the Cubs: Charlie Root and the 1929 Chicago Cubs.”
Root won 201 games, the most of any pitcher for the Cubs. But he was haunted by just one pitch, Babe Ruth’s “called shot” in the 1932 World Series.
Daughter Della, 90, tells a “baseball love story” full of her humor, emotion and never-reported details of life with Charlie, including how he opened the 1929 season believing that his career was over.
The web site has a rare film of Root warming up before the 1929 Series, and a number of news and reviews.
Thanks again for the mention.
Roger Snell
Author
Ron,
Several other books about the Mets miracle that were published at the time:
Amazing by Joe Durso
Joy in Mudville by George Vecsey
The Amazin Mets by Jerry Mitchell
Last to First by Larry Fox
Cleon by Cleon Jones
Harvey Poris
You are correct (although I believe Durso’s book came out a few years earlier). But I was referring only to books about the ‘69 Mets that I actually own. There was also a book about Jones and Agee; I believe it was titled The Mets from Mobile.
Ron,
The Durso book was released in 1970, as was the Mets from Mobile by A.S. “Doc” Young.
Harvey Poris
Anyone know anything about the book, My Brother Morris Berg: The Real Moe? I have the copy presented to Miss Ethel Berg by the New York Public Library on June 15, 1973. I understand that these special presentation books are extremely rare. Can anyone give some idea what this book is worth and help me find a good home for it. Glen
Wow. That’s a real coup. Been looking to read that one myself, but have no idea what it’s worth. Good luck.