Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf — If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here

No going back? (Baseball preseason predictions)

May 27, 2026 · 0 comments

Earlier this month I posted “Another reason why predictive baseball magazines can be useless.” But I had never see any outlet try to revise these things.

Today, The Athletic posted “MLB season predictions 2.0: How did the first two months impact our picks?”

Who could have known that the Mets would be so stinko? Many picked them to finish in first place in the NL East and move on to the playoffs but they are mired in last place with the second-worst record in the circuit. And this after a very good home stand. Yes, several of their opening day roster players are out with injuries including Franciscos Lindor and Alvarez, Luis Robert Jr., Kodai Senga, Clay Holmes, and others. Snakebit.

Several writers for the Athletic weigh in with their updates but for me, as a life-long Mets fan, their words are meaningless. “Impact?” What does that even mean?

What we really need are prophets and psychics.

Learn to be a psychic with these 7 tricks

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Lest We Forget: Sam Sianis

May 27, 2026 · 0 comments

Who?

A baseball-adjacent story about Sam Sianis, the nephew whose uncle owned a famous eatery in the Windy City. Sam passed away May 15 at the age of 91.

From The New York Times obit:

The Billy Goat had yet another claim to Chicago fame. Mr. Sianis’s uncle Billy bought the bar — which was originally across from Chicago Stadium (now United Center) and called the Lincoln Tavern — in 1934. After a goat wandered in the door, he renamed the bar the Billy Goat and adopted the animal as a pet.

The goat, called Murphy, became something of a celebrity himself. In 1945, the elder Mr. Sianis brought him to Game 4 of the World Series, between the Cubs and the Detroit Tigers, at Wrigley Field.

It began to rain. Murphy began to stink. The Cubs’ owner, Philip K. Wrigley, kicked them out.

As he was leaving, Billy Sianis put a curse on the team, vowing that it would never win a championship. When the Cubs lost the Series that year, he sent a note to Mr. Wrigley: “Now who stinks!”

“A goat wandered in the door?” Thought Chicago was a bit more sophisticated than that.

A Chicago Tavern: A Goat, a Curse, and the American Dream.: Kogan, Rick: 9781893121492: Amazon.com: Books

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Bookshelf Review: Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Individual

May 23, 2026 · 0 comments

By Tim Brown.

Appearing on Bookreporter.com:

Being able to watch videos of the baseball heroes of my youth from the 1960s and ’70s makes it hard for me to reconcile that they are now old men, and, by extension, so am I. Some, like 90-year-old Sandy Koufax, look like they still sneak one by the hitter. But unlike Koufax, who retired at the age of 30 because of arm troubles, Nolan Ryan lasted until he was almost AARP-eligible, retiring in 1993 at the age of 46.

The opening pages of Tim Brown’s biography bring to mind a bygone era in which young men were brought up to respect their elders, stand by their word, and do the best job they could without excuses. Rising early to deliver newspapers or tending to the livestock were a given for Ryan and his contemporaries growing up in Alvin, Texas.

The image of Ryan brings to mind the western movie genre. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, and spoke only when he felt it necessary. In other words, he was the prototypical Marlboro Man.

Ryan did what he did — pitched in the Major Leagues — longer and better than the vast majority of the thousands of men who played the game. Yes, he had some adversity. His early years with the New York Mets proved to be a disappointment, a country boy dealing with the big city, which wasn’t exactly to his taste. Whether he would have thrived as he did if he had not been traded, who can say? (Actually, Ryan could; he maintained that he never received adequate coaching while with the Mets). But thrive he did, with the California Angels and later his home-state Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.

Known for his amazing fastball, which earned him the nickname “The Ryan Express,” he won an amazing 324 games while striking out 5,714 batters, leading the league in that department 11 times. Yet for all his prowess, Ryan never led in wins or received the coveted Cy Young Award, given each year to the best pitcher. He also lost 256 games (which could be attributed to a lack of offensive support) and walked 2,795 batters (leading the way seven times), a testament to his tendency to be a bit wild.

As is the case in many of these types of sports biographies, Brown interviewed teammates and opponents to get a sense of Ryan not only as an all-time great hurler, but as a man. You find nothing but praise for his work ethic and dedication to his craft.

Brown — who also wrote The Tao of the Backup Catcher and collaborated on the autobiographies of Jim Abbott, a one-armed pitcher who threw a no-hitter while a member of the New York Yankees, and Rick Ankiel, another pitcher with control problems who became an outfielder — gives major attention to Ruth Ryan, Nolan’s childhood sweetheart whom he married when he was 20 and she was 18. Brown credits Ruth for her unwavering support on the homefront.

The cover of Nolan shows Ryan in his typical pitcher mode: left knee bent high, eyes down, as if he didn’t even need to see the batter to know the likely outcome: a strikeout. To borrow from the Frank Capra classic, it has been a singular life.

Tagged as: Nolan Ryan

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Baseball Best-Sellers, May 22, 2026

May 22, 2026 · 0 comments

Amazon keeps changing the way they report, so that will be mirrored here. Sometimes there will be rankings of Kindle and audio-books on baseball, other times, not.

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 the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one by including a book in a category in which it should not be listed (in my opinion). For example, The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect has appeared on Amazon’s BBS list. “Why” is a good question. There might be a smattering of the national pastime in it, but not enough to make it a baseball book per se (again, IMO).

Finally, adults only here. That is, no books for younger readers (i.e., 12 and under). Also no “adult” adult books (romance/erotic fiction that features baseball as a theme although goodness knows there are a bunch of those out there).

So, with all that said…

The links under the authors’ names will take you to the Bookshelf Conversations I had with them. An asterisk denotes a book making its debut on the BBS list. And a “Ω” means it’s an award winner, almost always in the print version.

PRINT

Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Original, by Tim Brown *
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis Ω
The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene (my Bookshelf review here)
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Joe Posnanski Ω
Ballparks: Baseball’s Stadiums – Home to America’s National Pastime
The Baseball 100, by Posnanski
Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas, by Jesse Cole
Unhittable: How Technology, Mavericks, and Innovators Engineered Baseball’s New Era of Pitching Dominance, by Rob Friedman
The Bosses of the Bronx: The Endless Drama of the Yankees Under the House of Steinbrenner, by Mike Vaccaro
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood

KINDLE

The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus
Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, by Keith O’Brien
It’s a Beautiful Day for Baseball: The National Pastime in the 1960s, by Doug Kurkul
Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and, “the Worst Baseball Team in History”—The 1973–1975 Texas Rangers, by Mike Shropshire
Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend, by Kal Waggenheim
Late Innings, by Roger Angell
Thurm: Memories of a Forever Yankee, by Thurman Munson with Marty Appel
Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played, by Jeff Fletcher

AUDIO BOOKS

Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton (narrated by the author)
The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, by H.A. Dorfman
Ninety Percent Mental: An All-Star Player Turned Mental Skills Coach Reveals the Hidden Game of Baseball, by Bob Tewksbury and Scott Miller (narrated by Tewksbury)
The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform – and Maybe the Best, by Jeff Pearlman (narrated by the author)
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City, by Jonathan Mahler
Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It, by Jane Leavy
Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, by Eric Nussbaum (my review of the print edition on Bookreporter.com)
Baseball, by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (narrated by Burns)
Summer of ’49, by David Halberstam

The new Nolan Ryan bio debuts in the top spot. Look for my review on Bookreporter.com later today.

The Wagenheim bio of Babe Ruth reminds me of the time I delivered a paper at Hofstra University’s centennial celebration of the Babe’s birth. It was the first time I ever presented and I remember feeling out of place, intimidated by all the scholars. My paper — “The Books on the Babe: The Later Biographies of George Herman Ruth” — appears in Baseball and the “Sultan of Swat”: Babe Ruth at 100, a collection of all the presentations from the event.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,975,639, in books overall; last time, 2,662,381. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,786,338 ; last time, 501,172. I wonder if Robert Hirsch’s new book, Playing Ball While Jewish: Silence and Prejudice in Major League Baseball, which debuts on the charts this week, has anything to do with that? (FYI, it would have ranked #12.)

Shameless self-promotion: if you’re looking for some good baseball reading during this down time, why not pick up a copy of 501? It’s like the dictionary; it has the other books in it, which reminds me of one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite shows.

BUT…

Some exciting news (now we’ll see who’s paying attention and reading down this far).

Necessity is the mother of invention. Thanks to emergency surgery in which I said goodbye to a recalcitrant gallbladder, I have a couple off months for recuperation during which time I will be working on a revision of 501.

The new version will include all the original stuff but as you know if you’re a baseball reading fool, there have been a lot of great books published since 501 came out a dozen years ago. So since this isn’t a ranking where one title might be pushed off the list, the new material will appear as an added chapter.

A reminder: There’s an Excel “checklist” of the books list in 501. If you’re interested in keeping track of how many you have read or own, drop me a line.

If you have read either of my books, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing an Amazon review; it’s never too late.

Tagged as: Babe Ruth

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Come for the exhibits, stay for the author talks

May 22, 2026 · 0 comments

The Hall of Fame is gearing up for its annual Author Series Program. I did this back in 2017 to discuss Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War and it was a hoot.

The schedule for this summer includes:

Saturday, June 6, 1 p.m. – We Sacrifice Everything to Baseball, by Michael Clair
MLB.com writer Michael Clair chronicles the underdog story of the Czech Republic’s amateur national team, which was composed of firefighters and teachers and other non-sports celebrities and achieved surprising success at the 2023 WBC.
Thursday, June 18, 1 p.m. – Before They Wore Dodger Blue, by Eric Vickrey
Eric Vickrey delves into the fascinating story of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ legendary 1968 draft class, regarded by some as the best in the history of the game. The book explores Tommy Lasorda’s role in developing the drafted players and the process by which the Dodgers’ scouting department identified players like Steve Garvey, Bill Buckner, Ron Cey, Davey Lopes and Bobby Valentine.
Thursday, June 25, 1 p.m. – My Big Red Machine, by Terence Moore
Acclaimed sportswriter Terence Moore explains how he went from following his sports heroes – the members of the Cincinnati Reds – as a youthful fan, to dealing with them up close and personal as a newspaper journalist.
Thursday, July 2, 1 p.m. – The New Baseball Bible, by Dan Schlossberg
Prolific baseball author and journalist Dan Schlossberg chronicles the short stories, the colorful tidbits and the amusing anecdotes that make baseball history so rich and vibrant.
Thursday, July 9, 1 p.m. – Bo Belinsky, by David Krell
David Krell tells the story of Bo Belinsky, one of the game’s most colorful and controversial characters. Belinsky earned the spotlight with a no-hitter for the Los Angeles Angels during his rookie season but then endured several detours to his career. Belinsky struggled with alcohol and drug abuse but found redemption in the 1990s when he moved to Las Vegas, embraced sobriety and found a satisfying new career.
Thursday, July 16, 1 p.m. – Chief: The Three Lives of Gene Locklear, by Jay Thomas and Gene Locklear
Dr. Jay Thomas explores the career and life of Gene Locklear, a skilled painter and the first Lumbee Indian to play major league baseball. The book chronicles Locklear’s rise from a log cabin in Pembroke, N.C., to the heights of both baseball and the art world.
Thursday, July 23, 1 p.m. – One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood and the Birth of the All-Star Game, by Scott D. Reich
Nationally acclaimed author and historian Scott Reich describes how the All-Star Game as we know it was born on a crisp September afternoon at Fenway Park in 1917 as the game’s greatest stars took the field in support of a colleague who had recently passed away.
Thursday, July 30, 1 p.m. – The Bosses of the Bronx, by Mike Vaccaro
New York Post award-winning columnist Mike Vaccaro details the story of the Steinbrenner family, covering the tragedy, the drama and the occasional comedy of the New York Yankees owners since their purchase of the franchise in 1973.
Thursday, Aug. 6, 1 p.m. – Unhittable: How Technology, Mavericks and Innovators Engineered Baseball’s New Era of Pitching Dominance, by Rob Friedman
Better known as the “Pitching Ninja,” Rob Friedman peels back the curtain on the transformation of pitching and how it has become a blend of biomechanics, science and old school grit.
Saturday, Aug. 8, 1 p.m. – The Finest in the Field: A History of Baseball Through 50 Iconic Gloves, by Ed Wheatley
Award-winning author Ed Wheatley tells the stories and examines the history behind 50 gloves belonging to famed major leaguers, including Roberto Clemente, Brooks Robinson, Ryne Sandberg and Ozzie Smith.
Thursday, Aug. 13, 1 p.m. – In the Japanese Ballpark: Behind the Scenes of Nippon Professional Baseball, by Rob Fitts
Rob Fitts explores the unique culture of Japanese baseball through interviews with players, managers, umpires and fans, revealing some of the shocking differences between baseball in Japan and the culture and expectations of Major League Baseball.
Thursday, Aug. 20, 1 p.m. – Out of the Mouth of Babe, by Kelly Bennett
Award-winning author Kelly Bennett explores the legacy of Babe Ruth through his words, historic photographs, and colorful short stories, helping to create a portrait of an American icon.
Saturday, Aug. 22, 1 p.m. – Cape Dreams: A Season with the Brewster Whitecaps, by Mark Epstein
Author Mark Epstein chronicles the 2024 season of the Brewster Whitecaps, a team in the famed Cape Cod League. The book offers an inside look at the players, coaches, volunteers, and host families, all exploring their dreams amidst the unique culture of summer baseball on Cape Cod.
Thursday, Aug. 27, 1 p.m. – Viva Valenzuela!, by Nathalie Alonzo and John Parra
Author Nathalie Alonso and artist John Parra celebrate the life of Fernando Valenzuela, who became a sensation as a rookie in 1981, emerging as a symbol of Mexican American pride and a hero to Latinos everywhere.

I have omitted the usual links to Amazon because you should take advantage of the events and buy the book at the Hall.

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Throwback Thursday: Holiday weekend

May 21, 2026 · 0 comments

A down-and-dirty post in honor of the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, from June 2016.

I’ve always gotten a chuckle when a non-professional cook comes out with a book on food. Are they really offering anything new besides their picture on the cover?

Case in point:

The sample available on Amazon offers just one recipe: Grand slam grilled grapes, which seems to be the only dish to use a baseball term. Most of the food seems pretty standard. The draw is no doubt having pictures of the Hall of Famer interspersed throughout the book. Easy for me to ignore since I’m a vegetarian.

Other variations on this theme include

Happy holidays, folks.

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Calling Collect

May 19, 2026 · 0 comments

Here are a few gems from recent Sports Collectors Daily alerts:

“Bobby Murcer: A Yankee Life in 7 Cards“
“Aaron Judge 1/1 Superfractor Sells for $838,750 — The Feel-Good Story Behind It” (I wonder: will these cards be worth anything when the zombie apocalypse comes?)
“Packed Dodgers Fan Photo Album at Auction Takes You Back to Brooklyn“
“2026 Bowman Baseball: Guide to Top Prospects and Rookies, Most Watched Auctions“
“Rare Honus Wagner Cards Lead Clean Sweep’s Champions Auction“

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From the Silver Screen to the Idiot Box

May 19, 2026 · 0 comments

Baseball: The Movie includes a chapter on what I call “baseball-adjacent” films. That is, movies that include baseball but don’t necessarily have the national pastime as the main subject. These include, according to author Noah Gittell, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; City Slickers; Twilight; Good Will Hunting; and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, among a few others.

So I thought it might be fun to dive down a rabbit hole for similar themes on TV shows. This list is by no means complete; I only have so much time before something else captures my attention (oh, look, a squirrel).

Please note: these are TV series that featured Major League players in an episode. None of them are actually about baseball, so no Pitch, Eastbound and Down, Brockmire, Bay City Blues, Ball Four, The Bad News Bears (yes, they tried to make a TV series out of it), or A League of Their Own (either the short-lived CBS series that aired shortly after the movie or the one that appeared on Amazon Prime), etc. Also no documentaries, such as The Captain or Charlie Hustle and the Matter of Pete Rose.

Not surprisingly, several shows — filmed in Hollywood — took advantage of the proximity of the Dodgers to have them as guest “stars.” Some of them are very clunky, as f the writers wanted to include the national pastime, but didn’t know much about the sport. And as for ther acting by the ballplayers? Well, let’s just say, don’t give up your day (and night) jobs.

Dennis the Menace / Sandy Koufax

The Brady Bunch / Don Drysdale

Mr. Ed / Koufax, Leo Durocher, Willie Davis, Johnny Roseboro, and Moose Skowron

Dragnet / Roseboro

The Munsters / Durocher

Gilligan’s Island / Jim Lefebvre and Al Ferrara

The Donna Reed Show /Willie Mays

Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire (members of the Baltimore Orioles)

Seinfeld (members of the New York Yankees and Keith Hernandez)

The X-Files, “The Unnatural”

Quantum Leap, “Play Ball”

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Take Me Out to the Holodeck,” among other episodes that include baseball references

M*A*S*H (Kilinger is often clad in a cap for the Toledo Mud Hens, although it looks more like a latter-day Texas Rangers hat. Ken Levine, author of It’s Gone!… No, Wait a Minute . .: Talking My Way into the Big Leagues at 40, served as a writer for several episodes.

Here’s a Wikipedia page on actual baseball-themed shows, including documentaries.

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Bits and Pieces, May 18, 2026

May 18, 2026 · 0 comments

The Wall Street Journal reviewed Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Original, by Tim Brown. Look for my piece on the book on Bookreporter.com later this week. LocalNewsPasadena ran this profile of Brown.

Wish I could be there for this one: Michael Schur and Joe Posnanski, authors of Big Fan: Two Friends, 82,490 Miles, and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love will appear at The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA, on Tuesday, May 19, the day the book officially drops.

WBUR posted this about the recent National Baseball Poetry Festival. Here’s my own Bookshelf Conversation with the Festival’s founder, Steven Biondolillo.

Lest We Forget: James Andrew Riley III, an expert on the history of baseball’s Negro Leagues and a former SABR Board President, died at the age of 86 on April 21. From the SABR website: “His landmark reference volume, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues, has been recognized as one of the most comprehensive works chronicling the segregated era of Black baseball. The book won a Macmillan-SABR Research Award, an honor Riley had previously received in 1990 for his work (with the late John Holway and Dick Clark) compiling Negro Leagues statistics for the eighth edition of Macmillan’s The Baseball Encyclopedia.” More from SABR here.

Lest We Forget: Another former member of the Braves, Buzz Capra, passed away May 11 at the age of 78. Capra led the NL in ERA in 1974, when he had his best year with a 16-8 record and an All-Star appearance. He began his career with the Mets in 1971. Overall, Capra had a record of 31-37 over seven seasons, out of the Majors by the age of 30. Here’s his obit from the NY Post.

Lest We Forget: Baseball “lifer” Bob Skinner, who enjoyed a 12-year playing career (1954-66) split between the Pirates, Reds, and Cardinals, died May 4 at the age of 94. He was a three-time All-Star and a member of World Series winners in 1960 and 1964, winding up with 103 home runs, 531 RBI, and a .277 bating average in 1,381 games. Skinner also served as manager of the Phillies for parts of two seasons (1968-69) for a combined record of 92-123. He later won the only game he managed for the San Diego Padres in 1977. Here a story on him from ESPN.com via the Associated Press.

Tagged as: Bob Skinner, Buzz Capra, Nolan Ryan

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Baseball Best-Sellers, May 15, 2026

May 15, 2026 · 0 comments

Amazon keeps changing the way they report, so that will be mirrored here. Sometimes there will be rankings of Kindle and audio-books on baseball, other times, not.

So, with all that said…

PRINT

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis Ω
The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene (my Bookshelf review here)
The Bosses of the Bronx: The Endless Drama of the Yankees Under the House of Steinbrenner, by Mike Vaccaro
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Joe Posnanski Ω
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas, by Jesse Cole
Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team, by A.M. Gittlitz
The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball, by John W. Miller. (My review on Bookreporter.com) Ω
The Ultimate Baseball Trivia Challenge, by Hank Patton
The Baseball 100, by Posnanski

KINDLE

The Physics of Baseball: Third Edition, by Robert Adair
Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, by George F. Will
The Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s: A Dynasty for the Ages, by Bill Brown
It’s a Beautiful Day for Baseball: The National Pastime in the 1960s, by Doug Kurkul
Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and, “the Worst Baseball Team in History”—The 1973–1975 Texas Rangers, by Mike Shropshire
Late Innings, by Roger Angell

AUDIO BOOKS

Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton (narrated by the author)
The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform – and Maybe the Best, by Jeff Pearlman (narrated by the author)
Wait Till Next Year, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America, by Howard Bryant
Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, by Eric Nussbaum (my review of the print edition on Bookreporter.com)
Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original, by Howard Bryant

Not much has changed over the past week. No new titles in a while.

Just finished listening to Kings and Pawns and was shocked by the revelations that — according to Howard Bryant, whose Rickey Henderson bio is also in the top ten audio titles — Branch Rickey was much less the saint than we have been led to believe in this story. Also the dealings of Robeson and Robinson with the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) is quite reminiscent of what we see these days, with all the animosity and hard feelings between witnesses and committee members.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,662,381, in books overall; last time, 2,299,452. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 501,172; last time, 3,484,272. I wonder if Robert Hirsch’s new book, Playing Ball While Jewish: Silence and Prejudice in Major League Baseball, which debuts on the charts this week, has anything to do with that? (FYI, it would have ranked #12.)

BUT…

Some exciting news (now we’ll see who’s paying attention and reading down this far).

A reminder: There’s an Excel “checklist” of the books list in 501. If you’re interested in keeping track of how many you have read or own, drop me a line.

If you have read either of my books, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing an Amazon review; it’s never too late.

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Throwback Thursday: Quiz Time, Revisited

May 14, 2026 · 0 comments

A relatively recent throwback.

Last week I asked the question…

What is this?

Joe DiMaggio
Campanella
Brooklyn’s got a winning team
Mickey Mantle
California baseball

No one got the right answer which is:

These baseball references are in the lyrics to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” (You might even want to include “Marilyn Monroe,” since she was married to DiMaggio for a brief time.

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Bits and Pieces, May 13, 2026

May 13, 2026 · 0 comments

“New Book … Brings St. Louis Baseball History Back to Life.” Said book is titled 50 Forgotten Cardinals and “uncovers the stories of players whose contributions to the St. Louis Cardinals have faded from mainstream memory—but remain essential to the rich fabric of the team’s history,” according to a press release. It seems to only be available in Kindle form.

From MLB.com, this video: “Dusty Baker discusses his new book, Crossroads, with Brian Kenny.

I love it when authors use baseball cards to tell their stories. This one is Whiz Kids to Today: Baseball Card History of the Fightin Phils, by Arthur Greenburg.

This article from Sports Illustrated — “The 10 Worst Contracts in Baseball Right Now” — could easily be turned into a book, covering that topic through the free agency decades.

It didn’t take long for someone to try to capitalize on the recent passing of legendary Yankees announcer John Sterling: IT IS HIGH, IT IS FAR, IT IS GONE! John Sterling, the Yankees and An Era Like No Other.

If you are a subscriber to Defector.com, “You Are Hereby Invited To Join The Universal Baseball Association” (or a least an online discussion) as part of the “Defector Reads a Book” series. As the novel was originally published 1968, I wonder about the “audience” for the book: Are they closer to my age, perhaps re-reading the classic? Or are they younger folk who might have a whole different take on the book’s themes? Back then, the idea of fantasy baseball was pretty much limited to “table top” simulations such as Strat-O-Matic, a way different experience from today’s players.

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Lest We Forget: Ted Turner and Bobby Cox

2009 title

Two legends in Atlanta Braves history have passed away within days of each other. Ted Turner, the irascible former owner of the team from 1976-2007, died May 6 at the age of 87. In addition to owning the team, Turner founded CNN and started the superstation TBS. (A personal note: when I was in grad […]

Tagged as: Bobby Cox, Ted Turner

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Pop Quiz: When I say ____, what do you think of?

"Oddballs"

What is this? Joe DiMaggio Campanella Brooklyn’s got a winning team Mickey Mantle California baseball First one to get it right wins an autographed copy of 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die.

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Baseball Best-Sellers, May 8, 2026

"Bookshelf Conversations"

Amazon keeps changing the way they report, so that will be mirrored here. Sometimes there will be rankings of Kindle and audio-books on baseball, other times, not. 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 […]

Read the full article →

Throwback Thursday: Bartolo goes yard

2020 title

A day late. Oopsie. If I had been on time, it would have marked the tenth anniversary of “one of the greatest moments in the history of baseball,” according to Mets announcer Gary Cohen. Colon published his memoirs, Big Sexy: In His Own Words, in 2020, two years after he retired at the age of 45. […]

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Another reason why predictive baseball magazines can be useless

Magazines

It looks like Tigers ace Tarik Skubal will be out for a significant portion of the season. This kind of renders the pre-season prognostications moot and is especially true when considering print publications. Skubal, along with the Pirates’ Paul Skenes, was the subject of a feature article in Athlon (“Pair of Aces: Tarik […]

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Lest We Forget: John Sterling

Broadcasting

The long-time voice of the New York Yankees died today (May 4) at the age of 87. Sterling was famous for his home run calls — “It is high. It is far. It is…gone!” — along with pet names and phrases he employed such as, “All rise. Here comes the Judge.” Here’s his obituary by […]

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Baseball Best-Sellers, May 1, 2026

2025 title

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Throwback Thursday: Baseball Best-Sellers, April 29, 2016

2016 title

So these are the titles of print editions that made the BBS list just about ten years ago. In those days, I did not regularly include Kindle editions or audiobooks You will notice two books that are still favorites today: Moneyball and The Science of Hitting. I guess these would constitute “classics,” having stood the test of […]

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