Ron Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf
If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.
Posts tagged as:
The actor who played the title role in the Dennis the Menace TV show (1959-1963), passed away yesterday at the age of 73. Here’s his obituary from The New York Times. The baseball connection? An episode from the third season featuring none other than Sandy Koufax in “Dennis and the Dodger.” Despite his reputation as […]
{ 0 comments }
My article, “Sandy in Minny: Honoring Him for That,” appears in the latest edition of SABR’s The National Pastime, which was devoted to baseball in the North Star State. Koufax, the Dodger’s Hall of Famer, famously declined to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the holiest […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
I was having coffee with Dave “No Relation” Kaplan yesterday. You may know him from as the former executive director of the Yogi Berra Museum and collaborator on several books with the late Hall of Famer. We were lamenting the passing of the stars from our younger days, such as Hank Aaron, Tom Seaver, […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
If they ever put this out in a miniature form, tell me where I can get one; it’s going straight on the bookshelf. As per the Los Angeles Times, “Legendary pitcher Sandy Koufax will get a statue at Dodger Stadium.” Wouldn’t be surprised if this shows up in the next edition of Josh Pahigian’s 101 […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
More appropriately, perhaps, a Tribute from Johnny Bench, who contributed this “Field Notes” piece on some of his experiences on the field via The Players Tribune site, a part of which is his essay on “The Greatest Play I Ever Made.” Surprisingly thoughtful. At last year’s All-Star Game, Bench — along with Willie Mays , Hank […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
… appears on Bookreporter.com.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
The actor Alan Young passed away at the age of 96 on Thursday. Baseball connection? Several of the Dodgers, including Sandy Koufax, John Roseboro, Willie Davis, and Moose Skowron appeared as themselves, as well as the voice of Vin Scully.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Dandy Sandy turns 80 today, if you can believe it. Back at the All-Star Game in July, Koufax was anointed — along with Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Johnny Bench — as one of baseball’s greatest living legends. The MLB Network aired a special moderated by Bob Costas featuring the quarter reminiscing and sharing anecdotes. […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
It might have been more timely if this had come out in an earlier issue, but John Rosengren, author of Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes, contributed “Heeding a Higher Calling: Jewish Players’ Observance of High Holy Days Shine Spotlight on Religious Holidays” for the current (winter) publication of Memories and Dreams, the magazine of […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
If he had just been a Jewish ballplayer, dayenu, it would have been enough. If he had just been arguably the best pitcher of his generation, dayenu. But when Sandy Koufax declined to take the mound for the first game of the 1965 World Series? More than enough. Fifty years later, Koufax’s decision to sit […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
There’s a cute little three-part video on Youtube titled “When Giants Fan Met Dodgers Fan.’” The premise is a blind date that starts off great, until the two participants realize they each hate the other’s favorite team. They spend the whole time arguing about the merits of their respective teams But here’s the pertinent clip […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Mickey Mantle. Sandy Koufax. Two heroic symbols of the Boomer generation. Two flawed figures, one of his own accord, one of poor luck. Jane Leavy has turned both of their stories into best-selling biograophies. So what does she do for an encore? Why not another icon, who wrestled with his own demons, although it didn’t […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
There are so many books coming from three publishers, I thought to give them a page of their own. McFarland gets high marks for taking on subjects and people that might otherwise go under the radar. That’s not to say that every book is fantastic, all due respects to the writers, but at least they […]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Any serious scholar of the game knows the work McFarland does in bringing eclectic material to the bookshelf. This fall’s line-up includes: A Calculus of Color: The Integration of Baseball’s American League, by Robert Kuhn McGregor Understanding Baseball: A Textbook, edited by Trey Strecker, et al The Negro Southern League: A Baseball History, 1920-1951, by […]
{ 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 Sandy Koufax in the 1965 World Series appears in
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
My (fantasy) Q&A with Sandy Koufax
January 28, 2018
“Who would be your fantasy interview?” I think I speak for a lot of Jewish fans when I say it would be Sandy Koufax. These are some of the questions I would ask, assuming he was bound to answer honestly and not just sit there sipping his wine. What was really behind the decision not […]
Tagged as: Sandy Koufax
{ Comments on this entry are closed }