Happy to be among those who have been invited to speak at the eclectic Clubhouse in Manhattan.


I will be at the Clubhouse on Thursday, May 9, at 7 p.m.

My learned colleagues include:

• Ira Berkow, Summers at Shea: Tom Seaver Loses His Overcoat and Other Mets Stories, Thursday, March 14
• Matthew Silverman, Swinging '73: Baseball's Wildest Season, Thursday, April 4
• Jim Kaplan, The Greatest Game Ever Pitched: Juan Marichal, Warren Spahn, and the Pitching Duel of the Century, Thursday, April 11
• John Rosengren and Aviva Kempner, Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes and The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, respectively, Thursday, April 25
• Phil Pepe, Core Four: The Heart and Soul of the Yankees Dynasty, Wednesday, May 1
• Doug Wilson, The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych, Thursday, March 16
• Peter Ephross, Jewish Major Leaguers in Their Own Words: Oral Histories of 23 Players, Thursday, June 6
• Kevin Neary, Closer: Major League Players Reveal the Inside Pitch on Saving the Game, Wednesday, June 19
• Greg Prince, The Happiest Recap: First Base (1962-1973): 50 Years of the New York Mets As Told in 500 Amazin' Wins (Volume 1), Wednesday, June 26

All times are 7 p.m.

In addition, The Clubhouse will host a Spring Art Party featuring "The Baseball Paintings of Lou Grant," which I will assume is not Mary Tyler Moore's boss.

For more information, visit Bergino.com or call 212-226-7150.

Lest we forget: Ozzie Sweet

And so am I. Jury duty and still trying to get my day job done is taking up my blogging time, much to my (and I hope, to a degree) your dismay.

But I wanted to pay tribute to one of my favorite sports photographers, Ozzie Sweet, who passed away Wednesday at the age of 94. Sweet had several collections of his work published, notably 

• Mickey Mantle: The Yankee Years: The Classic Photography of Ozzie Sweet
•  Legends of the Field: The Classic Sports Photography of Ozzie Sweet
• The Boys of Spring  

 Both the Mantle and Boys of Spring titles are included in my 501 Baseball Books book.
Bruce Weber wrote the obituary, which appears in today's NY Times. There's also a slide show on the Times' website. And here's a profile of Sweet from Coastal Homes about three years back.  

A happy moment

"The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades..."

Returned from jury duty today to find a box of 501's waiting for me. Couldn't even wait from my lenses to adjust to the change in light.

The first (real) review

Comes from the Feb. 15 issue of Library Journal, which I hope will be a good sign when it comes time for libraries to place their orders.

The excerpt, as posted to my Amazon author page:

Sportswriter and blogger Kaplan's first book is a fun and useful guide for finding arguably the best baseball books among the mounds of titles relating to this book-inspiring sport. . . . The author's well-informed and well-written comments are compelling enough to make this either a worthwhile light read or a handy reference for all readers of baseball literature.

With due respect, I am not about to subscribe to every source that posts a review. That's gonna get real expensive real quick. so when I get the full review, assuming it's substantially more than the above, I'll post that as well.

In the meantime...Whee!

"501" Q&A: Rob Fleder -- UPDATE

The latest author Q&A for 501 Baseball Books is now up on the site: Rob Fleder, editor of Sports Illustrated: The Baseball Book, Great Baseball Writing - Sports Illustrated 1954-2004, and Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team.

UPDATE -- Through eternal vigilance, I have discovered a way to include the audio within these blog entries. So henceforth you will be able to enjoy the thoughts of all these fine folks right here. Think of it as one-stop shopping. One of the benefits of posting the audio this way is I have a little more leeway, time-wise.

For the time being, I will still link the audio interviews to the Author Q&A section of the 501 website although I will probably combine the Q&A and contributor pages at some point for the sake of brevity and sanity.

"501" Q&A: Will Leitch

The latest author Q&A for 501 Baseball Books is now up on the site: Will Leitch, author of ​ Are We Winning?: Fathers and Sons in the New Golden Age of Baseball

Visit the Author Q&A section of the 501 website to hear Will and other authors whose work appear in my book.

"501" Q&A: Will Leitch

The latest author Q&A for 501 Baseball Books is now up on the site: Will Leitch, author of ​ Are We Winning?: Fathers and Sons in the New Golden Age of Baseball

Visit the Author Q&A section of the 501 website to hear Will and other authors whose work appear in my book.

Latest "addition" to "501"

 

Just completed my very first Amazon author page. Very cool. I hope to be able to ad more titles to it before my typewriter ribbon runs out of ink, metaphorically speaking.

Visit the page here.

"501" Q&A: Jonathan Eig

The latest author Q&A for 501 Baseball Books is now up on the site: Jonathan Eig, author of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig and Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season. 

Visit the Author Q&A section of the 501 website to hear Tim and other authors whose work appear in my book.

"501" Q&A: Tim Wiles

The latest author Q&A for 501 Baseball Books is now up on the site: Tim Wiles, co author of ​Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"

Visit the Author Q&A section of the 501 website to hear Tim and other authors whose work appear in my book.

"501" Q&A: Sean Manning & Peter Schilling Jr.

It's a Q&A doubleheader!

This week I had the opportunity to chat with two authors whose work I really enjoyed over the past few years:

Sean Manning, who did a wonderful job editing Top of the Order: 25 Writers Pick Their Favorite Baseball Player of All Time, which includes such contributors as Roger Kahn, Jim Bouton, Buzz Bissinger, Scott Raab, Neal Pollock, and Stefan Fatsis, among many others.

Peter Schilling, who wrote the entertaining historical novel, The End of Baseball

Visit the Author Q&A section of the website to hear Sean, Peter, and other authors whose work appear in my book.

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