Baseball best-sellers, Aug. 15

Note: Just like Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” at the end of The Big Bang Theory, you should read these list stories to their conclusion; the end is always changing, even though the theme is basically the same, finishing up with a self-promotional message.

On with the show…

Here are the top ten baseball books as per Amazon.com, as of this posting.

Caveat 1: Print editions only (at least for now); because I’m old school.

Caveat 2: Since the rankings are updated every hour, these lists might not longer be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them. But it’ll be close enough for government work.

Caveat 3: Sometimes they’ll try to pull one over on you and include a book within a category that doesn’t belong. I’m using my discretion to eliminate such titles from my list. For example, for some reason a recent listing included Tarnished Heels: How Unethical Actions and Deliberate Deceit at the University of North Carolina Ended the “The Carolina Way”, which, far as I can tell, is not at all about baseball, at least not in the main. For the sake of brevity, I will be omitting the subtitles, which have become ridiculously long in in some cases in recent years, also at my discretion.

Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
The Natural, by Bernard Malamud
The Closer, by Mariano Rivera with Wayne Coffey. (Bookreporter.com review)
The Mental Game of Baseball, by H.A. Dorfman
Can You Believe It?: 30 Years of Insider Stories with the Boston Red Sox, by Joe Castiglione
Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, by Ken Ravizza and Tom Hanson
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams
A Nice Little Place on the North Side, by George F. Will
Throwback: A Big-League Catcher Tells All, by Jason Kendall and Lee Judge (Bookreporter review; Bookshelf conversation with Kendall here; Judge will the be guest on next week’s podcast.)
Up, Up, and Away, by Jonah Keri, who will be the guest for an upcoming Conversation.

A few surprises this time around: I’m guessing Castiglione’s book got a bump by virtue of his being named to the Red Sox hall of Fame prior to yesterday’s game. but how to explain Heads-Up Baseball, which was originally published in 1998?

Although there’s no baseball book, per se, on the NY Times‘ best-seller list, it’s worth mentioning that Charles Krauthammer’s Things That Matter includes several essays regarding his love for the national pastime in general and the Washington Nationals in particular.

Not on this list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Ya’ll are gonna do something about that, right? Only 12 copies left on Amazon*, so don’t delay 😉 Just sayin’.

And if you have read it, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing a review for the Amazon page. Doesn’t have to be long (or even complimentary, if you didn’t like it), but anything would be appreciated.