Baseball Best-Sellers, Oct. 3

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.

Derek Jeter #2: Thanks for the Memories, by David Fischer (Pub. Date Oct. 14)
The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter, by Ian O’Connor (Bookreporter.com review)
The Life You Imagine: Life Lessons for Achieving Your Dreams, by Derek Jeter
Derek Jeter: Excellence and Elegance, The New York Times (Pub. date Dec. 1)
Derek Jeter: Born to be a Yankee, NY Post
Rickey & Robinson, by Roger Kahn (Bookreporter.com review)
The Closer, by Mariano Rivera with Wayne Coffey (Bookreporter.com review)
Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
Core Four: The Heart and Soul of the New York Yankees, by Phil Pepe
The Mental Game of Baseball, by H.A. Dorfman

Quelle surprise: Six of the top 10 books have the recently-retired future Hall of Famer as a major, if not sole, topic (seven if you include Rivera’s memoir). Fisher’s book is due out in a few days so I’m not sure if it will include his final games, but I am pretty certain the Times’ book will be as complete as possible, unlike the Posts‘ early release.

Not on this list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Ya’ll are gonna do something about that, right? Only five (!) copies left on Amazon.

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. And thanks to those who have :).