Baseball Best-Sellers, June 12, 2015

NOTE: I have been posting these things long enough now that a few have commented that the introductory section isn’t necessary anymore. But I’m leaving it in because, to paraphrase Joe DiMaggio when asked why he played so hard all the time, there may be people who’ve never read the best-seller entries before. So on with the show…

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.

Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius, by Bill Pennington
Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen
Molina: The Story of the Father Who Raised an Unlikely Baseball Dynasty, by Bengie Molina
Pedro, by Pedro Martinez and Michael Silverman (My review of the Martinez and Posada books on Bookreporter.com)
The Game: Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball’s Power Brokers, by Jon Pessah
The Journey Home: My Life in Pinstripes, by Jorge Posada with Gary Brozek
The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse, by Molly Knight
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, by H.A. Dorfman
Jeter Unfiltered, by Derek Jeter

Aside from Knight’s book, which doesn’t release until July 14, this is basically more jockeying among last week’s leaders.

New York Times: On the latest list, Martinez’s memoir is #5, followed by Posada’s at #6, Leerhsen’s Cobb bio at #9, Big Data Baseball, by Travis Sawchik (#11), and the Molina book (#13).

Not on either list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. As of this post, the ranking is 691,678, up a notch from last week’s 779,372. We can do better (looking for a Father’s Day gift?). In addition, today’s posting comes on my birthday, so there’s that. If you have read it, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing a review for the Amazon page. There haven’t been any in awhile. 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.