Baseball Best-Sellers, June 26, 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.

The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse, by Molly Knight
Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen
Molina: The Story of the Father Who Raised an Unlikely Baseball Dynasty, by Bengie Molina
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius, by Bill Pennington (My Bookreporter review here.)
Pedro, by Pedro Martinez and Michael Silverman (My review on Bookreporter.com)
Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak, by Travis Sawchik
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams
The Making of Major League: A Juuuust a Bit Inside Look at the Classic Baseball Comedy, by Jonathan Knight
The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, by H.A. Dorfman

Once again, as last BBS posting, each of the top 10 titles in the Amazon rankings is a physical book. Did not see a New York Times sports list this week.

Not on the list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. As of this posting, the ranking is 340,454, up amazingly from last week’s 924,640. Must have been a rush for Father’s Day. Thank you.

Amazon has incorporated a new feature. Before they would list a book that appears in the top 100 of numerous categories and sub-categories; now it’s the top 1,000. I think I liked it better the other way. For what it’s worth 501 is currently in the top 350 (!!) for Reference/Encyclopedias & Subject Guides/Sports; Reference/Writing, Research & Publishing Guides/Publishing & Books/Bibliographies & Indexes; and Sports & Outdoors/Miscellaneous/Reference.

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.