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.
Baseball Prospectus 2016- Baseball America 2016 Prospect Handbook: Scouting Reports and Rankings of the Best Young Talent in Baseball
- 2016 Baseball Forecaster, by Ron Shandler
- Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
- 2016 Minor League Baseball Analyst, by Rob Gordon
- The Bill James Handbook 2016
- The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team, by Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
- The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, by H.A. Dorfman
- The Cardinals Way: How One Team Embraced Tradition and Moneyball at the Same Time, by Howard Megdal
- The Baseball Drill Book, American Baseball Coaches Association
The top half is exactly the same as last week, with “texts” for fantasy players hogging the spots. Aside from the perennial favorite Moneyball and Bill James Handbook, the rest is comprised of books about playing the game, especially for amateur athletes. But — huzzah! — two brand new titles break into the list. I mentioned the former as part of an overview of the new Athlon baseball annual. The latter comes from the peripatetic Megdal, author of The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players, Wilpon’s Folly: The Story of a Man, His Fortune, and the New York Mets, and Taking the Field: A Fan’s Quest to Run the Team He Loves.
The New York Times: The Matheny Manifesto, by Mike Matheny with Jerry B. Jenkins, is the only baseball title on the list, coming in at #12.
Not on either the Amazon or Times‘ lists? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 522,362; last week: 1,005,754. Thank you. I wonder if a bunch of lawyers account for the renewed activity?
If you have read 501, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing a review for the Amazon page; it’s never too late. 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.
is available on Amazon.com,
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