Baseball Best-Sellers, April 8, 2016

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.

The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports, by Jeff Passan
Game 7, 1986: Failure and Triumph in the Biggest Game of My Life, by Ron Darling and Daniel Paisner *
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
If These Walls Could Talk: Milwaukee Brewers: Stories from the Milwaukee Brewers Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box, by Bill Schroeder
The Matheny Manifesto: A Young Manager’s Old-School Views on Success in Sports and Life, by Matheny with Jerry Jenkins
Baseball Prospectus 2016
The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, by H.A. Dorfman
The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse, by Molly Knight
Amazin’ Again: How the 2015 New York Mets Brought the Magic Back to Queens, by Greg Prince
Heads-Up Baseball : Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, by Ken Ravizza

* indicates titles making their debut on the Bookshelf BBS list.

Now that the season is underway and folks have picked their fantasy teams, more of the books on the list deal with stories rather than statistics and analytics. Not surprised Darling’s book ranks so high. I imagine it will reach and retain the No.1 for some time. I am surprised that the Brewers book lists as high as it does. Knight’s book on the Dodgers recently came out in paperback.

April New York Times list. Mariano Rivera’s The Closer comes in at #13. If you’re interested, as I am, in how they decide these things, click on the link at the bottom of the list’s page.

Not on either the Amazon or Times‘ lists? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 490,588; last week: 1,102,446. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Thanks and keep up the good work!

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.