Baseball Best-sellers, Sept. 23, 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.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports, by Jeff Passan
The Natural, by Bernard Malamud
The Matheny Manifesto: A Young Manager’s Old-School Views on Success in Sports and Life, by Matheny with Jerry Jenkins
I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson, by Jackie Robinson
The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, by H.A. Dorfman
House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge, by Lenny Dykstra
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, Baseball, and the Secret Society that Shocked Depression-Era Detroit, by Tom Stanton
The Baseball Drill Book

* Indicates debut on this list

NY Times: Just two baseball titles on the September Times‘ list: Nails drops to 12th place while Stanton’s Terror in the City of Champions is 14.

Kind of surprised that the passing of W.P. Kinsella hasn’t given sales of his marvelous books renewed interest. He’s another one. I had the chance to do a Bookshelf Conversation with him, but I let the opportunity get away. Damn.

Not on either the Amazon or Times‘ lists? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 1,096,582; last time: 936,263. I wonder if this one will get a bump when the Greenberg book comes out? Bonus!

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.

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