Baseball Best-Sellers, January 20, 2017

January 20, 2017

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.

  1. Baseindexball Prospectus 2017
  2. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
  3. 2017 Baseball Forecaster: & Encyclopedia of Fanalytics by Ron Shandler
  4. Sports Illustrated Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series Champions Commemorative Issue
  5. Heads-Up Baseball : Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, by Ken Ravizza
  6. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
  7. The Natural, by Bernard Malamud
  8. Baseball America 2017 Almanac: Comprehensive Review of the 2016 Season
  9. The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports, by Jeff Passan
  10. The Bill James Handbook 2017

* Making its debut on the Bookshelf Best-Seller List

The usual suspects. Four of the top 10 take a look back at last season and a look ahead to the upcoming (pitchers and catchers less than a month away!).

MORE lists: Amazon has started a couple of new ones, including “Hot New Releases” and “Most Wished For.” A look at the top three in each, which have remained the same since last week:

Hot New Releases

  1. Baseball Prospectus 2017
  2. 2017 Baseball Forecaster
  3. Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2017 (Kindle)

Most Wished For

  1. Moneyball
  2. Baseball Prospectus
  3. Sports Illustrated Cubs edition

NY Times monthly sports Best-Sellers list: the Cubs book put out by MLB is #11. No other baseball title unless you want to include Joe Buck’s Lucky Bastard (which I don’t. By the way, and not that I care, but doesn’t a title like that get him banned from places like WalMart?).

Not on either the Amazon or Times‘ lists? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 1,387,142; last week: 1,316,749. Still going the wrong way, folks. My forthcoming Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War currently ranks 750,996, up from last week’s 1,011,885.

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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