Baseball Best-Sellers, April 28, 2017

April 28, 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. Image result for papi my storyThe Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch that Changed My Life, by Rick Ankiel with Tim Brown
  2. Smart Baseball: The Story Behind the Old Stats That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the Right Way to Think About Baseball, by Keith Law
  3. Teammate: My Journey in Baseball and a World Series for the Ages, by David Ross with Don Yeager
  4. The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse, by Tom Verducci
  5. Ballplayer, by Chipper Jones with Carroll Rogers Walton
  6. Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character, by Marty Appel
  7. 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story, by Ed Henry
  8. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
  9. The Plan: Epstein, Maddon, and the Audacious Blueprint for a Cubs Dynasty, by David Kaplan
  10. Papi: My Story, by David Ortiz with Michel Holley *

* Making its debut

MOE 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. The Phenomenon
  2. Smart Baseball
  3. The Teammate

Most Wished For

  1. Cubs Way
  2. Smart Baseball
  3. The Phenomenon

NY Times monthly sports best-seller list: No baseball books in the April rolls. The Phenomenon makes its debut at #14 for the week of May 7.

David Ortiz’s latest memoir hops into the Amazon lists. Remember, these titles might have appeared earlier in the week, but for the purposes of my record-keeping, it only counts when I make these posts.

Well, you know it had to happen at some point in these lists: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis, did not make the top 10. I wonder if that’s because other books, like Law’s Smart Baseball are slowly supplanting this perennial favorite. Verducci’s Cubs Way and Kaplan’s The Plan also incorporate aspects of that philosophy.

Not on either the Amazon or Times‘ lists? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 453,016; last week: 1,145,651. I consider this a “piggy-back effect,” which frequently happens when a new book comes out and readers want to see what else the author has done. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War, which launched April 25, currently ranks 148,020, up from last week at 232,446.

If you have read either of my books, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing a review for the Amazon pages; 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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