Baseball Best-Sellers, May 5, 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.

Ballplayer, by Chipper Jones with Carroll Rogers Walton
The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse , by Tom Verducci
Teammate: My Journey in Baseball and a World Series for the Ages, by David Ross with Don Yeager
The Plan: Epstein, Maddon, and the Audacious Blueprint for a Cubs Dynasty, by David Kaplan
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
The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch that Changed My Life, by Rick Ankiel with Tim Brown
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story, by Ed Henry
Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character, by Marty Appel
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis

* Making its debut on this list

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

Teammate
The Plan
Smart Baseball

Most Wished For

Smart Baseball
The Phenomenon
Cubs Way

NY Times monthly sports best-seller list: No baseball books in the May rolls and none for the week of May 14, as Phenomenon drops off.

Welcome back Moneyball, which was not among the top 10 last week for the first time since I can’t remember when. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same. Still find it a bit quaint that continues to do so well.

Not on either the Amazon or Times‘ lists? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 1,068,318; last week: 453,016. So much for “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 156,525, down from last week at 148,020. It had been as high as #64 of the top 100 baseball titles so I think that’s pretty cool.

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.