Baseball Best-Sellers, June 19, 2015

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. For the sake of brevity, I will be omitting the subtitles, which have become ridiculously long in in some cases in recent years, also at my discretion.

Pedro, by Pedro Martinez and Michael Silverman
Molina: The Story of the Father Who Raised an Unlikely Baseball Dynasty, by Bengie Molina
Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius, by Bill Pennington (My Bookreporter review here.)
Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen
Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak, by Travis Sawchik
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
The Journey Home: My Life in Pinstripes, by Jorge Posada with Gary Brozek (My review of the Martinez and Posada books on Bookreporter.com)
The Game: Inside the Secret World of Major League Baseball’s Power Brokers, by Jon Pessah
Strangers in the Bronx: DiMaggio, Mantle, and the Changing of the Yankee Guard, by Andrew O’Toole (Bookshelf review here.)
Jeter Unfiltered, by Derek Jeter (Bookshelf review here.)

This is unusual: each of the top 10 titles in the Amazon rankings is a physical book. I don’t think that’s happened since I started posting these.

New York Times: On the latest list, Martinez’s memoir is #5, followed by Posada’s at #6, Leerhsen’s Cobb bio at #9, Big Data Baseball (#11), and the Molina book (#13).

Not on either list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. As of this posting, the ranking is 924,640, down significantly from last week’s 691,678. We can do better (looking for a last-minute Father’s Day gift?).

Amazon has incorporated a new feature. Before they would list a book that appears in the top 100 of numerous categories and sub-categories; now it’s the top 1,000. I think I liked it better the other way. For what it’s worth 501 is in the top thou for Reference/Encyclopedias & Subject Guides/Sports; Reference/Writing, Research & Publishing Guides/Publishing & Books/Bibliographies & Indexes; and Sports & Outdoors/Miscellaneous/Reference

If you have read it, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing a review for the Amazon page. 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.