Baseball Best-Sellers, July 26, 2019

Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes.

In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one by including a book in a category to which it should not be listed (in my opinion). For example, a current title on the BBS list is The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect. “Why” is a good question. There might be a smattering of the national pastime in it, but not enough to make it a baseball book per se (again, IMO).

Finally, adults only here. That is, no books for younger readers (although no erotic fiction that features baseball as a theme either. And goodness knows there are a bunch of those).

So, with all that said…

PRINT

If These Walls Could Talk: Boston Red Sox, by Jerry Remy and Nick Cafardo
The MVP Machine: How Baseball’s New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players, by Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchick
Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, by Tyler Kepner (hardcover)
Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, by Paul Goldberger
They Bled Blue: Fernandomania, Strike-Season Mayhem, and the Weirdest Championship Baseball Had Ever Seen: The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers, by Jason Turbow
For the Good of the Game: The Inside Story of the Surprising and Dramatic Transformation of Major League Baseball, by Bud Selig with Phil Rogers
Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher, by David Cone and Jack Curry

E-BOOKS

Ball Four (the original)
If These Walls Could Talk: Boston Red Sox
Fall from Grace: The Truth and Tragedy of “Shoeless Joe” Jackson, by Tim Hornbaker
Moneyball
The MVP Machine
For the Good of the Game
K: A History of Baseball in 10 Pitches
Francona: The Red Sox Years
They Bled Blue
Astroball: The New Way to Win It All

AUDIOBOOKS (note: the links will take you to a sample of the audio via Amazon/Audible)

The MVP Machine (read by Josh Hurley, #17 overall in sports, which is now, for some reason, under the general category “Biographies and Memoirs.” Yeah, I don’t understand either.)
Full Count (read by the author, #52)
One Base at a Time: How I Survived PTSD and Found My Field of Dreams, by David Mellor (read by the author, #63)
Ninety Percent Mental, by Bob Tewskbury (read by the author, #70)

Four of the top ten books on the NY Times‘ monthly sports list are about baseball, including The MVP Machine (#4), K (#5(Play Hungry, by Pete Rose (#6), and Ballpark (#7). Well done, authors.

A couple of points:

It’s pretty easy to do the e-book section of this list, since they’re in their own category. But the actual #5 book there is Instant Pot Cooking For Beginners. I assume they’re referring to the kitchen appliance and not marijuana. How in the world Amazon’s metrics placed it in the baseball category is beyond the pale.

Also, one of my regrets about not posting for a month is that I missed a fitting tribute to the late Jim Bouton, which I will do under a separate entry. Suffice it to say there’s no surprise that his books are, at least for the time being, back on the best-sellers list, and well deserved. Although it might seem white bread and mayonnaise in today’s “tell-all” era in which no detail no matter how salacious is meat for the grill, Bouton was a pioneer of this genre in sports (all due respect to Jim Brosnan).

Still not on either the Amazon or Times‘ lists? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 603,127; last time, 1,202,408. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,306,540 (last time, 1,123,676). By the way, I have compiled an Excel “checklist” of the books list in 501. If you’re interested in keeping track of how many you have read or own, drop me a line.

If you have read either of those books, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing an Amazon review; it’s never too late. (And thanks to those who have.) Doesn’t have to be long or even complimentary, if you didn’t like it. Although I would warn you to understand what it is you’re reading. My editor tells me I shouldn’t worry over bad reviews and normally I don’t. But one Greenberg consumer complained because apparently he felt it wasn’t long enough and that it wasn’t a full biography. Sorry, but caveat emptor: The title clearly states this book covers just one season in his career. If you’re disappointed for that reason, then that’s on you.