Baseball Best-Sellers, August 9, 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
Homegrown: How the Red Sox Built a Champion from the Ground Up, by Alex Speier
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
K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, by Tyler Kepner (hardcover)
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, by Paul Goldberger
Astroball: The New Way to Win It All, by Ben Reiter
Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide 2019

E-BOOKS

Baseball Anecdotes, by Daniel Okrent
October 1964, by David Halberstam
Ball Four
Moneyball
The MVP Machine
If These Walls Could Talk
Astroball
Homegrown
For the Good of the Game: The Inside Story of the Surprising and Dramatic Transformation of Major League Baseball, by Bud Selig and Phil Rogers
Fall from Grace: The Truth and Tragedy of “Shoeless Joe” Jackson, by Tim Hornbaker

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

The MVP Machine (read by Josh Hurley, #21 overall in sports, which is now, for some reason, under the general category “Biographies and Memoirs.” Yeah, I don’t understand either.)
For the Good of the Game (read by Arthur Morey, #60)
Full Count (read by the author, #70)
House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge, by Lenny Dykstra (read by Patrick Lawlor, #78)
Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leershen (read by Malcolm Hillgartner, #85)
Ninety Percent Mental, by Bob Tewksbury (read by the author, #86)
The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch That Changed My Life, by Rick Ankiel (read by the author, #87)
Play Hungry: The Making of a Baseball Player, by Pete Rose (read by Mark Deadkins, #89)
The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, by Nicholas Dawidoff (read by Jeff Kramer, #96)

Three of the top ten books on the NY Times‘ monthly sports list are about baseball, including For the Good of the Game (#5), If These Walls Could Talk (#6), and Ballpark (#10).

With the exception of Homegrown, which makes its debut on the BBS this week, all of the titles repeat from last week.

Still not on either the Amazon or Times‘ lists? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 1,241,675; last time, 692,225. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,482,651 (last time, 1,408,953). 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.