Baseball Best-Sellers, April 24, 2020

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 romance/erotic fiction that features baseball as a theme either. And goodness knows there are a bunch of those).

The asterisked books titles are available via Scribd.com, a website that allows you to read and listen to various titles for one flat monthly fee. You can also download them to your device. Click here to see what other titles they have “in stock,” although, like Amazon, you’ll get a few things that you might not consider “true” baseball books as you and I might define them. Well worth the money. You’re welcome.

So, with all that said…

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Big Sexy: In His Own Words, by Bartolo Colon and Michael Stahl
Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask, by Jon Pessah
Buzz Saw: The Improbable Story of How the Washington Nationals Won the World Series, by Jesse Dougherty
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis *
The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, by Keith Law
The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball’s Home Run Revolution, by Jared Diamond
The Boys of Summer (Harperperennial Modern Classics), by Roger Kahn
The Big 50: New York Yankees, by Peter Botte

E-BOOKS

Ball Four, by Jim Bouton
Berra (Pessah)
The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra, by Phil Pepe
Inside Pitch: Insiders Reveal How the Ill-Fated Seattle Pilots Got Played into Bankruptcy in One Year, by Rick Allen
The Inside Game
A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen
They Bled Blue, by Jason Turbow
Moneyball
Saving Babe Ruth, by Tom Swyers
The Wax Pack

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

Yogi: A Life (read by Oliver Wyman, #30 overall in sports)

The New York Times no longer offers a monthly list of sports best-sellers and there are no baseball titles on either the fiction or nonfiction rolls.

The Bartolo Colon and Seattle Mariners books have yet to be released: those dates are May 12 and June 5, respectively.

Most curious about Colon’s “memoir.” Over the last few years of his career, he became something of a folk hero. Hard to believe he was ever as thin as he was during his Cleveland Indians years. Someone should put together a timeline of his “growth.”

Let’s take another look at that home run.

Had a great Bookshelf Conversation with Keith Law, author of The Inside Game, today. Look for that early next week.

Still not on the Amazon top-ten list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. Today: 1,427,222; last time, 401,138. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 979,828 (last time, 776,121).

Shameless self-promotion: if you’re looking for some good baseball reading during this down time, why not pick up a copy of 501?

Super-shameless self-promotion: And by the way, I am looking for a publisher for an revised edition of 501, UNP having passed on the opportunity. So if you have any suggestions, please drop me a line. Mucho appreciado.

A reminder: There’s 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.