Baseball Best-Sellers, May 1, 2020

Tra la, it’s May, the lusty Month of May
That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray…

That’s from the Broadway production of Camelot, folks. Look it up.

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).

So, with all that said…

PRINT

1. Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask, by Jon Pessah
2. Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, by Eric Nusbaum
3. 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, by Willie Mays and John Shea
4. The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian
5. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
6. Buzz Saw: The Improbable Story of How the Washington Nationals Won the World Series, by Jesse Dougherty
7. The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, by Keith Law
8. Big Sexy: In His Own Words, by Bartolo Colon and Michael Stahl
9. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
10. The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman

E-BOOKS

1. The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra, by Phil Pepe
2. Berra (Pessah)
3. They Bled Blue, by Jason Turbow
4. Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?, by Jimmy Breslin
5. A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen
6. Dynamic, Bombastic, Fantastic, by Turbow
7. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
8. Moneyball
9. The Wax Pack
10. The Inside Game

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

1. Yogi: A Life (read by Oliver Wyman, #46 overall in sports)
2. Buzz Saw (read by Angelo Di Loreto, #65)

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.

I have conducted “Bookshelf Conversations” with Brad Balukjian, Keith Law, Jason Turbow and… Jim Bouton. In reading Mitchell Nathanson’s excellent bio, Bouton: The Life of a Baseball Original, I was reminded that the author/pitcher was one of the first of these things I ever did.

The only new title on the lists is 24, which is scheduled for release on May 12. I received a review copy that I’ve yet to crack open because I fear this is one of those “life lessons” in which the celebrity used to sell the book had little to do with the actual project. I hope I’m wrong.

Still not on the Amazon top-ten list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 420,754; last time, 1,427,222. I wonder how many copies have to sell to move it up that much? Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 722,086 (last time, 979,828).

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.

Tagged as: Baseball Cards, Moneyball, Ted Williams, Washington Nationals, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra