Baseball Best-Sellers, June 12, 2020

Missed last Friday’s BBS post with a good excuse: it was my birthday. But that’s long over now so…

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. Also 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

24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, by Willie Mays and John Shea
The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian
Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir, by Alan D. Gaff
Doc: The Life of Roy Halladay, by Todd Zolecki
The Milwaukee Brewers at 50, by Adam McCalvy
Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask, by Jon Pessah
Mr. Met: How a Sports-Mad Kid from Jersey Became Like Family to Generations of Big Leaguers, by Jay Horwitz
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, by Eric Nusbaum
The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman

E-BOOKS

Summer of ’49, by David Halberstam
Berra
Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
The Roger Angell Baseball Collection
The Wax Pack
Gehrig
The Glory of Their Times, edited by Lawrence Ritter
The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra, by Phil Pepe
Moneyball
24

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

24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid (Read by Julian McWilliams and Larry Herron, #20 overall in sports)
Yogi: A Life (read by Oliver Wyman, #44)
Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir (read by Angelo Di Loreto, #57)
The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter, by Ian O’Connor (read by Nick Pollifrone, #98)

The New York Times no longer offers a monthly list of sports best-sellers. There are no baseball titles on their regular weekly list.

Nothing new to report, just shifting in the ranks. My review of 24 should be up on Bookreporter.com later today. And look for my Zoom interview with John Shea over the next couple of weeks. Should be quite a treat, talking with the writer who helped the great Willie Mays bring his latest story to light.

Additionally, as of this posting I urge you to take a look at the Kindle Top Free 100 on the baseball page. An unusually large number of titles from “legitimate” publishers, all due respect. Get ’em while they’re hot.

Still not on the Amazon top-ten list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 2,076,589; last time, 1,819,268. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 522,836 (last time, 449,794).

Shameless self-promotion: if you’re looking for some good baseball reading during this down time, why not pick up a copy of 501? It’s like the abridged dictionary; it has most of the other books in it.

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.