Baseball Best-Sellers, July 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. 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

1. I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson, by Jackie Robinson and Alfred Duckett
2. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
3. 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, by Willie Mays and John Shea
4. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
5. The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman
6. The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian
7. The Milwaukee Brewers at 50, by Adam McCalvy
8. Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir, by Alan D. Gaff
9. Buzz Saw: The Improbable Story of How the Washington Nationals Won the World Series, by Jesse Dougherty
10. Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask, by Jon Pessah

E-BOOKS

1. 1. I Never Had it Made
   2. Ten Innings at Wrigley, by Kevin Cook
   3. Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof
   4. Moneyball
   5. The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team, by Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
   6. The Natural,  by Bernard Malamud
   7. The MVP Machine, by Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik
   8. Inside Pitch: Insiders Reveal How the Ill-Fated Seattle Pilots Got Played into Bankruptcy in One Year, by Rick Allen
   9. Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak, by Travis Sawchik
   10. Doc: A Memoir, by Doc Gooden and Ellis Henican

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

1. Yogi: A Life (read by Oliver Wyman, #51 overall in sports)
2. 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid (read by Julian McWilliams and Larry Herron, #69)
3. 90 Percent Mental, by Bob Tewksbury (read by the author, #99)

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

No doubt the recent success of Robinson’s autobiography was aided by a recent story about the book in the Times. More surprising are the Moneyball-like books by Lindbergh, Miller, and Sawchik.

Still some good freebies available for the Kindle.

And still not on the Amazon top-ten list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 2,233,607, overall in books; last time, 2,218,636. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,402,214 (last time, 1,272,529).

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.