Baseball Best-Sellers, July 31, 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’m Fascinated by Sacrifice Flies: Inside the Game We All Love, by Tim Kurkjian
2. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
3. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
4. Mental Game VIP: Inside the Minds of Baseball’s Best Mental Performance Coaches, by Matt Morse
5. The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian
6. The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman
7. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II (paperback edition), by Anne R. Keene
8. 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, by Willie Mays and John Shea
9. Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide
10. The Milwaukee Brewers at 50, by Adam McCalvy

E-BOOKS

1. 1. Ten Innings at Wrigley, by Kevin Cook
   2. Nobody’s Perfect: Two Men, One Call, and a Game for Baseball History, by Armando Galarraga, Jim Joyce, and Daniel Paisner
   3. Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof
   4. Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask, by Jon Pessah
   5. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
   6. Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella
   7. Moneyball
   8. I Never Had it Made, by Jackie Robinson and Alfred Duckett
   9. The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse, by Rich Cohen
   10. The Natural,  by Bernard Malamud

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

1. 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid (read by Julian McWilliams and Larry Herron, #74 overall in sports)
2. Yogi: A Life (read by Oliver Wyman, #99)
3. 90 Percent Mental, by Bob Tewksbury (read by the author, #100)

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

A surprise at the top of the printy list: venerable baseball commentator Kurkjian’s observations on the game was originally published in 2016. Here’s our Bookshelf Conversation from that carefree time which now seems so long ago.

And now that baseball is actually being played (for the moment at least; who knows if that will still be the case by the time you read this?), baseball cards are back with the Beckett book. Can fantasy volumes be far behind?

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 917,778, overall in books; last time, 2,233,607 (woo-hoo). Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 766,653 (last time, 1,402,214; woo-hoo-two).

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.