Baseball Best-Sellers, August 7, 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. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
2. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
3. The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman
4. I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson, by Jackie Robinson and Alfred Duckett
5. The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian
6. Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, by Eric Nussbaum
7. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne. R. Keene
8. Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide
9. 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, by Willie Mays and John Shea
10. The Natural, by Bernard Malamud

E-BOOKS

1. 1. Moneyball
   2. The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, by Ben Bradlee, Jr.
   3. Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella
   4. The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams, by Michael Tackett
   5. The Gashouse Gang: How Dizzy Dean, Leo Durocher, Branch Rickey, Pepper Martin, and Their Colorful, Come-from-Behind Ball Club Won the World Series-and America’s Heart-During the Great Depression, by John Heidenry
   6. Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway’s Remarkable First Year, by Glenn Stout
   7. I Never Had it Made
   8. Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember, by John Feinstein, by John Feinstein
   9. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
   10. Inside Pitch: Insiders Reveal How the Ill-Fated Seattle Pilots Got Played into Bankruptcy in One Year, by Rick Allen

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, #49 overall in sports)
2. The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch that Changed My Life, by Rick Ankiel and Tim Brown (read by Ankiel, #72)

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 couple of oldies but goodies top the print list this week. The Natural has been off and on the lists, but I’m wondering if the recent passing of Wilfred Brimley — who played NY Knights manager Pop Fisher —  has anything to do with the status this week

Still some good freebies available for the Kindle. I highly recommend Baseball Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Baseball by Matthew Silverman. Fun.

And still not on the Amazon top-ten list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 1,619,815, overall in books; last time, 917,778. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 625,633 (last time, 766,653).

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.

Tagged as: baseball fiction, Bernard Malamud, Boston Red Sox, Jackie Robinson, Jim Bouton, Michael Lewis, Moneyball, Seattle Pilots, St. Louis Cardinals, Ted Williams, W.P. Kinsella, Willie Mays