Baseball Best-Sellers, September 4, 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…

NEW FEATURE: By the way, the links by the authors’ names will take you to any Bookshelf Conversations I did with them.

PRINT

Dick Bremer: Game Used: My Life in Stitches with the Minnesota Twins, by Dick Bremer with Jim Bruton
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
After the Miracle: The Lasting Brotherhood of the ’69 Mets, by Art Shamsky and Erik Sherman
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
Mind of a Superior Hitter: The Art, Science and Philosophy, by Michael McCree
The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
Tom Seaver and Me, by Pat Jordan
I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson, by Jackie Robinson and Alfred Duckett
Ballparks: A Journey Through the Fields of the Past, Present, and Future, by Eric Enders
The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman

E-BOOKS

Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game, by Jimmy Breslin
Moneyball
The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team, by Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between, by Eric Nussbaum
After the Miracle
Game Used
Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
42 Faith: The Best of the Jackie Robinson Story, by Ed Henry
K: A History of Baseball in 10 Pitches, by Tyler Kepner
Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life, by Bill Madden (pre-order)

AUDIOBOOKS

Note: Amazon has changed the way they list audiobooks. No longer under the general category of “biography and memoir,” they are now treated in their own baseball/softball category. Here’s the general link to the section where you will find further links to the individual audiobooks, their reader/narrators, and samples. Note further that these are update regularly and the top ten list below might no longer be the same.

Moneyball
Ball Four
The MVP Machine
Ninety Percent Mental
Future Value
Heads-Up Baseball
The Wax Pack
24
The Matheny Manifesto
After the Miracle

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

Not surprised by the renewed interest in books about the late Tom Seaver. Shamsky’s After the Miracle might remind some readers of The Teammates, by David Halberstam. Here’s a Bookshelf Conversation I had with Erik Sherman who accompanied Shamsky and the other members of the group to visit Seaver one last time. And here’s a review of the book which appeared with several other New York-centric baseball titles on Bookreporter.com.

Still some good freebies available for the Kindle. Joining the current batch is my own Hank Greenberg bio (see below). Mixed feelings about this but…

And still not on the Amazon top-ten list? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 433,751, overall in books; last time, 2,054,851. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 760,741 (last time, 1,439,988).

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.