Baseball Best-Sellers, May 14, 2021

May 14, 2021

New: An asterisk serves to let you know that the author is a member of the Pandemic Baseball Book Club. I enthusiastically recommend you visit the site, sign up for their newsletter, and buy some merch.

A reminder: 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 posting them). 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, The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect has appeared on the BBS list. “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 “adult” books here, that is, no romance/erotic fiction that features baseball as a theme either (although goodness knows there are a bunch of those).

So, with all that said…

The links under the authors’ names will take you to the Bookshelf Conversations I did with them. The asterisk denotes the author is a “member” of the Pandemic Baseball Book Club.

PRINT

  1. The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, by H.A. Dorfman
  2. The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian *
  3. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
  4. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
  5. If These Walls Could Talk: New York Mets: Stories From the New York Mets Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box, by Mike Puma
  6. The Captain & Me: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson, by Ron Blomberg and Dan Epstein *
  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. Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball, by Luke Epplin (My review on Bookreporter.com) *
  9. Moon Baseball Road Trips: The Complete Guide to All the Ballparks, with Beer, Bites, and Sights Nearby, by Timothy Malcolm
  10. Death Row All Stars: A Story of Baseball, Corruption, and Murder, by Chris Enss

E-BOOKS

  1. The Wax Pack
  2. Moneyball
  3. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
  4. The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra, by Phil Pepe
  5. The Year of the Pitcher, by Sridhar Pappu
  6. The Last Real Season, by Mike Shropshire
  7. Uppity: My Untold Story About The Games People Play, by Bill White with Gordon Dillow
  8. So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin’ True Story of the New York Mets―the Best Worst Team in Sports, by Devin Gordon (My review on Bookreporter.com)
  9.  The Natural, by Bernard Malamud
  10. Our Team

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 titles, their reader/narrators, and samples. Note further that these are updated regularly and the top ten list below might no longer be the same.

  1. Moneyball
  2. The Mental Game of Baseball
  3. Ball Four
  4. The Matheny Manifesto
  5. Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty
  6. Ninety Percent Mental
  7. Wait Till Next Year
  8. The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told
  9. The Inside Game
  10. Stealing Home

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

Interesting to see a travel book on the list. I guess things are getting back to normal. Also odd to see Death Row on the list as it’s a 2014 release.

Still not in the Amazon top-ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 2,024,945 overall in books; last time, 1,804,840. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,376,774; last time, 1,233,144).

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.

Now we’ll see who pays attention. Removing the “Super shameless self-promotion” section. Look for some exciting news in the near future.

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 my books, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing an Amazon review; it’s never too late.

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Tagged as: Baseball Cards, Bill White. Ball Four, Brooklyn Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Jim Bouton, Moneyball, New York Mets, Ron Blomberg, Ted Williams, Thurmon Munson

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