By Marty Appel, October 13, 2016<\/p>\n
No baseball book hit the New<\/em> York<\/em> Times<\/em> best sellers list in 2015, the first time that happened in 16 years.<\/p>\n I happen to know this because around that time, I set off on a research mission to record every baseball book that ever made the list. This was no easy task, as the lists are not included in the Times<\/em>\u2019s online archives\u2014only on its microfilm. So it was an imposing research task, thankfully done with the cooperation of editors at the Times<\/em>\u2019s book review section.<\/p>\n A total of 75 books have made the list, the longest-running best sellers list in the country, and the one still considered the most prestigious by publishers. Twenty-four of the 75 (including books by Don Zimmer and Jim Abbott) would seem to have direct appeal to Yankee fans.<\/p>\n The 75th book, House of Nails<\/em> by Lenny Dykstra, made the list in July 2016, ending a span of nearly two years in which no book made it.<\/p>\n In maintaining the list, I\u2019ve chosen to stick with the hardcover best sellers, even though the Times<\/em> has expanded its charts to include e-books and combined sales of hardcover and e-books in 2011. Few make one list without the other, and in the interest of consistency, we stay focused on their original list. One paperback that did not appear in hardcover is also included.<\/p>\n We\u2019re baseball fans. Lists matter.<\/p>\n Of course, there are still some inconsistencies there, as the list was originally a monthly, and it was originally just a top 10. (Since 1978 it is a top 15, and there is now an online list that takes it to a top 35). We choose to stick to the printed version (even though this author had two books in the online list that missed the printed top 15, one of them\u2014Munson<\/em>\u2014by one slot.)<\/p>\n Most publishers will label anything in that top 35 list \u201ca New York Times<\/em> best seller.\u201d That\u2019s called marketing.<\/p>\n The list began in 1935, so early baseball treats such as Ring Lardner\u2019s You Know Me, Al<\/em> or Christy Mathewson\u2019s Pitching in a Pinch<\/em> or John McGraw\u2019s My Thirty Years in Baseball<\/em>were excluded. In 1942, the list went weekly. Six years later, the first baseball book to hit the chart was the autobiography The Babe Ruth Story<\/em> by Ruth with Bob Considine, a book Babe may or may not have read as he was ill with cancer when it came out. (He did attend a publication party and asked Considine what his first name was so he could sign a book for him.)<\/p>\n \n The legendary Babe Ruth\u2019s biography was the first baseball book on the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0best seller list.\u00a0Ruth, who had 714 home runs in a remarkable 22-year career, is an icon to the sport of baseball.<\/strong><\/p>\n Grantland Rice\u2019s memoir The Tumult and the Shouting<\/em> spent 26 weeks on the list in 1955, but we do not include \u201call sports\u201d books in this charting, also excluding a memoir by Howard Cosell (21 weeks in 1974). But we did include Dick Schaap\u2019s Bo Knows Bo<\/em> because at least the Bo Jackson story is half baseball.<\/p>\n The second baseball book to make the list was Fear Strikes Out<\/em> by Jimmy Piersall with Al Hirshberg, which spent one week on the list in 1955, followed by The Long Season<\/em> (Jim Brosnan) and Baseball is a Funny Game<\/em> (Joe Garagiola), both in 1960. Veeck as in Wreck<\/em> (Bill Veeck\/Ed Linn) came along for 15 weeks in 1962, and then there wasn\u2019t another baseball best seller until Ball Four<\/em> (Jim Bouton\/Leonard Shecter) in 1970, an eight-year gap.<\/p>\n The record for the longest stay on the list goes to Men at Work<\/em> (George Will), which spanned 35 weeks\u2014nearly nine months\u2014in 1990. The only other books to reach or exceed 20 weeks have been The Bronx Zoo<\/em> (Sparky Lyle\/Peter Golenbock)\u201429 weeks in 1979; The Boys of Summer<\/em> (Roger Kahn)\u201424 weeks in 1972; Moneyball<\/em> (Michael Lewis)\u201420 weeks in 2003; and Three Nights in August<\/em> (Buzz Bissinger)\u201420 weeks in 2005.<\/p>\n The first decade of this century produced 28 baseball best sellers, a total greater than all baseball books combined from 1935 to 1999. There have been 15 in this current decade, despite the interruption last year. It can be noted that last year, the New<\/em> York<\/em> Times<\/em> Book<\/em>Review<\/em> section, with a new editor, ceased to do a baseball roundup in the spring, something that had long been a fixture. The assumption has always been that a favorableTimes<\/em> review helps sales, sometimes significantly.<\/p>\n One of the 15 from this decade was a best seller only on the paperback non-fiction list\u2014The<\/em> Bullpen<\/em> Gospels<\/em> (Dick Hayhurst), which we believe is the only baseball book to ever make that list without being available in hardcover. The only other novels on the list areThe Natural<\/em>, Calico Joe<\/em>, The<\/em> Art<\/em> of<\/em> Fielding<\/em>, and Shoeless Joe<\/em>.<\/p>\n Of course, making the list, or not, is often a function of what else happens to be out at the time, as well as whether sales are jammed into a short period, as opposed to spread out over years. Thus, a book like Paul O\u2019Neill\u2019s Me and My Dad<\/em>, published in time for Father\u2019s Day of 2003, could make the list, while books considered baseball classics\u2014including The Glory of Their Times<\/em> (over 350,000 sold to date) by Larry Ritter or The Ultimate Baseball Book<\/em>(Daniel Okrent and Harris Lewine) or even the various baseball encyclopedias (over a million sold)\u2014never did. Also missing out are such favorites as The Fireside Book of Baseball<\/em> (four volumes), David Halberstam\u2019s Summer of \u201949<\/em> and October 1964<\/em>, Eliot Asinof\u2019s Eight Men Out<\/em>, Robert Creamer\u2019s biographies of Babe Ruth and Casey Stengel, Pat Jordan\u2019s A False Spring,<\/em> and James T. Farrell\u2019s My Baseball Diary<\/em>. But David Wells\u2019sPerfect I\u2019m Not<\/em> made it. So the list is imperfect in terms of historical importance, but trusted in terms of sales data.<\/p>\n Autobiographies by Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Jackie Robinson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle never made it. Joe DiMaggio\u2019s two- volume scrapbook of his own clippings, for which he received a huge advance, fell short. The Putnam series of 16 team histories that began with the Yankees in 1943 didn\u2019t make it. Neither did biographies of Lou Gehrig (by Paul Gallico, Frank Graham, or Ray Robinson).<\/p>\n The prolific Peter Golenbock has made the list four times, collaborating with Sparky Lyle, Graig Nettles, Billy Martin, and Johnny Damon, and he did a lot of uncredited work on the 2016 Dykstra title. Roger Kahn has appeared three times\u2014for Boys of Summer<\/em>, A Season in the Sun<\/em>, and Pete Rose: My Story<\/em>\u2014his book with Pete Rose, which Rose discredited 15 years later when he came clean with another version of his betting habits inMy Prison Without Bars<\/em>, done with Rick Hill.<\/p>\n Guess who else made it three times as an author . . . Yogi Berra. Two with Dave Kaplan, and one, an autobiography with Tom Horton. Yogi was not only a man of rings, but a man of letters.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n An all-star athlete in both professional football and baseball, Bo Jackson\u2019s autobiography spent 16 weeks on the best seller list.<\/strong> <\/p>\n 1948 \u00a0\u00a0The Babe Ruth Story<\/em> (Babe Ruth\/Bob Considine) (3 ) By Marty Appel, October 13, 2016 No baseball book hit the New York Times best sellers list in 2015, the first time that happened in 16 years. I happen to know this because around that time, I set off on… Continue Reading
\nSource: McMains Collection<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n1955 \u00a0\u00a0Fear<\/em> Strikes<\/em> Out<\/em> (Jimmy Piersall\/Al Hirschberg) (1)
\n1960 \u00a0\u00a0The Long Season<\/em> (Jim Brosnan) (1)
\n1960 \u00a0\u00a0Baseball Is a Funny Game<\/em> (Joe Garagiola) (13)
\n1962 \u00a0\u00a0Veeck As in Wreck<\/em> (Bill Veeck\/Ed Linn) (15)
\n1970 \u00a0\u00a0Ball Four<\/em> (Jim Bouton) (17)
\n1971 \u00a0\u00a0Mr. Cub<\/em> (Ernie Banks\/Jim Enright) (1)
\n1972 \u00a0\u00a0The Boys of Summer<\/em> (Roger Kahn) (24)
\n1972 \u00a0\u00a0The Summer Game<\/em> (Roger Angell) (5)
\n1975 \u00a0\u00a0Nice Guys Finish Last<\/em> (Leo Durocher\/Ed Linn) (1)
\n1977 \u00a0\u00a0A Season in the Sun<\/em> (Roger Kahn) (1)
\n1979 \u00a0\u00a0The Bronx Zoo<\/em> (Sparky Lyle\/Peter Golenbock) (29)
\n1980 \u00a0\u00a0Number 1<\/em> (Billy Martin\/Peter Golenbock) (8)
\n1982 \u00a0\u00a0The Umpire Strikes Back<\/em> (Ron Luciano\/David Fisher) (18)
\n1982 \u00a0\u00a0Late Innings<\/em> (Roger Angell) (6)
\n1984 \u00a0\u00a0Reggie<\/em> (Reggie Jackson\/Mike Lupica) (4)
\n1984 \u00a0\u00a0Bill James Historical Abstract <\/em>(Bill James) (13)
\n1984 \u00a0\u00a0Strike Tw<\/em>o (Ron Luciano\/David Fisher) (1)
\n1984 \u00a0\u00a0The Natural<\/em> (fiction-Bernard Malamud) (1)
\n1983 \u00a0\u00a0Balls<\/em> (Graig Nettles\/Peter Golenbock) (15)
\n1988 \u00a0 The Duke of Flatbush<\/em> (Duke Snider\/Bill Gilbert) (2)
\n1989 \u00a0\u00a0Pete Rose: My Story<\/em> (Pete Rose\/Roger Kahn) (2)
\n1989 \u00a0\u00a0Shoeless Joe<\/em> (W.P. Kinsella) (4)
\n1989 \u00a0\u00a0Yogi (It Ain\u2019t Over)<\/em> (Yogi Berra\/Tom Horton) (2)
\n1990 \u00a0\u00a0Men at Work<\/em> (George Will) (35)
\n1990 \u00a0\u00a0Behind the Mask<\/em> (Dave Pallone\/Alan Steinberg) (5)
\n1990 \u00a0\u00a0Bo Knows Bo<\/em> (Bo Jackson\/Dick Schaap) (16)
\n1991 \u00a0\u00a0I Had a Ham<\/em>mer (Hank Aaron\/Lonnie Wheeler) (5)
\n1991 \u00a0\u00a0My Favorite Summer<\/em> (Mickey Mantle\/Phil Pepe) (6)
\n1994 \u00a0\u00a0All My Octobers<\/em> (Mickey Mantle\/Mickey Herskowitz) (6)
\n1997 \u00a0\u00a0Wait till Next Year<\/em> (Doris Kearns Goodwin) (10)
\n1998 \u00a0\u00a0Bunts<\/em> (George Will) (2)
\n2000 \u00a0\u00a0Fair Ball<\/em> (Bob Costas) (10)
\n2000 \u00a0\u00a0Joe DiMaggio<\/em> (Richard Ben Cramer) (9)
\n2001 \u00a0\u00a0When You Come to A Fork in the Road<\/em> (Yogi Berra\/David Kaplan) (7)
\n2001 \u00a0\u00a0Zimmer<\/em> (Don Zimmer\/Bill Madden) (3)
\n2002 \u00a0\u00a0Sandy Koufax: A Lefty\u2019s Legacy<\/em> (Jane Leavy) (16)
\n2003 \u00a0\u00a0Perfect I\u2019m Not<\/em> (David Wells\/Chris Kreski) (5)
\n2003 \u00a0\u00a0The Teammates<\/em> (David Halberstam) (13)
\n2003 \u00a0\u00a0Moneyball <\/em>(Michael Lewis) (20)
\n2003 \u00a0\u00a0Me and My Dad<\/em> (Paul O\u2019Neill\/Burton Rocks) (1)
\n2004 \u00a0\u00a0My Prison without Bars<\/em> (Pete Rose\/Rick Hill) (5)
\n2004 \u00a0\u00a0Ted Williams<\/em> (Leigh Montville) (1)
\n2005 \u00a0\u00a0Juiced<\/em> (Jose Canseco) (8)
\n2005 \u00a0\u00a0Three Nights in August<\/em> (Buzz Bissinger) (20)
\n2005 \u00a0\u00a0Idiot<\/em> (Johnny Damon\/Peter Golenbock) (2)
\n2005 \u00a0\u00a0Coach<\/em> (Michael Lewis) (5)
\n2005 \u00a0\u00a0Luckiest Man<\/em> (Jonathan Eig) (1)
\n2005 \u00a0\u00a0Praying for Gil Hodges<\/em> (Thomas Oliphant) (1)
\n2006 \u00a0\u00a0Game of Shadows<\/em> (Mark Fainaru-Wade\/Lance Williams) (5)
\n2006 \u00a0\u00a0Clemente<\/em> (David Maraniss) (5)
\n2006 \u00a0\u00a0The Big Bam<\/em> (Leigh Montville) (1)
\n2006 \u00a0\u00a0Feeding the Monster <\/em>(Seth Mnookin) (2)
\n2007 \u00a0\u00a0Big Papi<\/em> (David Ortiz\/Tony Massarotti) (2)
\n2008 \u00a0 Vindicated<\/em> (Jose Canseco) (2)
\n2008 \u00a0\u00a0Yankee for Life<\/em> (Bobby Murcer\/Glen Waggoner) (1)
\n2008 \u00a0\u00a0Beyond Belief<\/em> (Josh Hamilton\/Tim Keown) (1)
\n2009 \u00a0\u00a0The Yankee Years<\/em> (Joe Torre\/Tom Verducci) (14)
\n2009 \u00a0\u00a0A-Rod<\/em> (Selena Roberts) (1)
\n2009 \u00a0\u00a0Satchel<\/em> (Larry Tyre) (2)
\n2010 \u00a0\u00a0Willie Mays<\/em> (James Hirsch) (4)
\n2010 \u00a0\u00a0Steinbrenner <\/em>(Bill Madden) (5)
\n2010 \u00a0\u00a0The Last Boy<\/em> (Jane Leavy) (13)
\n2010 \u00a0\u00a0The Bullpen Gospels<\/em> (paperback-Dick Hayhurst) (3)
\n2011 \u00a0\u00a0The Art of Fielding<\/em> (fiction-Chad Harbach) (9)
\n2012 \u00a0\u00a0Driving Mr. Yogi<\/em> (Harvey Araton) (1)
\n2012 \u00a0 Imperfect<\/em> (Jim Abbott\/Tim Brown) (1)
\n2012 \u00a0\u00a0Calico Joe<\/em> (fiction- John Grisham (15)
\n2012 \u00a0\u00a0Wherever I Wind Up<\/em> (R.A. Dickey\/Wayne Coffey) (1)
\n2012 \u00a0\u00a0One Last Strike<\/em> (Tony LaRussa\/Rick Hummel) (3)
\n2013 \u00a0\u00a0Francona<\/em> (Terry Francona\/Dan Shaughnessy) (2)
\n2014 \u00a0\u00a0Where Nobody Knows Your Name<\/em> (John Feinstein) (2)
\n2014 \u00a0\u00a0The Closer<\/em> (Mariano Rivera\/Wayne Coffey) (9)
\n2014 \u00a0\u00a0Jeter Unfiltered<\/em> (Derek Jeter\/Christopher Anderson) (5)
\n2016 \u00a0\u00a0House of Nails<\/em> (Lenny Dykstra) (2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"