10-Pack
/Thanks to this reader who liked DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT so much, he had 10 of them shipped from Amazon to me so I could sign them for his buddies and ship them back to him to distribute perfect holiday gifts. Enjoy, Doc!
Thanks, Chipper!
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Always nice to see my book next to Chipper Jones' BALLPLAYER book in the BN Sports section, and also nice to see him endorse DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT to 1.2 million followers!
See the tweets here.
Climbing the bestseller charts
/Bestseller currently No. 82 on BN.com, keep it going!
9 Connecticut BN store signings in one day
/The DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT official book tour page is updated with Saturday's #BarnesandNobleStormingTour. Bingley and I drove to nine Barnes & Nobles all over the state of Connecticut in one day: Stamford, Westport, Milford, North Haven, Glastonbury, Manchester, Enfield, Farmington and Waterbury. Sorry, Danbury -- couldn't make it there before 10 p.m. close! That's 21 Barnes & Nobles across the United States and counting on the DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT tour. Grab "the sports book of the holiday season" for family and friends!
My 2018 Hall of Fame ballot
/I just mailed back my 2018 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Chipper Jones, Edgar Martinez, Jim Thome, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, Larry Walker, Vlad Guerrero. Read my 6,000-word blog post analyzing my entire top 20.
While I did not agree with Joe Morgan's email to voters -- neither the message nor the delivery -- I appreciate him being a part of my new book DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT.
Holiday Signings
/Signings over the past week have included Barnes & Nobles at Union Square, Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Yonkers, White Plains, Paramus and Palisades Center -- all in the Greater NYC area. It has been so great to talk books and baseball with individual team members at those BN stores, and I deeply appreciate their efforts to display DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT in great locations, from face-out display on the Sports shelf to the BN Signed :Editions by Acclaimed Authors section at the front of some stores. Visit the DFTD Book Tour page here for more info.
Signed books in St. Louis
/Signed copies of DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT are waiting for baseball fans right now at Barnes & Noble in St. Louis! Cardinal greats include Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith, Stan the Man, Big Mac and more. Perfect holiday gift. Thanks for the hospitality, Jolene & friends at Chesterfield BN! The books are right upfront and next to "The Cardinal Way" at that great location in West County, off Clarkson Road. 💎⚾️
Thanks, Brooksie
/You won't find a better person than Brooks Robinson, and it was so nice to spend time with him in the cocktail reception before this month's Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association 18th annual Legends for Youth Dinner at Capitale in Manhattan. We had fun talking about DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT, which he helped make possible by providing the Foreword as well as the first insightful interview response about nine years ago that moved this entire project toward what became a well-received baseball book filled with everyday lessons. I'm proud to say that the book also benefits the Constance & Brooks Robinson Foundation, which helps important causes. I knew it was all meant to be when he agreed to write the Foreword on the very same day last April that I was inside Camden Yards posing with one of his statues. True story. Among the photos I took below is one of the 1955 Baltimore Orioles team stats, which is on a club-level hallway at the ballpark. If you look closely at that, you can see that a rookie named "Brooks Robinson" was 2-for-22 that first year, and that explains why he chose the hit that he did for this book! Don't miss his story and Foreword.
Baseball by the Book Podcast
/Thanks to my fellow Sporting News alum Justin McGuire for having me on his Baseball by the Book podcast! DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT is episode 94 there. Click here to listen.
On TV: Beyond the Game
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Thanks to John Vorperian for having me on for an episode of his respected and long-running TV/Internet show "Beyond the Game" in White Plains, N.Y. It was fun to talk baseball and DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT in the studio. CLICK HERE TO WATCH.
The show originally aired on White Plains Community Media for Westchester County viewers on Nov. 3 and 4. If you want to see it there on TV, it will air again on Friday, Nov 24, at 9 p.m. ET, on Fios 45 and Altasce 76. Then it will air on Saturday, Nov. 25 at 1 p.m. ET.
Say cheese, Jim Kaat!
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With the great Jim Kaat
I love Jim Kaat's smile, and there's a very good reason. At the very outset of DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT, I share the story of my first actual attendance at a Major League Baseball game. Jim was pitching for the Minnesota Twins at home on July 24, 1962. I was TWO! (Almost three.) I was there with my Mom as guests in the Twins player wives section, sitting next to Harmon Killebrew's kids, because my Aunt Sue was married to Johnny Goryl, then a Twins infielder. That was the night that Jim's teeth were knocked out on a comebacker against Detroit, and today at the MLB.com studios in Manhattan we talked at length about what he remembers and what I was told. You won't believe what Jim did in the following days, based on how pitchers are treated today. Jim's story in the "Outwork Everyone" chapter of DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT is priceless, and we both hope you will enjoy reading it and learning an everyday life lesson. I'll be at the MLB Players Alumni Association's annual Legends for Youth Dinner on Tuesday night to report for MLB.com, and Jim will be there along with others who appear in my book (Brooks Robinson, Andre Dawson, Tony Perez among them). It was my honor to sign this book for Jim, though I am sure his signature is a lot more valuable. Kitty Kaat for Cooperstown.
Thanks for the memories, Carlos!
/Thanks to Carlos Beltran for 20 beautiful years of Major League service. It was a joy to be around him through the years, including an interview with him in the Astros clubhouse long after he had amazed everyone in one game at the classic 2004 NLCS against the Cardinals. What a show he put on back then, and what memories he gave us over two decades. I also remember covering his 2013 Roberto Clemente Award ceremony, and what it meant to him being up there with Vera Clemente in honor of her late husband -- Puerto Rican legends. I am so honored to include Carlos' personal favorite hit among those 20 years, and now that he is walking into that sweet night of baseball retirement, now is a good time to turn to his page and see what he chose! Think you can guess?
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2g1uXCM
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2g0WFzJ
Image courtesy of @Royals
MLB.com Newsmakers Podcast
/Thanks Bill Ladson for having me on the MLB.com Newsmakers podcast to talk about DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT! You can listen to the interview here.
Legends Love Diamonds
/One of the great pleasures of publishing DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT is being able to show one's appreciation to the legends who made all those days of our lives so special. Here are two examples of beloved Yankee legends joining in the fun: Don Mattingly and Bernie Williams. Flip to their pages to see which hits they chose as their own personal favorites!
Barnes & Noble Fort Lauderdale
/Thanks to my friends at Barnes & Noble Fort Lauderdale on North Federal for letting me sign copies of DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT . . . and displaying them prominently on the Customer Information counter by the sign "Books We're Talking About". Get your signed copy now or order it online here.
Barnes & Noble at The Grove
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Thanks to my friends at Barnes & Noble at The Grove -- America's third-largest bookstore. On the morning of World Series Game 6 between the Astros and Dodgers, I signed copies there. Someone can pick up a cool collectible, because those author sticker copies are signed:
World Series Game 6
Astros vs. Dodgers
10-31-17
It was a Halloween to remember...in a World Series to remember.
Interview: Foreword Reviews
/Matt Sutherland, Editor-in-Chief of Foreword Reviews Magazine, interviewed me for their latest issue of Foreword This Week, the popular digital newsletter that reaches their library readership. Thanks for the Q&A, which ran during the World Series! You can read it right here.
Thanks, Evansville!
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Thanks to a standing-room-only crowd that came out to Barnes & Noble in Evansville on Saturday for a fantastic book launch event! We teamed up to raise funds for Public Education Foundation of Evansville, and I am especially thankful to PEF Executive Director Amy Walker for speaking to the audience about PEF's mission, and to Kathy Singer of PEF and Mariana of Barnes & Noble for organizing such a beautiful and memorable afternoon. Here's a slideshow of the afternoon!
One takeaway: People are buying DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT not just as a single copy, but in batches as gifts for so many people from all walks who love baseball, no matter what your team or town.
We're off and running! Looking forward to many more book signings and readings to come! Please be sure to LIKE the official Facebook page for our book at facebook.com/MarkNewmanAuthor! Ask your local Barnes & Noble if they have the book yet, and please leave a review if you order it online, as that will help us appear in search results. Thanks!
Evansville Courier & Press
/Evansville native Mark Newman's book asks baseball's greats: Which hit was your favorite?
By Chad Lindskog, Evansville Courier & Press
EVANSVILLE — Mark Newman received a wakeup call last year on the morning of Game 7 of the World Series.
It was Pete Rose.
Newman scrambled to put baseball's all-time hit king on speakerphone and open Microsoft Word on his computer inside a Cleveland hotel room. Then he asked this question: What hit meant the most to you and why? . . . Read more >>
Book Review by Perfect Pitch
/Thanks to Susan Spector -- Met Opera oboe, longtime Mets season ticket holder with husband Garry, and staple of the MLB.com/blogs community for a decade -- for her review of DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT on the Perfect Pitch blog! Please visit Susan's blog and check out the review. Great custom beret, too! Here's an excerpt:
Fans, the media, statisticians, bloggers, and baseball historians have time-honored criteria for quantifying or qualifying an individual athlete’s performance relative to his peers. They are also afforded their respective platforms for self-cultivated “highlight reels” of their own selection. Some of the crowning points shared with Mark by these ballplayers might be seen as relatively unremarkable, from a strictly baseball point of view; what is noteworthy is the reason why this is the hit selected by the player himself and given its own chapter in Mark’s book.
The subject of each chapter is certainly a measure of athletic accomplishment, but more often a player’s selection had more to do with the context in which the hit was made. Mark skillfully weaves together the specifics of the play with anecdotal information from the player. Reading these vignettes, one can easily visualize the whimsical grin playing across the face of a player or the slight misting up of a player’s eyes involved in the hit’s memory and his retelling a story that, for that player at least, has obviously become the stuff of myth or legend. The inclusion of each player’s “back story”, the opportunity for him to “set the stage” and to add personal embellishments to his saga: this is what makes the book fascinating reading.