Over the river and through the woods, to BN stores we go

Barnes & nOBLE STATEN ISLAND BOOK SIGNING ON 12/18/17

Barnes & nOBLE STATEN ISLAND BOOK SIGNING ON 12/18/17

UPDATED 12/19/17.
BOOK TOUR PAGE JUST UPDATED - 38 BARNES & NOBLE APPEARANCES AND COUNTING...


From Friday through Monday, I signed each day at Barnes & Nobles stores throughout New Jersey and New York, bringing the total of BN stores visited to 38. This past weekend included a Barnes & Noble author event at Paramus (NJ) on Friday night, then the third consecutive weekend of #BarnesandNobleStormingTour store signings within the Northeast, then a meet & greet event at Barnes & Noble in Nanuet (NY) on Sunday, and then a visit to Staten Island to sign many books they have in stock. That was pretty cool, considering I usually am running over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in the opposite direction for the NYC Marathon! Great stores!

The first #BarnesandNobleStormingTour across 9 Connecticut BN stores was such a success, the Jeep made the trip on the next weekend through crazy snow and to 10 BN stores throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. This #BarnesandNobleStormingTour went to: Clifton, Clark, Edison, East Brunswick, Princeton, Moorestown, Cherry Hill (all in NJ on Saturday), then Rittenhouse Square in downtown Philadelphia (after 20-minute MLB Network Radio appearance to talk about the book while parked outside the Philly store!), Concord Pike in Wilmington, Delaware, and finally Freehold (NJ).

See the @MarkNewmanAuthor Instagram page for all the posts with a ton of pics and videos, and thanks to the BN stores that also posted about the signings! This has been an incredible journey, not just getting a book from manuscript to market, but this holiday season of helping to put DIAMONDS FROM THE DUGOUT into eager baseball fans' hands for gifts!

All those stores now have signed copies waiting for you, at least while they last. Give them sticker copies for a gift!

24993370_10159604436105403_7089888764455706353_n.jpg
24862171_10159605039885403_4631976929988028202_n.jpg
24991129_10159603906765403_3591681878128384623_n.jpg

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!

24177037_10159571208420403_8074458875639012038_n.jpg
24176670_10159571136875403_6960757393362841664_n.jpg

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.

IMG_2535.JPG

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.

BrooksRobinson.JPG
IMG_4536.jpg
IMG_4549.JPG
IMG_4550.JPG
IMG_4543.JPG

On TV: Beyond the Game

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.

TVscreengrab.jpg
IMG_0674.JPG
IMG_0680.JPG
IMG_0678.JPG

Say cheese, Jim Kaat!

With the great Jim Kaat

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

Image courtesy of @Royals

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!

DonMattinglyCopy.jpg
BernieWilliams.jpg

Barnes & Noble at The Grove

22853059_10159436291290403_8038418854881721443_n.jpg

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.

Thanks, Evansville!

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 >>

Courier.jpg