Again, over the years I’ve written various books, and it’s good to look back today and “pat myself on the back,” so to speak.

This time, I specifically want to look back at my “Don’t Blame the Knuckleballer” series, from 2015-2017:

The first one was Don’t Blame the Knuckleballer! Baseball Legends, Myths, and Stories, available on Amazon.com.

Here’s some information on that book:

In Don’t Blame the Knuckleballer! Baseball Legends, Myths, and Stories, K.P. Wee looks at more than 30 obscure and forgotten tales told by ballplayers, coaches, and broadcasters throughout baseball history – and repeated by historians and bloggers – while mixing in a knuckleballing theme. For each tale, Wee asks, “Did this really happen?” or “Did they blame the right person?”

Among the tales:

* Did Joe Niekro really strike out the first five batters of a game in the very first inning?

* Did Phil Niekro really make Floyd Robinson silly on a strikeout?

* Did “Sunday Teddy” Lyons really pitch only on Sundays?

* How did Tom Candiotti “botch” the Jeff Kent fantasy baseball story?

* Did Pedro Martinez actually forget the details of his first big-league start and blame the wrong guy?

* Did you know that Ted Williams had to face a knuckleballer on the next-to-last day of his historic 1941 season?

* Was Mark Grace really on deck when Glenallen Hill hit his mammoth home run at Wrigley?

Then, in 2017, there was also Don’t Blame the Knuckleballer II, again available on Amazon.

In the second book, titled Don’t Blame the Knuckleballer II: More Baseball Legends, Myths, Stories, and Trivia, some stories are featured in the form of trivia questions, including:

* Who was the last starting pitcher ever in the majors to pitch only two innings in a game – and leave because of an injury – and then receive credit for an “injury win”?

* Which knuckleballer once threw a shutout to beat Greg Maddux?

* Which knuckleballer was the second pitcher ever in big-league history to have two consecutive starts of eight-plus innings and zero runs to begin his postseason career? 

* Which knuckleballer was said to have had “one of the most courageous pitching performances” of the 1939 major-league season – and why?

* Which future Hall of Famer who was teammates with Bobby Witt made his pitching debut with his new club by entering in relief in a bases-loaded situation? 

In Don’t Blame the Knuckleballer II, I look at more than 20 additional obscure and forgotten tales told by ballplayers, coaches, and broadcasters throughout baseball history – and repeated by fans, historians, and bloggers – while mixing in a knuckleballing theme.

Thank you for picking up a copy of each book – I really appreciate your support!

I’m not one who toots his own horn. I rarely do that. But, in the era of social media and getting your name out there, I suppose it’s become a necessity to do so. After all, if you’ve written a book, you want people to know about it — and these days, it’s essential to use social media and the Internet to promote your works.

So, this brings me to this post today: I can’t believe how fast time has flown, but it’s been nearly five years now since my book about underrated knuckleball pitcher Tom Candiotti, A Life of Knuckleballs, was published by McFarland & Co.

I’m still blown away to see people buying a copy here and there. I mean, I’ve always thought that Candiotti didn’t get the accolades that he deserved in his career. So, to have a book about him published — albeit it a little too late, in my opinion, as it came out 15 years after his retirement — is an amazing thing.

It wasn’t an easy process, to be sure. Having a book published isn’t a simple matter of the writing part. It’s also listening to what the publisher wants. There were many stories that Candiotti told me which I originally included in the manuscript, but the publisher has a word limit and all that, and wanted a lot of those stories excluded in the book.

Perhaps some day I will post those stories that didn’t make it into the book on this website. We shall see.

But it’s been nearly five years since the book came out. Time to pat myself on the back.