Baseball Best-Sellers, May 13, 2022

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. In Scoring Position: 40 Years of a Baseball Love Affair, by Bob Ryan and Bill Chuck
2. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
3. Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide 2022
4. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
5. Good As Gold: My Eight Decades in Baseball, by Jim Kaat and Douglas Lyons
6. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
7. Swing and a Hit: Nine Innings of What Baseball Taught Me, by Paul O’Neill and Jack Curry
8. Mind of a Superior Hitter: The Art, Science and Philosophy, by Michael McCree
9. Baseball America Prospect Handbook 2022
10. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene

KINDLE BOOKS

1. Maris & Mantle: Two Yankees, Baseball Immortality, and the Age of Camelot, by Tony Castro
2. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
3. Baseball Field Guide: An In-Depth Illustrated Guide to the Complete Rules of Baseball, by Dan Formosa and Paul Hamburger
4. Moneyball
5. In Scoring Position
6. A Game of Extremes: 25 Exceptional Baseball Stories about What Happened on and off the Field, by Roy Lingster
7. The Last Real Season, by Paul Shropshire
8. Beauty at Short: Dave Bancroft, the Most Unlikely Hall of Famer and His Wild Times in Baseball’s First Century, by Tom Alesia
9. The Captain and Me: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson, by Ron Blomberg and Dan Epstein
10. The Sputnik Season, by Noel Hynd

AUDIBLE

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  (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
2. The Baseball 100
3. Calico Joe, by John Grisham
4. The Bad Guys Won, by Jeff Perlman
5. Ball Four: The Final Pitch
6. Ninety Percent Mental, by Bob Tewksbury
7. The Science of Hitting
8. The Matheny Manifesto, by Mike Matheny
9. Swing and a Hit
10. Opening Day: 50-for-50: One Fan. One Game. A Half-Century of Baseball Stories, by Michael Ortman

Interesting that Bob Ryan’s new book “needed” a co-author. I’m reading that along with Paul O’Neill’s memoir in preparation for my annual baseball feature on Bookreporter.com. Look for it some time before the end of the month (give or take). As might be expected, most of Ryan’s stories are about the Boston Red Sox. Brief time capsules from the 1970s until last year. O’Neill’s book is nothing to write home about, however. Same old same old.

I don’t usually recommend Kindle books, but check out Baseball Field Guide. Good bang for the buck.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 2,704,064 overall in books; last time, 2,648,064. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,421,281; last time, 398,642.

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.

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.

Tagged as: Bob Ryan, Paul O'Neill, Ted Williams