Baseball Best-Sellers, December 11, 2020

December 11, 2020

Note: 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 writing one). 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, a current title on the BBS list is The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect. “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 romance/erotic fiction that features baseball as a theme either (and goodness knows there are a bunch of those).

So, with all that said…

NEW FEATURE: By the way, the links by the authors’ names will take you to any Bookshelf Conversations I did with them.

PRINT

  1. Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life, by Bill Madden
  2. The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman
  3. The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker
  4. Ballparks: A Journey Through the Fields of the Past, Present, and Future, by Eric Enders
  5. The Captain: A Memoir, by David Wright with Anthony DiComo
  6. The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian
  7. The Ultimate Chicago Cubs Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Cubs Fans!, by Ray Walker
  8. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
  9. A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics: Why WAR, WHIP, wOBA, and Other Advanced Sabermetrics Are Essential to Understanding Modern Baseball, by Anthony Castrovince
  10. The Story of Baseball: In 100 Photographs, by Sports Illustrated

E-BOOKS

  1. Moneyball
  2. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
  3. Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life
  4. Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks, by Ron Rappoport
  5. The Wax Pack
  6. Uppity: My Untold Story About the Games People Play, by Bill White with Gordon Dillow
  7. Dalko: The Untold Story of Baseball’s Fastest Pitcher, by Bill Dembski
  8. The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, by Ben Bradlee Jr.
  9. Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember, by John Feinstein
  10. 1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever, by Madden

AUDIOBOOKS

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 audiobooks, 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
  2. Swing Kings
  3. The Captain
  4. Ball Four
  5. Heads-Up Baseball 2.0
  6. The MVP Machine
  7. The Mental Game of Baseball
  8. Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life
  9. Moneyball (again)
  10. Yogi

New York Times no longer offers a monthly list of sports best-sellers. There are no baseball titles on their latest nonfiction hardcover weekly posting.

A book about the Cubs joins the Yankees trivia volume on the top ten list. 

Buyer Beware: Amazon’s e-book lists offer the top 100 paid and free titles. But if you look closely, some of the books on the “free” list are in reality not free, so pay attention. I sent a query to Amazon’s customer service about this discrepancy but have not heard back yet. (As of this writing, only seven of the top 50 best-sellers under the “free” list are actually free.)

Still not in the Amazon top-ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 1,933,161, overall in books; last time, 1,294,408. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 707,542 (last time, 696,052).

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.

Super-shameless self-promotion: And by the way, I am looking for a publisher for an revised edition of 501, UNP having passed on the opportunity. So if you have any suggestions, please drop me a line. Mucho appreciado.

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 those books, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing an Amazon review; it’s never too late.

0Shares

Tagged as: Baseball Cards, Chicago Cubs, David Wright, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Tom Seaver, Yogi Berra

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post:

script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-5496371-4']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();