Baseball Best-Sellers, January 29, 2021

January 29, 2021

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 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.

PRINT

  1. Paperback I Had a Hammer : The Hank Aaron Story BookI Had a Hammer, by Henry Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler
  2. Baseball Prospectus 2021
  3. Ron Shandler’s 2021 Baseball Forecaster
  4. The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, by Howard Bryant
  5. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
  6. Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide 42
  7. Bill James Handbook 2021
  8. The Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2021, by Joe Pisapia
  9. Baseball America 2021 Prospect Handbook
  10. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene (paperback)

E-BOOKS

  1. The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron
  2. Baseball Prospectus
  3. I Had a Hammer
  4. Moneyball
  5. Uppity: My Untold Story About The Games People Play, by Bill White with Gordon Dillow
  6. The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams, by Ben Bradlee Jr.
  7. The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship, by David Halberstam
  8. The Victory Season: The End of World War II and the Birth of Baseball’s Golden Age, by Robert Wientraub
  9. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
  10. Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life

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 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. 3 Nights in August
  2. The Last Hero
  3. Moneyball
  4. Ball Four
  5. Smart Baseball: The Story Behind the Old Stats That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the Right Way to Think About Baseball
  6. The Last Hero
  7. The Mental Game of Baseball
  8. Ninety Percent Mental
  9. The Yankee Years
  10. The MVP Machine

The 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.

Henry Aaron is still a hot topic, a week after his passing. Other than that, the titles have just switched positions in some cases.

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 still not heard back.

Still not in the Amazon top-ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 626,729 overall in books; last time, 1,780,312,. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 835,446 (last time, 76,747).

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

0Shares

Tagged as: Hank Aaron, Moneyball, Ted Williams, Tom Seaver

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); })();