Baseball Best-Sellers, August 27, 2021

New: An asterisk serves to let you know that the author is a member of the Pandemic Baseball Book Club. I enthusiastically recommend you visit the site, sign up for their newsletter, and buy some merch.

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

The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
The Wax Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Baseball’s Afterlife, by Brad Balukjian *
Ballparks: A Journey Through the Fields of the Past, Present, and Future, by Eric Enders
The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman
The Natural, by Bernard Malamud
Till the End, by CC Sabathia and Chris Smith
The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the … Put on a New York Uniform–and Maybe the Best, by Jeff Pearlman
The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker

E-BOOKS

Moneyball
The Bad Guys Won
The Wax Pack
Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
Homegrown: How the Red Sox Built a Champion from the Ground Up, by Alex Speier
Uppity: My Untold Story About The Games People Play, by Bill White with Gordon Dillow
Eight Men Out, by Eliot Asinof
The Last Real Season, by Mike Shropshire
Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?, by Jimmy Breslin
Playing America’s Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line, by Adrian Burgos Jr.
Foul Ball, by Jim Bouton

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.

Three Nights in August, by Buzz Bissinger
Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
Ball Four: The Final Pitch
Fall From Grace: The Truth and Tragedy of “Shoeless Joe” Jackson
October 1964, by David Halberstam
The Matheny Manifesto, by Mike Matheny
Cheated: The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing, by Andy Martino
The Wax Pack
Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask, by Jon Pessah

No new titles have cracked this lists.

Still not in the Amazon top-ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 1,828,019 overall in books; last time, 1,312,235. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,651,205; last time, 1,474,249).

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.

Now we’ll see who pays attention. Removing the “Super shameless self-promotion” section. Look for some exciting news in the near future.

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.