Baseball Best-Sellers, January 21, 2022

January 21, 2022

Been so long since the last one, I almost forgot the process.

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. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
  2. Ron Shandler’s 2022 Baseball Forecaster: & Encyclopedia of Fanalytics
  3. Baseball Prospectus 2022
  4. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
  5. The Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2022, by Joe Pisapia
  6. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
  7. Baseball America 2022 Prospect Handbook
  8. The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond, by Michael Silverman
  9. Against All Odds: The Atlanta Braves’ Improbable Journey to the 2021 World Series, by the Atlanta Journal Constitution
  10. The Natural, by Bernard Malamud

E-BOOKS

  1. Moneyball
  2. The Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2022
  3. The Captain and Me, by Ron Blomberg and Dan Epstein
  4. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
  5. Stealing Home, by Eric Nussbaum
  6. The Baseball 100
  7. Stan Musial: An American Life, by George Vecsey
  8. Pinstripe Empire, by Marty Appel
  9. The Wax Pack, by Brad Balukjian
  10. Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, by Larry Tye

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. Moneyball  (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
  2. The Baseball 100
  3. Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
  4. Ninety Percent Mental, by Bob Tewksbury
  5. Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask, by Jon Pessah
  6. The Bad Guys Won, by Jeff Perlman
  7. The MVP Machine, by Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik
  8. The Mental Game of Baseball, by H.A. Dorfman
  9. The Methany Manifesto, by Mike Methany
  10. Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen

Here we go.With the new season (hopefully) on the horizon, it’s time for annuals from Baseball Prosepectus, Baseball America, et al. These are the kinds of books I would not hesitate to et in the past, but based on a recent entry, I may reconsider.

All these new editions (and additions) effectively kick out all those trivia titles by Ray Walker. Sorry, Ray; it was fun while it lasted.

Still not in the Amazon top-ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 1,979,059 overall in books; last time, 2,423,428. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,515,423; last time, 1,979,059. Frankly, I’m surprised they’re doing as well as they are, considering I last posted a BBS pos more than a month ago and all these new titles are popping up.

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.

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