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.
- Swing and a Hit: Nine Innings of What Baseball Taught Me, by Paul O’Neill and Jack Curry
- Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original, by Howard Bryant
- Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
- The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
- Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide 2022
- THE PROCESS: A Family’s Guide to Developing College Ready Recruits from Little League through High School, by Walter Beede
- This Old Man: All in Pieces, by Roger Angell
- Playing Through the Pain: Ken Caminiti and the Steroids Confession That Changed Baseball Forever, by Dan Good
- The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
- The Summer Game, by Roger Angell
KINDLE BOOKS
- Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball, by Luke Epplin (My review on Bookreporter.com)
- A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics: Why WAR, WHIP, wOBA, and Other Advanced Sabermetrics Are Essential to Understanding Modern Baseball, by Anthony Castrovince
- The Summer Game
- Memories of Summer: When Baseball Was an Art and Writing About it a Game, by Roger Kahn
- This Old Man: All in Pieces
- Playing Through the Pain
- Maris & Mantle: Two Yankees, Baseball Immortality, and the Age of Camelot, by Tony Castro
- Rickey
- Moneyball
- 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.
- Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
- Swing and a Hit
- The Baseball 100
- Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
- The Bad Guys Won, by Jeff Perlman
- Playing Through the Pain
- Calico Joe, by John Grisham
- Ninety Percent Mental, by Bob Tewksbury
- The Mental Game of Baseball, by H.A. Dorfman
- Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, by Jonathan Eig
New to the list: an “expose” (classified as such although I haven’t read it yet), about Ken Caminetti and his role in the PED mess.
Roger Angell is still generating interest after his passing.
Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 2,201,861 overall in books; last time, 1,934,844. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,946,088; last time, 1,859,352.
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.
is available on Amazon.com,
Comments on this entry are closed.