Baseball Best-Sellers, July 8, 2022

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 Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit, by Ron Shelton
The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original, by Howard Bryant
Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide 2022
Mind of a Superior Hitter: The Art, Science and Philosophy, by Michael McCree
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, by Tom Hanson
The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker

KINDLE BOOKS

The Church of Baseball
Rickey
Moneyball
The Sputnik Season: 1957, by Noel Hynd
How to Beat a Broken Game: The Rise of the Dodgers in a League on the Brink, by Pedro Moura
I Had a Hammer, by Hank Aaron and Lonnie Wheeler
Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series That Changed Baseball, by Luke Epplin (My review on Bookreporter.com)
Ball Four, by Jim Bouton and Leonard Shecter
The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship, by David Halberstam
Warren Spahn: A Biography of the Legendary Lefty, by Lew Freedman

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.

Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leershen
The Church of Baseball
Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
Rickey
The Baseball 100
The Mental Game of Baseball, by H.A. Dorfman
Calico Joe, by John Grisham
Swing and a Hit, by Paul O’Neill
Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life, by Micheal Lewis
The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn

The Church of Baseball qualifies for the list’s “triple crown,” appearing in all three categories. And rightly so. Reading it now and finding it quite educational as well as entertaining. I’s not just a behind-the-scenes look at “he making of,” but also Shelton’s creative process.

Other than that, the BBS are pretty much the same old, same old.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 1,906,263 overall in books; last time, 2,627,229. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,095,583; last time, 2,066,056. Still only $1.99 for the Kindle version which ranks 320,933 and is in the top 20 (!) in three categories: Baseball Statistics (12), Teen & Young Adult Baseball & Softball Nonfiction eBooks (also 12), and Teen & Young Adult Baseball & Softball (18, although I’m not sure what the difference is between this and the previous).

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.