Baseball Best-Sellers, October 14, 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

1. The Grandest Stage: A History of The World Series, by Tyler Kepner
2. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
3. Yadi: The Legendary Career of Yadier Molina, by St. Louis Post-Dispatch
4. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
5. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
6. The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker
7. Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide 2022
8. Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, by Tom Hanson
9. The Baseball Book of Why, by John McCollister
10. Resilient Rebels: Ole Miss Baseball’s Remarkable Path to a National Title, by Chase Parham

KINDLE BOOKS

1. 24: Life Lessons and Stories from the Say Hey Kid
2. The Grandest Stage
3. Moneyball
4. Warren Spahn: A Biography of the Legendary Lefty
5. The Baseball 100
6. Beauty at Short: Dave Bancroft, the Most Unlikely Hall of Famer and His Wild Times in Baseball’s First Century
7. The Cloudbuster Nine
8. How Baseball Happened
9. A Game of Extremes: 25 Exceptional Baseball Stories
10. Bush League Blues

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.

1. Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
2. The Grandest Stage
3. Ball Four: The Final Pitch
4. The Baseball 100
5. 24
6. Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time
7. Ninety Percent Mental
8. The Bad Guys Won
9. Try Not to Suck: The Exceptional, Extraordinary Baseball Life of Joe Maddon
10. The Closer (Mariano Rivera)

Tyler Kepner’s new book makes perfect sense for this time of year. And the Yadi book? Boy, that was fast. I tend to stay away from tributes like this unless it’s a local player or someone I really like, all due respect. These things usually seem to be just collections of previous stories and photos with little or no new material.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,283,593 overall in books; last time, 1,992,124. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,381,890; last time, 910,076. Still only $1.99 for the Kindle version.

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.