Baseball Best-Sellers, January 6, 2023

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” adult books (no romance/erotic fiction that features baseball as a theme although goodness knows there are a bunch of those available).

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. An asterisk denotes a book making its debut on the BBS list.

PRINT

The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, by Jeff Pearlman
The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker
Baseball Prospectus 2023
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
A Damn Near Perfect Game: Reclaiming America’s Pastime, by Joe Kelly with Rob Bradford (Feb. 28 release) *
Ron Shandler’s 2023 Baseball Forecaster (Jan. 17 release) *
The Bill James Handbook 2023
Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide 2022

KINDLE BOOKS

Moneyball
The Cloudbuster Nine
I Don’t Care If We Never Get Back: 30 Games in 30 Days on the Best Worst Baseball Road Trip Ever
The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America
Baseball Anecdotes (Daniel Okrent)
The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series
The Last Real Season
October 1964
The Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2023
The Roger Angel Collection

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)
The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse
K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches
The Baseball 100
Ball Four: The Final Pitch
Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher
Heads-Up Baseball
Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original
Let’s Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub — The Life of Ernie Banks
Ninety Percent Mental

Most notable, by default, is the new book by former Twins manager Joe Kelly. From the book’s blurb:

Baseball has an image problem. The chorus of nonbelievers gets louder every year, and the Major Leagues have made an art of tuning them out. Enter Joe Kelly: a walking, talking, fast-ball-throwing embodiment of why baseball matters. He and his All-Star team of athletes and celebrities have some things to say about what’s gone wrong with our once great game and how to fix it.

Seems there’s always at least one book a year that decries “what’s wrong with the game” and purports to know “how to fix it.”

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 687,787 overall in books; last time, 1,986,427. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,274,773; last time, ,355,518. 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.