Baseball Best-Sellers, January 13, 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. (See my piece on “Why Amazon’s search engine sucks.”)

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

1. The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, by Jeff Pearlman
2. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
3. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
4. The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker
5. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
6. Baseball Prospectus 2023
7. Ron Shandler’s 2023 Baseball Forecaster (Jan. 17 release)
8. The Fantasy Black Book 2023, by Joe Pisapia
9. Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide 2022
10. The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told, by Jeff Silverman

KINDLE BOOKS

1. Moneyball
2. The Cloudbuster Nine
3. I Don’t Care If We Never Get Back: 30 Games in 30 Days on the Best Worst Baseball Road Trip Ever
4. The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America
5. The Sputnik Season
6. The Baseball 100
7. Ball Four: 50th Anniversary Edition
8. The Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2023
9. October 1964
10. Warren Spahn: A Biography of the Legendary Lefty

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 Baseball 100
3. Ball Four: The Final Pitch
4. K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches
5. The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse
6. Heads-Up Baseball
7. Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original
8. Ninety Percent Mental
9. Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher
10. The Mental Game of Baseball

The first four spots in the print list is unchanged from last week with five and six changes places. Yawn.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 1,552,512  overall in books; last time, 687,787. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,231,537; last time, 2,274,773. 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.