Baseball Best-Sellers, February 24, 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. Baseball Prospectus 2023
2. Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Greatest Minds Creates Sport’s Biggest Mess, by Evan Drellich
3. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
4. The Complete Guide to Spring Training 2023: Arizona, by Kevin Reichard *
5. The Fantasy Black Book 2023, by Joe Pisapia
6. The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, by Jeff Pearlman
7. Ron Shandler’s 2023 Baseball Forecaster
8. The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker
9. Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, by Ken Ravizza and Tom Hanson
10. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis

KINDLE BOOKS

1. Winning Fixes Everything
2. Baseball Prospectus 2023
3. How Baseball Happened
4. A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics
5. Moneyball
6. The Fantasy Black Book 2023
7. Baseball Forecaster
8. The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series
9. The Sputnik Season: 1957
10. Summer of ’49

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. Winning Fixes Everything
2. Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played
3. The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams
4. The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship
5. Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
6. The Baseball 100
7. House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge
8. The MVP Machine
9. Ball Four: The Final Pitch
10. The Matheny Manifesto

Note: Once again, Amazon lists The Athletic Baseball 2023 Fantasy: Win Your League! in the top 10 on the print list, but as I consider it a magazine, and not a book, I’ve excluded it. Blog mea, praecepta mea.

I see a Spring Training book about Arizona, but a similar volume about Florida does not come in until #45.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,758,719  overall in books; last time, 2,721,775. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,415,340; last time, 2,417,099. 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.