Baseball Best-Sellers, March 17, 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. Cross Stitched: One Man’s Journey From Ruin to Restoration, by Jason Grimsley with Jason Clark *
2. Baseball Prospectus 2023
3. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
4. The Boston Globe Story of the Red Sox: More Than a Century of Championships, Challenges, and Characters
5. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
6. The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, by Jeff Pearlman
7. A Damn Near Perfect Game, by Joe Kelly with Rob Bradford
8. The Fantasy Black Book 2023, by Joe Pisapia
9. Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Greatest Minds Creates Sport’s Biggest Mess, by Evan Drellich
10. Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, by Ken Ravizza and Tom Hanson

KINDLE BOOKS

1. Baseball Prospectus 2023
2. Winning Fixes Everything
3. Moneyball
4. I Live for This! Baseball’s Last True Believer
5. In Scoring Position: 40 Years of a Baseball Love Affair
6. A Damn Near Perfect Game
7. Ball Four: 50th Anniversary Edition
8. Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and, “the Worst Baseball Team in History”—The 1973–1975 Texas Rangers
9. The Baseball 100
10. The Fantasy Black Book 2023

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. 1. The Baseball 100
   2. Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
   3. Winning Fixes Everything
   4. A Damn Near Perfect Game
   5. Ball Four: The Final Pitch
   6. The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter
   7. Ninety-Percent Mental
   8. Mint Condition: Howe Baseball  Cards Became an Obsession
   9. Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend
   10. Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original

The only thing new on the list is Jason Grimsley‘s memoir featuring his depression and substance abuse. According to Wikipedia,

Grimsley is known for his leading role in the 1994 Bat Burglary involving Albert Belle and an allegedly corked bat that was taken away by umpires for examination by the league. Grimsley was the player who crawled through a Comiskey Park air conditioning duct to reach the room where the confiscated bat had been secured. He took the corked bat and replaced it with a clean bat. Not accounted for in this plan, however, was the fact that Belle’s bat had his name on it, and the replacement had teammate Paul Sorrento‘s name on it instead, leading to the heist being caught before the end of the day. The incident made ESPN.com’s “Biggest Cheaters in Baseball” list at number 4.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,849,392 overall in books; last time, 2,833,093. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,471,687; last time, 2,469,551. If you didn’t buy it when it was $1.99 for the Kindle version, you missed the boat: it’s now $16.99.

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.