Baseball Best-Sellers, September 29, 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 (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. An asterisk denotes a book making its debut on the BBS list.

PRINT

Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Joe Posnanski
The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus
The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
Heads-Up Baseball, by Tom Hanson
Brooks: The Biography of Brooks Robinson, by Doug Wilson
Mind of a Superior Hitter, by Michael McCree
The 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Great Team in Pinstripe History, by Jack Curry
The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene

KINDLE BOOKS

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.

Why We Love Baseball
Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
The Baseball 100
Calico Joe, by John Grisham
The Bad Guys Won, by Jeff Pearlman (read by the author)
Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton (read by the author)
The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Thing in Sports, by Jeff Passan
Yogi: A Life
Banana Ball, by Jesse Kole with Don Yeager
A Damn Near Perfect Game: Reclaiming America’s Pastime, by Joe Jelly with Rob Bradford

Once again, Posnanski books llom large on the BBS. No real surprise that the passing of the legendary Brooks Robinson has generated renewed interest in his life.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,878,555 in Books overall in books; last time, 2,812,704. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,692,554; last time, 2,690,962.

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 dictionary; it has the other books in it. Which kind of reminds me of one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite shows.

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.