Baseball Best-Sellers, October 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 (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 in 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 out there).

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

1. Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Joe Posnanski
2. The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus
3. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
4. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
5. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
6. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
7. The Modern Day Catcher: Embracing Innovation for Excellence on the Field, by Tim Federowicz *
8. Heads-Up Baseball, by Tom Hanson
9. The Ultimate Philadelphia Phillies Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Phillies Fans!, by Ray Walker
10. The 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Great Team in Pinstripe History, by Jack Curry

KINDLE BOOKS

1. The Baseball 100
2. Why We Love Baseball
3. Moneyball
4. The Wingmen
5. The Sputnik Season: 1957, by Noel Hynd
6. The Era, 1947–1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World, by Roger Kahn
7. Ball Four: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Jim Bouton
8. Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game, by Jimmy Breslin
9. Marquard and Seeley: A True Story of Romance and Betrayal, Baseball, Mascots, Misfits, and Vaudeville in the Years before World War, by Noel Hynd *
10. Baseball Explosion Training: Drills to Improve Your Core Power & Coordination, by Tim Quiery

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. Making It Home: Life Lessons from a Season of Little League, by Teresa Strasser (read by the author)
2. Why We Love Baseball
3. Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
4. The Baseball 100
5. Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton (read by the author)
6. Rickey: The Life of an American Original, by Howard Bryant
7. Calico Joe, by John Grisham
8. Astroball: The New Way to Win It All, by Ben Reiter (read by the author)
9. The Methany Manifesto, by Mike Methany with Jerry B. Jenkins
10. Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess, by Evan Drellich

Pretty much the same old, save for the books about the Phillies and Astros, two teams still around in the post-season.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 642,171 in Books overall in books (#41 in Literary Bibliographies & Indexes); last time, 2,878,555. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,696,479; last time, 2,692,554.

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.