Baseball Best-Sellers, November 3, 2023

November 3, 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.

https://i0.wp.com/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81-PG1d5UhL._SL1500_.jpg?resize=301%2C422&ssl=1PRINT

  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. Our Team, by Luke Epplin (paperback)
  4. The Yogi Book, by Yogi Berra
  5. The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game, by Tim Brown with Eric Kratz (My review on Bookreporter here.)
  6. The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker
  7. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
  8. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
  9. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
  10. Our Team, (hardcover)

KINDLE BOOKS

  1. The Wingmen
  2. Why We Love Baseball
  3. Moneyball
  4. Our Team
  5. Davey Johnson: My Wild Ride in Baseball and Beyond, by Johnson and Erik Sherman
  6. The Baseball 100
  7. Mrs. Morhard and the Boys: One mother’s vision. The first boys’ baseball league. A nation inspired, by Ruth Hanford Morhard
  8. Al Kaline: The Biography of a Tigers Icon, by Jim Hawkins
  9. Tao of the Backup Catcher
  10. Ball Four: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Jim Bouton

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. Why We Love Baseball
  2. Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
  3. The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, by Jane Leavy
  4. For the Good of the Game: The Inside Story of the Surprising and Dramatic Transformation of Major League Baseball, by Bud Selig
  5. Rickey: The Life of an American Original, by Howard Bryant
  6. Tao of the Backup Catcher
  7. The Baseball 100
  8. Ball Four: The Final Pitch , by Jim Bouton (read by the author)
  9. Our Team
  10. The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn

Funny. A book about the New York Rangers appears under “baseball” via Amazon. I guess someone jumped the gun. But I’m sure there will be one about the Texas Rangers very shortly. Our Team and Tao of a Backup Catcher both achieved the “triple crown,” appearing on each of the three lists.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,617,866 overall in books; last time, 1,719,286. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,690,317; last time, 2,697,650.

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.

0Shares

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post:

script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-5496371-4']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();