Baseball Best-Sellers, January 5, 2024

Welcome to the first BBS for the New Year! I hope 2024 brings lots of good reading your way.

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 Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
3. The Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2024, by Joe Pisapia *
4. Ron Shandler’s 2024 Baseball Forecaster: And Encyclopedia of Fanalytics
5. The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus
6. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
7. The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
8. A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti *
9. My Mets Bible: Scoring 30 Years of Baseball Fandom, by Evan Roberts * (Available April 4)
10. The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker

KINDLE BOOKS

1. The Wingmen
2. Why We Love Baseball
3. Moneyball
4. Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Takes a Swing at Baseball
5. The Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2024
6. Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game, by Rob Neyer
7. The Baseball 100
8. Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played, by Jeff Fletcher
9. The Era, 1947–1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World, by Roger Kahn
10. The Funniest Baseball Book Ever: The National Pastime’s Greatest Quips, Quotations, Characters, Nicknames, and Pranks, by Peter Handrinos

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 Baseball 100
4. Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess, by Evan Drellich
5. The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, by Keith Law
6. Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton
7. The Bad Guys Won, by Jeff Pearlman (read by the author)
8. Ninety Percent Mental, by Bob Tewksbury (read by the author)
9. Heads Up Baseball, by Ken Ravizza
10. Smart Baseball: The Story Behind the Old Stats That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the Right Way to Think About Baseball, by Keith Law

Finally, some fresh blood. Although Roberts’ Mets book doesn’t come out for another three-plus months. Still something to look forward to. Also look for an increased “fantasy” presence for the next few months. Although I don’t know why — being a non-participant — anyone would want to get into it so this considering there are still a bunch of free agents to be signed as well as, you know, spring training.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 1,069,466 overall in books (#83 in Literary Bibliographies & Indexes); last time, 3,059,221. Phew. That’s more like it. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,803,818; last time, 929,905.

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 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.