Baseball Best-Sellers, February 23, 2024

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 Amazon’s 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

Baseball Prospectus 2024
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Joe Posnanski
The Fantasy Baseball Black Book 2024, by Joe Pisapia
The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus
Ron Shandler’s 2024 Baseball Forecaster and Encyclopedia of Fanalytics
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and Tom Underwood
The Catcher Was a Spy, by Nicholas Dawidoff
The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, by Jeff Pearlman
Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2024: From Acuña to Zunino

KINDLE BOOKS

The Wingmen
Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original, by Howard Bryant
Ball Four: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Jim Bouton
Francona: The Red Sox Years, by Terry Francona and Dan Shaugnessy
42 Today: The Legacy of Jackie Robinson, edited by Michel Long
House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge, by Lenny Dykstra
Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch
Moneyball
The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series, by Tyler Kepner
Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season, by Jonathan Eig

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.

Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
Why We Love Baseball
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
The Catcher Was a Spy
Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton (narrated by the author)
Heads-Up Baseball 2.0, by Tom Hanson
The Baseball 100
The Methany Manifesto, by Mike Methany with Jerry B. Jenkins
The Bad Guys Won, by Jeff Pearlman (read by the author)
Heads-Up Baseball, by Tom Hanson

The first six books on the print list have not moved one iota.

I’m attributing the appearance of Dykstra’s book to the fact that he recently suffered a stroke. But in typical Nails fashion, he seems to be handling it in his own unique way. Not for nothing, but I found it amusing that there’s no credited co-author for his memoir. But this was explained in a 2019 article in The New York Times by Richard Sandomir

The veteran collaborator Peter Golenbock worked with Dykstra for seven or eight months, only to be fired by him. Dykstra said he had needed to take control of the book to preserve his singular voice….

Dykstra said he rewrote the book alone, and had help from a husband-and-wife copy editing team and one of his doctors.

“I had to be alone while I was writing,” he said. “I can think better. I wrote one piece of my life at a time. It was a very hard process.”

Indeed, he claimed, he left blood on his keyboard. “Oh, yeah, that’s how I roll,” he said.

Note there are two “Heads Up” titles on the audio list.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 978,917 overall in books (#96 in Literary Bibliographies & Indexes); last time, 1,009,932. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,824,288; last time, 2,804,953.

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.