Baseball Best-Sellers, April 12, 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 (i.e., 12 and under). 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

The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, by Kevin Baker
Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, by Keith O’Brien
Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Joe Posnanski
The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and Tom Underwood
The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus
My Mets Bible: Scoring 30 Years of Baseball Fandom, by Evan Roberts
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics: Why WAR, WHIP, wOBA, and Other Advanced Sabermetrics Are Essential to Understanding Modern Baseball, by Anthony Castrovince
The Baseball 100, by Joe Posnanski
Baseball America 2024 Prospect Handbook

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.

Charlie Hustle
Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
Why We Love Baseball
The Baseball 100
The New York Game
Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton (narrated by the author)
Heads-Up Baseball: Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time
The Arm
Ninety Percent Mental
The Methany Manifesto

Nothing new to report, although I like seeing Castrovince’s book on analytics pop up at this point of the season as a reminder of what’s “important” to consider when we evaluate players. It’s kind of sad to see nothing related to Hank Aaron on the 50th anniversary of him breaking Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record. Short collective memory, I guess.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,242,426 overall in books; last time, 1,882,763. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 2,915,785; last time, 2,913,058.

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.

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