Baseball Best-Sellers, January 31, 2025

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. And a Ω (omega) means it’s an award winner.

1. Motor Preferences for Baseball: A Coach’s Guide to Identifying and Respecting Player Strengths to Enhance Performance and Reduce Injury, by David Genest and Matthew Swope
2. Ron Shandler’s 2025 Baseball Forecaster *
3. Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Joe Posnanski Ω (My review on Bookreporter.com)
4. The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus
5. Baseball Prospectus 2025
6. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keen (Paperback)
7. The 2025 Fantasy Baseball Blackbook, by Joe Pisapia
8. Banana Ball, by Jesse Cole with Don Yeager
9. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis Ω (paperback)
10. The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City, by Kevin Baker (My review on Bookreporter.com) Ω

KINDLE BOOKS

1. The Wingmen
2. The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, by Keith Law
3. A Brooklyn Guy: Otto Miller: The Greatest Brooklyn Dodger You Never Heard Of, by Noel Hynd
4. The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics, by Alan Schwarz
5. Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets’ First Year, by Jimmy Breslin
6. The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America, by Posnanski
7. Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, by Keith O’Brien (My review on Bookreporter.com)
8. Moneyball
9. Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original, by Howard Bryant
10. Why We Love Baseball

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. Moneyball (unabridged, narrated by Scott Brick)
2. Why We Love Baseball
3. The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit, by Ron Shelton (narrated by the author)
4. Calico Joe, by John Grisham (My review on Bookreporter.com)
5. Charlie Hustle
6. The Baseball 100, by Posnanski
7. Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton (narrated by the author)
8. Ninety Percent Mental, by Bob Tewksbury (narrated by the author)
9. Cheated: The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing, by Andy Martino (narrated by the author)
10. Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original, by Howard Bryant

Congratulations to Kevin Baker, winner of the prestigious CASEY Award from Spitball Magazine.

The inclusion of Shandler’s annual Forecaster as well as Baseball Prospectus and the Black Book can only mean one thing: opening day is just around the corner. Time to crunch the numbers and get your fantasy teams in order.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 1,048,725 overall in books (#73 in Literary Bibliographies & Indexes); last time, 1,738,175.  Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 3,385,025; last time, 3,371,948.

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.