Baseball Best-Sellers, October 3, 2025

My bad: I had originally written that Amazon had stopped offering links to purchase (a ridiculous concept). In fact, it was my fault; I didn’t realize I had signed out of the account. So the links have been added.

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 had with them. An asterisk denotes a book making its debut on the BBS list. And a “Ω” means it’s an award winner.

PRINT

1. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
2. Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It, by Jane Leavy (My review on Bookreporter.com)
3. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keen (Paperback)
4. The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball, by John W. Miller. (My review on Bookreporter.com)
5. 72 Stories: From the Baseball Collection of Geddy Lee, by Geddy Lee *
6. The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams, by Adam Lazarus
7. Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas, by Jesse Cole
8. The Ultimate New York Yankees Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Yankees Fans!, by Ray Walker
9. The Ultimate Baseball Trivia Challenge, by Hank Patton
10. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood

KINDLE

1. The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness, by Andy McCullough
2. Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, by Jonathan Eig
3. Beyond Balls and Strikes: An Umpire’s Playbook, by Robert Murtaugh
4. 1978: Baseball and America in the Disco Era, by David Krell
5. The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, by Keith Law

AUDIOBOOKS

1. Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Posnanski
2. Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, by Keith O’Brien
3. The Baseball 100, by Posnanski
4. The Summer of ’49, by David Halberstam
5. Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen
6. The Matheny Manifesto: A Young Manager’s Old-School Views on Success in Sports and Life, by Mike Matheny and Jerry B. Jenkins
7. Calico Joe, by John Grisham
8. The Bronx Zoo: The Astonishing Inside Story of the 1978 World Champion New York Yankees, by Sparky Lyle (narrated by the author)

Note: For some reason, Amazon did not provide links to the books as of the time of posting, so new items — such as Rush’ bassist Geddy Lee’s new offering — are not accessible as usual. I sure hope that changes soon. The links to titles that appeared in the last BBS post still seem to work. And, again, given the way Amazon does its lists nowadays, there might not be the usual ten per category.

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 3,386,071 overall (#61 in Literary Bibliographies and Indexes); last time, 3,413,175.  Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 900,315; last time, 2,463,777. I attribute the improvement to the High Holidays, when Greenberg famously refused to play on Yom Kippur.

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.

BUT…

Some exciting news (now we’ll see who’s paying attention and reading down this far).

Necessity is the mother of invention. Thanks to emergency surgery in which I said goodbye to a recalcitrant gallbladder, I have a couple off months for recuperation during which time I will be working on a revision of 501.

The new version will include all the original stuff but as you know if you’re a baseball reading fool, there have been a lot of great books published since 501 came out a dozen years ago. So since this isn’t a ranking where one title might be pushed off the list, the new material will appear as an added chapter.

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.