If it fits on a bookshelf, it fits here.

Amazon keeps changing the way they report, so that will be mirrored here. Sometimes there will be rankings of Kindle and audio-books on baseball, other times, not.

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, almost always in the print version.

PRINT

1. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis Ω
2. One Day In September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the  Birth of the All-Star Game, by Scott Reich
3. The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn
4. Fifty Seasons: Stories of the Baseball Years That Echo, by Joe Posnanski (Release date, Feb. 2, 2027) *
5. Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments, by Posnanski (my review on Bookreporter)
6. Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball and Life, by Dusty Baker
7. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene (my Bookshelf review here)
8. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams and John Underwood
9. Ball Four: The Final Pitch, by Jim Bouton
10. The Baseball 100, by Posnanski

KINDLE

1. Rogers Hornsby: A Biography, by Charles Alexander
2. Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, by George F. Will
3. Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball from Itself, by Michael Shapiro
4. Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy, by Jane Leavy
5. The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America, by Posnanski
6. The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse, by Rich Cohen
7. Sho-Time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played, by Jeff Fletcher

AUDIO BOOKS

1. The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy
2. The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform – and Maybe the Best, by Jeff Pearlman (read by the author)
3. The Bronx Zoo: The Astonishing Inside Story of the 1978 World Champion New York Yankees, by Sparky Lyle and Peter Golenbock (read by Lyle)
4. Baseball, by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (narrated by Burns)
5. Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, by Charles Leerhsen
6. Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series, by Eliot Asinof
7. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It, by Lawrence Ritter (narrated by the author)

Another baseball book by Joe Posnanski? You know what that means: another Bookshelf Conversation. Another award-winner? We’ll find out. Plus this is the first 2027 title to make the list, so kudos. Curious to know the meaning in the title of “the baseball years.”

Still not in the Amazon top ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, as of this posting it ranks 2,980,681 in books overall; last time, 2,959,000.  Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 3,346,892; last time, 3,339,743.

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.

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