World Champion Red Sox Dominate Again

Yet another opening day of the baseball season is at hand, and with it, BTW's annual look at baseball books.

As most baseball fans would agree, the great thing about baseball is its timeless quality, the fact that, while life is ever-changing and ever-charging forward, the game played today is essentially the same one that was played a century ago. Steroid scandal aside (unfortunately, there have been a few baseball scandals before, from the Black Sox to Pete Rose's gambling to the Strike of 1994), one key thing about the game has changed since last year's opening day -- the Red Sox are no longer the perennial, loveable losers; they are now World Series champions.

Many of the new baseball titles published this year chronicle the heartaches of the past and document the bliss of the first Red Sox championship since 1918. Here, BTW takes a look at some of these titles and provides a list of the 15 top-selling baseball books at independent bookstores with Book Sense since October 28, 2004, the day after the Sox became World Series champs.

As the title suggests, in Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King (Scribner), the two authors share their thoughts and feelings about their beloved team's experiences throughout the 2004 season. This book is the top seller on the Book Sense baseball bestseller list. Another Sox-centric book, Robert Sullivan's Our Red Sox: A Story of Family, Friends, and Fenway, released just this week from Emmis Books, gives the reader insight into the soul of a true Red Sox fan, experiencing the anguish, the heartache, and the bliss of victory at last.

While the Red Sox may have put to bed the Curse of the Bambino, there still exists another cursed baseball team, one that has not raised a World Series banner in its ballpark since 1908. The team, of course, is the Chicago Cubs, whose fan base is as rabid and devoted as Red Sox Nation. Gene Wojciechowski's Cubs Nation: 162 Games *162 Stories * 1 Addiction (Doubleday) chronicles the Cubs' 2004 season, the team's rich history, and the "agony and ecstasy of Cubdom" and is due out on April 12.

The most explosive media attention this year went, without question, to Jose Canseco's controversial Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big (Regan). Though many question the validity of Canseco's claims, the book brought the steroid problem in baseball to the fore and prompted baseball to put in place a stronger steroid testing policy.

Finally, no baseball book list would be complete without a mention of the New York Yankees, a team that, because of its legendary history, has probably inspired more books than any other sports club. And one of the team's greatest and most revered players is the subject of Jonathan Eig's Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (Simon & Schuster), which will be published on Wednesday, April 6.

Here is a look at the 15 bestselling baseball books based on sales at independent stores with Book Sense between October 28, 2004, and March 28, 2005:

1. Faithful, Stewart O'Nan, Stephen King, $26, Scribner, 0743267524
2. Juiced, Jose Canseco, $25.95, ReganBooks, 0060746408
3. Moneyball, Michael M. Lewis, Norton, $13.95, 0393324818
4. The Teammates, David Halberstam, $12.95, 0786888679
5. Curse Reversed, The Sporting News (Eds.), The Sporting News, $16.95, 0892047801
6. The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness, Buster Olney, Ecco, $26.95, 0060515066
7. Ted Williams, Leigh Montville, Doubleday, $26.95, 0385507488
8. One Day at Fenway, Steve Kettmann, Atria, $25, 0743483650
9. Baseball's Best 1,000: Rankings of the Skills, the Achievements and the Perfomance of the Greatest Players of All Time, Derek Gentile, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, $19.95, 157912397X
10. Baseball Prospectus 2005: Statistics, Analysis, and Insight for the Information Age, Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts (Eds.), Workman, $17.95, 0761135782
11. The Rivals: The Boston Red Sox vs. the New York Yankees; An Inside History, Baseball Writers of the New York Times and the Boston Globe, St. Martin's Press, $29.95, 0312336160
12. Three Nights in August, Buzz Bissinger, et al., Houghton Mifflin Company, $25, 0618405445
13. Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball, Stephen Jay Gould, W. W. Norton & Company, $14.95, 0393325571
14. Take Me Out to the Ballpark: An Illustrated Tour of Baseball Parks Past and Present, Josh Leventhal, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, $29.95, 1579123325
15. Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, Jane Leavy, Perennial, $13.95, 0060933291