Why am I passionate about this?

Ever since I started playing Strat-O-Matic baseball as a 13-year-old and then realized that they actually pay people to write about Major League Baseball, it’s been my dream to be a baseball beat writer. I’ve been lucky enough to do it for 25 years. I’ve seen thousands of baseball games and I’ve spent thousands of hours talking to players, managers, coaches, and executives about the sport, but I still learn things from every baseball book I read. Hopefully these books teach you something and help you enjoy the game more.


I wrote

Sho-time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played

By Jeff Fletcher,

Book cover of Sho-time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played

What is my book about?

In 2023 Shohei Ohtani of the Angels had his third straight incredible season, starring as a pitcher and a hitter…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess

Jeff Fletcher Why did I love this book?

If you think this book is just about the trash can-banging Houston Astros and how they stole signs on the way to winning the 2017 World Series, you’re wrong. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Drellich was covering the Astros long before all of that started, so he gives you a deep look at the organizational culture that led to the scandal.

By Evan Drellich,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Winning Fixes Everything as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The reporter who broke the Houston Astros' cheating scandal reveals how a baseball team could so dramatically descend into corruption, with never-before-told details of a broken management culture, the once-revered leaders who enabled it and the scandal itself.

Baseball, that old romantic game, has been defaced and consumed by corporate America. As Moneyball-thinking and Ivy League graduates grabbed hold of the sport, the Astros set out to build a cost-efficient winning machine on the principles of the outside business world, squeezing every dollar out of every transaction, player and employee.

In less than a decade, ex-Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow…


Book cover of The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team

Jeff Fletcher Why did I love this book?

Anyone who watches baseball and studies the game even a little bit thinks he or she knows more than the people who run teams.

Lindbergh and Miller actually got the opportunity to run an independent league team for one summer, and they had carte blanche to try any “wild experiment” they wanted. Some of the stuff worked, but some didn’t. Seeing the conflict between the old-school baseball people and the analytical interlopers was fascinating, especially as both sides came toward the other.

By Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Only Rule Is It Has to Work as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It's the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies - with real players, in a real ballpark, playing in real time. That's what Ben Lindbergh and Sam Millergotto do when the Sonoma Stompers, an independent minor league team in California, offered them the chance to run the team's baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics. Their story is unlike any other baseball tale you've ever read. We tag along as Lindbergh and Miller apply their number crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team, following one…


Book cover of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Jeff Fletcher Why did I love this book?

Even though this one has been out for 20 years, it’s still a must-read for baseball fans who want to understand how the game got from where it was in the 20th century to where it is in the 21st century.

I have a particular affinity for this book because I was covering the A’s for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in 2002, when Lewis was following the team around to write the book. Yes, he does leave out a lot of what made that team good—like Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, Miguel Tejada, and Eric Chavez—but it’s nonetheless a great look at how they filled in the roster around those players.

By Michael Lewis,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Moneyball as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Following the low-budget Oakland Athletics, their larger-than-life general manger, Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts, Michael Lewis has written not only "the single most influential baseball book ever" (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what "may be the best book ever written on business" (Weekly Standard).

I wrote this book because I fell in love with a story. The story concerned a small group of undervalued professional baseball players and executives, many of whom had been rejected as unfit for the big leagues, who had turned…


Book cover of The Book of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life

Jeff Fletcher Why did I love this book?

If you’re a Shohei Ohtani fan, you may also be a Los Angeles Angels fan, which means you are probably interested in Joe Maddon.

This book is not just Maddon’s ranting against the way baseball has changed over his 40-plus years in the sport, it also includes third-person narrative from Verducci, who interviewed other managers to get their perspective. For example, Astros manager A.J. Hinch detailed his pitching decisions in the 2019 World Series. That was one of my favorite parts of the book.

By Joe Maddon, Tom Verducci,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Book of Joe as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

No one sees baseball like Joe Maddon. He sees it through his trademark glasses and irrepressible wit. Raised in the "shot and beer" town of Hazleton, PA, and forged by 15 years in the minors, Maddon over 19 seasons in Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Anaheim has become one of the most successful, most colorful, and most quoted managers in Major League Baseball. He is a workplace culture expert, having engineered two of the most stunning turnarounds in the past quarter century: taking the Rays from the worst record in baseball one year to the World Series the next and leading…


Book cover of A Damn Near Perfect Game: Reclaiming America's Pastime

Jeff Fletcher Why did I love this book?

I loved this book because Kelly gives his uncensored look behind the scenes at the way players view the game.

The other books in this list are told from the perspective of management, so this is the perfect complement to give you the full view at the state of baseball in the 2020s. Kelly tells you what he loves about the game, and what he thinks of the direction it has gone.

By Joe Kelly, Rob Bradford,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Damn Near Perfect Game as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Baseball’s most outspoken fireballer brings the high heat—calling out the hacks, cheats, and ridiculous rules that have tarnished the game—and pitches a-plus stuff on how to make baseball pure, fun, and damn near perfect.

Baseball has an image problem. The chorus of nonbelievers gets louder every year, and the Major Leagues have made an art of tuning them out. Enter Joe Kelly: a walking, talking, fast-ball-throwing embodiment of why baseball matters. He and his All-Star team of athletes and celebrities have some things to say about what’s gone wrong with our once great game and how to fix it.

A…


Explore my book 😀

Sho-time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played

By Jeff Fletcher,

Book cover of Sho-time: The Inside Story of Shohei Ohtani and the Greatest Baseball Season Ever Played

What is my book about?

In 2023 Shohei Ohtani of the Angels had his third straight incredible season, starring as a pitcher and a hitter in a way that no one has since Babe Ruth. By now everyone who watches baseball knows who Ohtani is, but many still don’t know how he got here. It was not a straight line from Ohtani being a high school phenom in Japan to winning the 2021 American League MVP. I’m honored to say that no American baseball writer has covered Ohtani more than I have, so I’d like to think that allows me a unique perspective on all the highs and lows of his baseball journey.

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Secret St. Augustine: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure

By Elizabeth Randall, William Randall,

Book cover of Secret St. Augustine: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure

Elizabeth Randall Author Of Secret St. Augustine: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Reader Baker Teacher Matriarch Adventurer

Elizabeth's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

Tourists and local residents of St. Augustine will enjoy reading about the secret wonders of their ancient city that are right under their noses. Of course, that includes a few stray corpses and ghosts!

Secret St. Augustine: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure

By Elizabeth Randall, William Randall,

What is this book about?

It is no wonder the ancient city of St. Augustine is steeped in secrets.

St. Johns, the oldest continuously occupied county in America, celebrated its 450th birthday on September 4, 2015. More like a European enclave than an urban landscape, it is a place of cannon fire, street parties, historical reenactments, concerts, and more. From admiring replicas of fine art at Ripley’s Believe or Not, to hunting haunts in restaurants and museums, to eating ice cream from a recipe originated by World War II bombardiers, St. Augustine has it all from beaches, gourmet dining, festivals, and attractions.


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