Baseballisms.com, which is quickly becoming a favorite site, published this audio interview with Lowenfish, author Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman.

Other authors appeared on Baseballisms include Tim Wiles, Judith Testa, Peter Golenbock, Jerry Poling, Jane Heller, Sue Macy, Tim Shea, and others.

Another site that features frequent author interviews, albeit not audio, is the online Gelf Magazine, which has in recent months featured the likes of Jennifer Ring (Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don’t Play Baseball); Larry Tye (Satchel); Joe Posnanski (The Machine); and Shawn Boburg (Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball’s Most Enigmatic Slugger).

This is the time of year when we get the lists of the best and worst movies, books, etc. of the year. And because this is 2009, we get the bonus best/worst of the decade.

Larry Tye’s Satchel was selected by The New York Times as one of the 100 notable books of the year, the only baseball title to gain such a distinction.

Now The Washington Post has picked the baseball movie Sugar as the fourth best film of the year.

Stay tuned for additional additions.

Jon Weisman, who blogs about the Dodgers for the Los Angeles Times, gives a sample of Chris Jaffe’s Evaluating Baseball Managers: A Comprehensive History and Performance Analysis, 1876-2008 (McFarland) as it pertains to his home team.

Upshot: The book, as a whole, “is going to be as big as it sounds.”

My wife recently bought The Complete Rinner’s Day-By-Day 2010 Calendar which included this philosophical tidbit:

So if you haven’t gotten your literary sports fan anything yet, here are some suggestions from Joe Favorito, a specialist in sports branding. You’ll have to winnow out the baseball titles from the rest. Same for Stiletto Sport’s list (sorry if I sound chauvanistic, but only a women’s list could consider Alyssa Milano’s Safe at Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic a “must-read.” A much better choice would be Jane Heller’s Confessions of a She-Fan.)

And, for what it’s worth, here are a few recommendations from the Bookshelf:

• Baseball Americana (Coauthor Harry Katz appeared on the Dec. 16 All Things Considered. You can hear the interview here:

• Sports Illustrated’s Baseball Books
• Yankees 365
• Ballparks Then and Now, by Eric Enders
• Ballet in the Dirt, by Neil Leifer