TOWNE INTERVIEW
Josh Bell Washington Nationals’ First Baseman By Tom Worgo Photography courtesy Washington Nationals
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s a seven-year Major League baseball player with Washington and Pittsburgh, slugging first baseman Josh Bell uses his high profile to raise people’s awareness and get them to focus on self-improvement. That’s why he started a book club in Pittsburgh in 2020 and has continued with it in Washington last season and this year.
Bell has chosen a different theme every season. Bell first concentrated on social justice, reading books such as Bryan Stevens’ Just Mercy and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. 18
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Last year, his slogan “Books, Betterment, Progress” and the kick-off book “The Mental Game of Baseball” highlighted his five-book selections. “It was the book that got me through the minor leagues,” Bell says. This year, his focus is on younger readers. “It is empowering for me to work with them,” Bell says. “I wish I read some of these books I’ll pick when I was 16, 17, or 18. I am excited for I, and we will be to interacting face-to-face with people who read the books. Last year, we had Zoom calls.” Bell always had a love for reading, which is not surprising. He comes from a family of educators. The 6-foot-4, 250-pound Bell, a first baseman, wanted to go to college, but those plans changed when Pittsburgh drafted him in the second round of the 2011 draft. He made the National League All-Star team in 2019 and a year later, the rebuilding Pirates traded him to Washington. We recently talked to him about the different themes of his book club, his love of books, and the impact of his family.
