* TWIBB — January 8, 2010

This week’s best-selling baseball books, according to Amazon.com on Friday, January 8. HAPPY LATE YEAR!

Title	Rank
General
2010 Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster)	1
Baseball Prospectus 2010	2
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis	3
Baseball America 2010 Prospect Handbook: The Comprehensive Guide to Rising Stars from the Definitive Source on Prospects (Baseball America Prospect Handbook)	4
The Bill James Handbook 2010	5
Essays and Writing
Moneyball ¹	1
The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010	2
Now I Can Die in Peace: How The Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox, by Bill Simmons	3
Sixty Feet, Six Inches: A Hall of Fame Pitcher & a Hall of Fame Hitter Talk about How the Game is Played, by Bob Gibson, Reggie Jackson, and Lonnie Wheeler	4
Ball Four, by Jim Bouton	5
History
The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, by Joe Posnanski	1
Now I Can Die in Peace	2
Sixty Feet, Six Inches	3
Summers In The Bronx: Attila The Hun And Other Yankee Stories, by Ira Berkow²	4
Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame, by Bill James	5
Statistics
2010 Baseball Forecaster	1
Baseball Prospectus 2010	2
Baseball America 2010 Prospect Handbook	3
The Bill James Handbook 2010	4
The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010	5

¹ The actual ranked title was the Kindle edition of Moneyball
² The actual ranked item was a calendar.

Analysis: Now that the Hot Stove League is in full swing, statistical books have taken over for general best-sellers. It’s also interesting to see a couple of oldies-but-goodies return to the lists: The classic Ball Four and Bill James critique of the Hall of Fame system, no doubt helped a bit by the recent elections. Veteran sportswriter Ira Berkow’s latest breaks into the best-seller category as well.

Only two sports book on Amazon’s top 100 list, but there are a ton (pardon the phrase) of diet/food books (for those still working on their New Year’s resolutions). In fact, seven of the top 25, 14 of the top 50, 17 of the top 75, and 21 of the 100 fall into the category of food/diet/health. I’m just sayin’.