TWIBB: Nov. 5, 2010

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Nov. 5 at Noon.

Title	Rank
General
The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy	1
Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, by Josh Hamilton and Tim Keown	2
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis	3
Steinbrenner: The Last Lion of Baseball, by Bill Madden	4
Target Field: The New Home of the Minnesota Twins, by Steve Berg	5
Essays and Writing
Moneyball	1
They Call Me Sparky, by Sparky Anderson and Dan Ewald	2
Beyond Belief	3
Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams, by John Updike	4
The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst	5
History
Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch	1
Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu	2
The Greatest Game: The Day that Bucky, Yaz, Reggie, Pudge, and Company Played the Most Memorable Game in Baseball’s Most Intense Rivalry, by Richard Bradley	3
Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero, by Danny Peary and Tom Clavin	4
The Machine: A Hot Team, a Legendary Season, and a Heart-stopping World Series: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, by Joe Posananski	5
Statistics
The Bill James Handbook 2011	1
The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2011	2
Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan’s Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks, by Zack Hample	3
Baseball Forecaster 2011, by Ron Shandler	4
The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract	5

(Note: The list includes print editions/baseball titles only, allowing for non-baseball titles and kindle editions that affected the rankings. Also, the rankings change hourly, so the result you get when you visit Amazon.com might not be the same.)

Analysis: The Last Boy is #30 as Amazon’s general and #1 sports bestseller. Beyond Belief ranks #20 on the sports list.

It’s news to me: Interest Sparky Anderson’s memoir and Joe Posnanski’s book about the Big Red Machine is undoubtedly the result of the Hall of Fame manager’s recent passing. Ron Shandler’s 2011 Baseball Forecaster. I guess it doesn’t matter to fantasy players what team their guys will be on, since they’re plighting their trough with individuals, not clubs. Although some of the guys might find themselves in different roles in new situations?