TWIBB: Jan. 14, 2011

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Jan. 14, 1:37 p.m.

Title	Rank
General
The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy	1
Baseball Prospectus 2011	2
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis	3
Baseball Forecaster 2011, by Ron Shandler	4
Baseball America 2011 Prospect Handbook: The 2011 Expert Guide to Baseball Prospects and MLB Organization Rankings (Baseball America Prospect Handbook)	5
Essays and Writing
Moneyball	1
The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst	2
Ball Four, by Jim Bouton	3
The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2011	4
The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View, by Doug Glanville	5
History
Baseball America 2011 Almanac: A Comprehensive Review of the 2010 Season (Baseball America Almanac)	1
Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy (P.S.), by Jane Leavy	2
The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It, by Lawrence Ritter	3
Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch	4
Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero, by Danny Peary with Tom Clavin	5
Statistics
The Baseball Forecaster	1
The Bill James Handbook 2011	2
Baseball America Almanac	3
Hardball Times 2011	4
Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan’s Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks, by Zack Hample	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: Nothing really new under the sun. The Mantle bio remains on the NY Times‘ non-fiction hardcover lit at No. 15. Baseball holds three of the top 20 spots in Amazon’s sports best-seller list: The Last Boy (8); Baseball Prospectus 2011 (9); and Moneyball (16). Look for Lewis’ book to gain even more popularity when the movie comes out. Is a new edition in the works? Gotta have that “Now a feature film!” blast on the cover. Maybe a picture of Brad Pitt?

Zack Hample has a new book — The Baseball: Stunts, Scandals, and Secrets Beneath the Stitches (Vintage) — coming out in March. It will be interesting how well it does as it tries to break into the “legends and lore” sub-genre of baseball books.