TWIBB: Jan. 21, 2011

The top baseball books, according to Amazon.com as of Friday, Jan. 21 at 9 p.m.

Title	Rank
General
Baseball Prospectus 2011	1
Baseball America 2011 Prospect Handbook: The 2011 Expert Guide to Baseball Prospects and MLB Organization Rankings (Baseball America Prospect Handbook)	2
The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy	3
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis	4
Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back, by Josh Hamilton with Tim Keown	5
Essays and Writing
Moneyball	1
The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran, by Dirk Hayhurst	2
Beyond Belief	3
Ball Four, by Jim Bouton	4
The Game from Where I Stand: A Ballplayer’s Inside View, by Doug Glanville	5
History
San Francisco Giants Torture to Rapture 2010 World Series Champions, by San Francisco Chronicle	1
Baseball America 2011 Almanac: A Comprehensive Review of the 2010 Season (Baseball America Almanac)	2
Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch	3
Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series, by David Pietrusza	4
Now I Can Die in Peace: How The Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox, by Bill Simmons	5
Statistics
Baseball America Prospects, by	1
Baseball Forecaster 2011, by Ron Shandler	2
The Bill James Handbook 2011	3
Baseball America Almanac, by	4
Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong	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: No baseball titles in Amazon’s 100 overall best sellers, although several are in the sports category including Baseball Prospectus 2011 (#6), Baseball America Prospects Handbook (12), The Last Boy (13), Moneyball (15), and The Baseball Forecaster 2011 (17). The Last Boy is also #16 on the NY Times‘ hardcover non-fiction list.

It’s news to me: