TWIBB: Jan. 14, 2011
January 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.
is available on Amazon.com,
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