* TWIBB — October 2

Ron KaplanOct 2, 2009

This week in baseball books, featuring the best-sellers according to Amazon.com on Friday, October 2.

Title	Rank
General
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
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	2
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis	3
Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress	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
Essays and Writing
Sixty Feet Six Inches	1
Moneyball	2
Now I Can Die in Peace	3
View from the Booth: Four Decades with the Phillies, by Chris Wheeler	4
Heads-Up Baseball : Playing the Game One Pitch at a Time, by Tom Hanson	5
History
The Machine	1
Now I Can Die in Peace	2
Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America’s Pastime, by Mark Frost	3
View from the Booth	4
Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, by Larry Tye	5
Statistics
Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan’s Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks, by Zack Hample	1
The Bill James Handbook 2010	2
The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, by Tango et al	3
Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game Is Wrong, by Baseball Prospectus	4
Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season	5

Analysis: Posnanski’s book falls from #265 to #463, which is still great considering the figure includes all titles, not just sports. SImmons older title on the Sox joins Psnanski and Frost in considering the franchise in the fall classic, albeit from different eras.

Gibson and Jackson break the top five for the first time with their collaboration. Also making its debut, Baseball Americana, a handsome new coffee table edition displaying the holdings of the Library of Congress.

The “statistical” category remains the same, with some flip-flopping.

Baseball Americana: Treasures from the Library of Congress