Danny Knobler

NEW YORK -- Nobody writes books about Game 5.

Nobody even remembers Game 5.

So what is it about Game 6?

Or Game Six , as Mark Frost titled his fine book about the sixth game of the 1975 World Series. The Carlton Fisk game.

As opposed to Game 6 in 1991, the Kirby Puckett game. Or Game 6 in 1986, the Bill Buckner game. Or Game 6 in 1985, the Don Denkinger game. Or even Game 6 in 2002, the Russ Ortiz game.

We remember every one of those, and there’s no need to even remind you why those players were associated with those games.

We remember Joe Carter and Mitch Williams (Game 6, 1993). We remember Josh Beckett (Game 6, 2003). We remember David Justice and Tom Glavine (Game 6, 1995), and Dave Winfield (Game 6, 1992).

That's nine truly memorable Game 6's, and that's just in the last 35 years.

Heck, if we were all old enough -- or if we had all read Mike Vaccaro’s excellent book, The First Fall Classic -- we’d remember Game 6 of the 1912 World Series. That was the one where the owner of the Red Sox demanded that manager Jake Stahl not start ace Smoky Joe Wood, and instead start Buck O’Brien, who had been drinking all night the night before.

It’s been a great month for baseball books, with Vaccaro, Frost and Joe Posnanski (The Machine ) carrying us through this long postseason.

And Game 6 figures prominently in all of them.

It’s always Game 6, just as it was when Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera (and Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Joe Girardi) won their first World Series in 1996. That night at Yankee Stadium, Jimmy Key beat Greg Maddux, with Girardi driving in the game’s first run with a third-inning triple.

The game itself wasn’t memorable that night, nothing that would cause anyone to write a book.

Maybe this Game 6 will live up to the name.