Baseball fans wanting to talk World Series tactics will have their chance this Sunday. Joe Posnanski, Sports Illustrated senior writer, award-winning Kansas City Star columnist, and best-selling author, presents the eighth annual Jeanne and Cotter Hirschberg Lecture 3 pm, Sunday, Oct. 18 at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library.

His latest book, The Machine: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, was released on Sept. 9, 2009, and tells the story of Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Sparky Anderson and the rest of the 1975 Reds, the author’s choice as the best team in baseball history. Posnanski was a sports columnist at The Kansas City Star from 1996 to 2009. He was named the best sports columnist in America by The Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) two times and also nominated for 21 awards by the APSE. He continues to write columns for The Star.

He is the author of two other books, The Good Stuff, a collection of columns, and The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America, winner of the 2007 Casey Award, honoring the authors and publishers of outstanding baseball books. His essays have been included in “The Hardball Times Annual,” ESPN’s best-selling College Football Encyclopedia and Football and Philosophy. His work twice has been anthologized in “The Best American Sports Writing.”