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Joe Posnanski has won the 2007 CASEY Award for The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America, published by William Morrow (an imprint of HarperCollins). Posnanski swept to the win with one first-place vote and two second-place votes. Judge Bill McGill called the book "a moving portrait of a beautiful human being and the Negro League's greatest champion," while Judge Rollie Jacobsen said that "Posnanski perfectly captures the voice of O'Neil and the heart of his message - the book is a joy to read." Congratulations to Mr. Posnanski and to the judges for a job well done.
Peter Morris has won the 2006 CASEY Award for a pair of books which Spitball considers a single entity: A Game of Inches: The Game on the Field: The Stories Behind the Innovations that Shaped Baseball and A Game of Inches;The Game Behind the Scenes.... The 2006 field of CASEY Nominees was one of the strongest in recent memory, but Morris beat out the other Finalists for producing what CASEY Award Coordinator Mark Schraf called "an astonishingly well-researched history of baseball from a unique perspective." CASEY Award Judge Anne Jewell of the Louisville Slugger Museum remarked that "Peter Morris has created not only a fantastic reference resource, but a thoroughly entertaining read as well. I am sure I will reach for these volumes many many times in the years to come, and I look forward to it."
Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman (University of Nebraska Press) by Lee Lowenfish Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball (University of Nebraska Press) by Norman L. Macht Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History (HarperCollins) by Cait Murphy Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball (University of Nebraska Press) by Peter Morris Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season (Simon & Schuster) by Jonathan Eig Senior Year: A Father, A Son, and High School Baseball (Houghton Mifflin) by Dan Shaughnessy The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O'Neil's America (William Morrow/HarperCollins) by Joe Posnanski Ty and the Babe: The Incredible Saga of Baseball's Fiercest Rivals, the Forging of a Surprising Friendship, and the Battle for the 1941 Has-Beens Golf Chmpionship (Thomas Dunne Books) by Tom Stanton Through a Blue Lens: The Brooklyn Dodgers Photographs of Barney Stein, 1937-1957 (Triumph Books) by Dennis D'Agostino & Bonnie Crosby The 2007 CASEY Award Banquet will take place on Sunday afternoon March 2, 2008, from 1 to 4pm, at the beautiful Carnegie Arts Center in Covington, Kentucky. More than 150 baseball books published in 2007 will on display for attendees' perusal. Festivities will include: an appearance by BALLZAK, the MAGNIFICENT; a shout-it-out trivia quiz based on the baseball books of 2007; door prizes; free food & drink; and informative talks by the day's guests of honor. Judges for the 2007 CASEY Award are Scott Hannig; Rollie Jacobsen; and Bill McGill. HISTORY OF THE CASEY AWARDSeven books were named as finalists for the first CASEY (Baseball’s Greatest Experiment, The Celebrant, Hoopla, Invisible Men, Insider’s Baseball, Take Me Out to the Ballpark, and Who’s on Third? The Chicago White Sox Story), and The Celebrant, a historical novel by Eric Rolfe Greenberg about Christy Mathewson and his biggest fan, was chosen as the winner. Another novel would not win the CASEY until 1997, when Thomas Dyja’s Play for a Kingdom (about baseball and the Civil War) beat out nine other finalists. In addition to these two novels, ten books of history, five biographies, three first-hand seasonal accounts, one book of photographs, and one art book have won the other 22 awarded CASEYs. The first CASEY Awards Banquet was held at Mick Noll’s Restaurant in Covington, Kentucky. Two years later the Banquet was moved down the street in Covington to the Carnegie Arts Center, which hosted the Banquet (under the generous auspices of director Arlene Gibeau) for the next 12 years. From 1997 to 1999 Crosley’s Sports Bar & Eatery (St. Bernard, OH) hosted the Banquet, while the 2000 Banquet was held at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, the 2001 Banquet at Pleasant Ridge Community Center, and the 2002 and 2003 Banquets at Madisonville Community Center. In 2004 the Banquet returned to the Carnegie Arts Center In Covington, Kentucky, which has become the permanent "Home of the CASEYs." The CASEY Award is a bronze plaque mounted on a wooden base. The plaques are manufactured by the Newman Brothers Company of Cincinnati and feature the original Spitball Napoleon Lajoie-holding-a-quill-pen logo, which was designed by the Magazine’s first art director, Blair Gibeau. Including the nominees for 2006, 230 books have been named as finalists for the CASEY. Some of the greatest names in baseball literature have won the Award, and CASEY Banquet attendees have been treated to many wonderful acceptance speeches over the years. PREVIOUS CASEY AWARD WINNERS1984-Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers -Peter Golenbock- Putnams 1985-Good Enough to Dream -Roger Kahn- Doubleday 1986-The Bill James Historical Abstract -Bill James- Villard 1987-Diamonds Are Forever: Artists and Writers on Baseball -Peter H. Gordon, Editor- Chronicle Books 1988-Blackball Stars -John Holway- Meckler 1989-The Pitch that Killed -Mike Sowell- Macmillan 1990-Baseball: The People’s Game -Harold Seymour- Oxford University Press 1991-To Everything A Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia,1909-1976 -Bruce Kuklick- Princeton University Press 1992-The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History -Phil Dixon- Amereon 1993-Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark -Michael Gershman- Houghton Mifflin 1994-Lords of the Realm -John Helyar- Villard 1995-Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train -Henry W. Thomas- Phenom Press 1996-Slide, Kelly, Slide -Marty Appel- Scarecrow Press 1997-Play for a Kingdom -Thomas Dyja- Harcourt Brace 1998-Judge and Jury -David Pietrusza- Diamond Communications 1999-Slouching Toward Fargo -Neal Karlen- Spike 2000-Cy Young: A Baseball Life -Reed Browning- The University of Massachusetts Press 2001-The Final Season -Tom Stanton- Thomas Dunne Books 2002-Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston -Howard Bryant- Routledge 2003-Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game -Michael Lewis- W.W.Norton 2004-Ted Williams: The Life of an American Hero -Leigh Montville- Doubleday 2005-Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig -Jonathan Eig- Simon & Schuster 2006-Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations that Shaped Baseball -Peter Morris- Ivan R. Dee |