(For Best Baseball Book of the Year; sponsored by Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine
2009 Finalists Announced
The Editors of Spitball are pleased to annouce that the following books have been named as Finalists for the 2009 CASEY Award:
As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires by Bruce Weber (Scribner);
Catcher: How the Man Behind the Plate Became an American Folk Hero by Peter Morris (Ivan R. Dee);
Chasing Moonlight: The True Story of Field of Dreams' Doc Graham by Brett Friedlander & Robert Reising (John F. Blair);
The First Fall Classic: The Red Sox, the Giants and the Cast of Players, Pugs and Politicos Who Re-Invented the World Series in 1912 by Mike Vaccaro (Doubleday);
Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley, Baseball's Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles by Michael D'Antonio (Riverhead Books);
Game Six: Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime by Mark Frost (Hyperion);
Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit by Matt McCarthy (Viking);
Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye (Random House);
The Wizard of Waxahachie: Paul Richards and the End of Baseball as We Knew It by Warren Corbett (Southern Methodist University Press);
The Yankee Years by Joe Torre & Tom Verducci (Doubleday)
The 27th Annual CASEY Awards Banquet will take place on Sunday afternoon (2:00 pm) March 7, 2010 at Boomerangs Sports Bar (4501 Vine Street) in St. Bernard, OH (a surburb of Cincinnati). Judges for the 2009 CASEY Award are Jack Heffron, Tom Nahigian, and Eric Soergel. Congratulations to all the Nominated authors and publishers.
History of the CASEY Award
Previous CASEY Award Winners
Previous CASEY Award Nominees
Previous CASEY Award Judges
How the CASEY Award Process Works
HISTORY OF THE CASEY AWARD
The CASEY Award was inaugurated in 1983 by Mike Shannon and W.J. Harrison, the editors and co-founders of Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine, because up to that time there had never been any award specifically designated to honor the authors and publishers of outstanding baseball books.
Seven 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, nine books of history, seven biographies, three first-hand seasonal accounts, two books of analysis, one book of photographs, one art book, and one children's art book have won the other 24 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 onwards the CASEY Banquet has been held in various locations in the Cincinnati area.
The original CASEY Award (given to the first two winners) was a three-dimensional statue that never went into production. It was replaced by a bronze plaque mounted on a wooden base that served as the Award through 2008. These CASEY Award plaques were manufactured by the Newman Brothers Company of Cincinnati and featured 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 2008, 250 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 WINNERS
1983-The Celebrant -Eric Rolfe Greenberg- Everest House
1984-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
2007-The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip through Buck O'Neil's America, -Joe Posnanski- William Morrow
2008-We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball -Kadir Nelson- Jump at the Sun/Hyperion
PREVIOUS CASEY AWARD NOMINEES
1983
Baseball's Great Experiment * Jules Tygiel (Oxford University Press)
The Celebrant * Eric Rolfe Greenberg (Everest House)
Hoopla * Harry Stein (Knopf)
Invisible Men * Donn Rogosin (Atheneum)
Insider's Baseball * L. Robert Davids, ed. (Scribners)
Take Me Out to the Ballpark * Lowell Reidenbaugh (The Sporting News)
Who's on 3rd? The Chicago White Sox Story * Richard Lindberg (Icarus Press)
1984
Baseball * Walter Iooss & Roger Angell (Abrams)
Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers * Peter Golenbock (Putnams)
Dollar Sign on the Muscle * Kevin Kerrane (Beaufort Books)
Mighty Casey: All American * Eugene C. Murdock (Greenwood Press)
Stengel: His Life and Times * Robert Creamer (Simon & Schuster)
Ty Cobb * Charles Alexander (Oxford University Press)
1985
The Armchair Book of Baseball * John Thorn, ed. (Scribners)
Bambi's Bombers * Don Olson (Noslo Publishing)
Baseball America * Don Honig (Macmillan)
Fathers Playing Catch with Sons * Donald Hall (North Point Press)
Good Enough to Dream * Roger Kahn (Doubleday)
Nine Innings * Daniel Okrent (Ticknor & Fields)
The Thrill of the Grass * W.P. Kinsella (Penguin)
Topps Baseball Cards * (Warner Books)
1986
Baseball: A Comprehensive Bibliography * Myron J. Smith, Jr. (McFarland)
A Baseball Winter * Terry Pluto & Jeffrey Neuman (Macmillan)
The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract * Bill James (Villard Books)
Heart of the Order * Tony Ardizzone (Henry Holt)
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy * W.P. Kinsella (Houghton Mifflin)
Joe DiMaggio: A Bio-Bibliography * Jack B. Moore (Greenwood Press)
Joe & Marilyn: A Memory of Love * Roger Kahn (Morrow)
The Short Season * David Falkner (Times Books)
1987
Baseball: An Illustrated History * David Q. Voigt (Pennsylvania University Press)
The Curious Case of Sidd Finch * George Plimpton (Macmillan)
Diamonds Are Forever: Artists and Writers on Baseball * Peter H. Gordon, ed. (Chronicle Books)
The Dodgers Move West * Neil Sullivan (Oxford University Press)
The Fireside Book of Baseball, Vol. 4 * Charles Einstein, ed. (Simon & Schuster)
A Flatland Fable * Joe Coomer (McGraw-Hill)
Hardball: The Education of a Baseball Commissioner * Bowie Kuhn (Times Books)
The Pitcher * John Thorn & John Holway (Prentice Hall)
Sixty-One: The Team, The Record, The Men * Tony Kubek (Macmillan)
Voices of the Game * Curt Smith (Diamond Communications)
1988
The Baseball Hall of Fame 50th Anniversary Book * Gerald Astor, ed. (Prentice Hall)
Blackball Stars * John Holway (Meckler)
Bleachers * Lonnie Wheeler (Contemporary Books)
The Cincinnati Game * Lonnie Wheeler & John Baskin (Orange Frazer Press)
My Dad, the Babe * Dorothy Ruth Perone (Quinlan Press)
The Further Adventures of Slugger McBatt * W.P. Kinsella (Houghton Mifflin)
The Giants of the Polo Grounds * Noel Hynd (Doubleday)
John McGraw * Charles Alexander (Viking)
Season Ticket * Roger Angell (Houghton Mifflin)
Winfield * Dave Winfield (W.W. Norton)
1989
The Babe: A Life in Pictures * Lawrence Ritter & Mark Rucker (Ticknor & Fields)
Baseball Lives * Mike Bryan (Pantheon)
Diamonds in the Rough * Joel Zoss & John Bowman (Macmillan)
The Dickson Baseball Dictionary * Paul Dickson (Facts on File)
El Beisbol * John Krich (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life * Hank Greenberg (Times Books)
The Heart of the Order * Tom Boswell (Doubleday)
The Pitch that Killer * Mike Sowell (Macmillan)
Total Baseball * John Thorn & Pete Palmer, eds. (Warner Books)
You Gotta Have Wa * Robert Whiting (Macmillan)
1990
The Art of Baseball * Shelley M. Dinhofer (Harmony)
The Ballplayers * Mike Shatzkin, ed. (Morrow)
The Baseball Business * James E. Miller (University of North Carolina Press)
Baseball: The People's Game * Harold Seymour (Oxford University Press)
Big Sticks * William Curran (Morrow)
Hustle: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose * Michael Sokolove (Simon & Schuster)
If I Never Get Back * Darryl Brock (Crown)
Men at Work * George Will (Macmillan)
Prophet of the Sandlots * Mark Winegardner (Atlantic Monthly Press)
1991
Baseball by the Books * Andy McCue (William C. Brown)
Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century * Marc Okkonen (Sterling)
Blue Ruin: A Novel of the 1919 World Series * Brendan Boyd (W.W. Norton)
To Everything a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia, 1909-1976 * Bruce Kuklick (Princeton University Press)
Glory Fades Away: The Nineteenth-Century World Series Remembered * Jerry Lansche (Taylor)
I Had a Hammer *Hank Aaron & Lonnie Wheeler (HarperCollins)
Nolan Ryan: The Authorized Pictorial History (The Summit Group)
Stolen Season * David Lamb (Random House)
Tales of the Diamond: Gems of Baseball Fiction (Woodford Press)
Ted Williams: A Portrait in Words and Pictures * Dick Johnson & Glenn Stout (Walker & Co.)
1992
Baseball in the Movies * Hal Erickson (McFarland)
The Brothers K * David James Duncan (Doubleday)
The Cleveland Indian * Luke Salisbury (The Smith)
Diz * Robert Gregory (Viking Penguin)
Fenway * Peter Golenbock (Putnams)
The Girls of Summer * Lois Browne (HarperCollins)
Lost Ballparks * Lawrence Ritter (Viking Penguin)
The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History * Phil Dixon w/Patrick J. Hannigan (Amereon House)
Queen of Diamonds: The Tiger Stadium Story * Mike Betzold & Ethan Casey (A&M Publishing)
When the Game Was Black & White: The Illustrated Story of Baseball's Negro Leagues * Bruce Chadwick (Abbeville Press)
1993
Baseball's Golden Age: The Photos of Charles M. Conlon * Neal & Constance McCabe (Abrams)
Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark * Michael Gershman (Houghton Mifflin)
The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball * Lloyd Johnson (Baseball America)
Fridays with Red * Bob Edwards (Simon & Schuster)
Hitter: The Life and Turmoils of Ted Williams * Ed Linn (Harcourt Brace)
The Lip: A Biography of Leo Durocher * Gerald Eskenazi (Morrow)
The Museum of Clear Ideas * Donald Hall (Ticknor & Fields)
My Life as a Fan * Wilfred Sheed (Simon & Schuster)
The New Phillies Encyclopedia * Rich Westcott & Frank Bilovsky (Temple University Press)
Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball * Barbara Gregorich (Harcourt Brace)
1994
Baseball: An Illustrated History * Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns (Knopf)
The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues * James A. Riley (Carroll & Graf)
Brittle Innings * Michael Bishop (Bantam)
The Catcher Was a Spy * Nicholas Dawidoff (Pantheon)
Cobb * Al Stump (Algonquin Books)
Hardball * Daniel Coyle (Putnam)
Inside the Strike Zone * Randall A. Hendricks (Eakin Press)
Lords of the Realm * John Helyar (Villard)
October 1964 * David Halberstam (Villard)
The Politics of Glory * Bill James (Macmillan)
1995
Banana Bats and Dingdong Balls: A Century of Baseball Inventions * Dan Gutman (Macmillan)
Card Sharks * Pete Williams (Macmillan)
Crosley Field: An Illustrated History of a Classic Ballpark * Greg Rhodes & John Erardi (Road West Publishing)
The Cutoff * Jay Rogoff (The Word Works)
The Dixon Cornbelt League * W.P. Kinsella (HarperCollins)
Endless Summers: The Fall and Rise of the Cleveland Indians * Jack Torry (Diamond Communications)
Fleet Walker's Divided Heart * David Zang (University of Nebraska Press)
Great Time Coming * David Falkner (Simon & Schuster)
Rogers Hornsby * Charles Alexander (Henry Holt)
Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train * Henry W. Thomas (Phenom)
Waterloo Diamonds * Richard Panek (St. Martin's Press)
Wild and Outside * Stefan Fatsis (Walker & Company)
1996
At Fenway: Dispatches from Red Sox Nation * Dan Shaughnessy (Crown)
The Game that Was: The George Brace Baseball Photo Collection * Richard Cahan & Mark Jacob (Contemporary Books)
Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait * Rachel Robinson w/Lee Daniels (Abrams)
The Joy of Keeping Score * Paul Dickson (Walker & Company)
Seasons in Hell: ...The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers * Mike Shropshire (Donald I. Fine)
Slide, Kelly, Slide: The Wild Life and Times of Mike "King" Kelly, Baseball's First Superstar * Marty Appel (The Scarecrow Press)
The Veracruz Blues * Mark Winegardner (Viking)
Wrigleyville * Peter Golenbock (St. Martin's Press)
1997
Baseball on the Border: A Tale of Two Laredos * Alan Klein (Princeton University Press)
Baseball Records Registry * Joseph J. Dittmar (McFarland)
Big Red Dynasty * Greg Rhodes & John Erardi (Road West Publishing)
The Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Major League Baseball * David Nemec (Donald I. Fine)
Jackie Robinson: A Biography * Arnold Rampersad (Knopf)
Lights On! The Wild Century-Long Saga of Night Baseball * David Pietrusza (The Scarecrow Press)
Memories of Summer * Roger Kahn (Hyperion)
Play for a Kingdom * Thomas Dyja (Harcourt Brace)
Tony C.: The Triumph and Tragedy of Tony Conigliaro * David Cataneo (Rutledge Hill Press)
Warsaw to Wrigley * Joseph A. Reaves (Diamond Communications)
1998
If They Don't Win It's a Shame * Dave Rosenbaum (McGregor Publishing)
Jim Bunning: Baseball and Beyond * Frank Dolson (Temple University Press)
Judge & Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis * David Pietrusza (Diamond Communications)
Mickey Mantle: The Yankee Years: The Classic Photography of Ozzie Sweet * Larry Canale (Tuff Stuff Books)
A Place for Summer: A Narrative History of Tiger Stadium * Richard Bak (Wayne State University Press)
The Ripening of Pinstripes * Rodney Torreson (Story Line Press)
Treasures of the Baseball Hall of Fame * John Thorn (Villard)
Viva Baseball: Latin Major Leaguers and Their Special Hunger * Samuel O. Regalado (Uiversity of Illinois Press)
When Johnny Came Sliding Home: The Post-Civil War Baseball Boom, 1865-1870 * William J. Ryczek (McFarland)
Yankee Stadium: 75 Years of Drama, Glamor, and Glory * Ray Robinson & Christopher Jennison (Penguin/Studio)
1999
Baseball's Pivotal Era 1945-1951 * William Marshall (The University of Kentucky Press)
Brushing Back Jim Crow * Bruce Adelson (University Press of Virginia)
A Clever Base-Ballist: The Life and Times of John Montgomery Ward * Bryan Di Salvatore (Pantheon)
Our Tribe * Terry Pluto (Simon & Schuster)
The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball * Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria (Oxford University Press)
A Six-Gun Salute: An Illustrated History of the Houston Colt .45s * Robert Reed (Lone Star Books)
Slouching Toward Fargo * Neal Karlen (Spike)
Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball * Mark Rucker & Peter Bjarkman (Total/Sports Illustrated)
Take Two and Hit to Right: Golden Days on the Semi-Pro Diamond * Hobe Hays (University of Nebraska Press)
Those Damn Yankees * Dean Chatwin (Verso)
Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life ... of the Baltimore Orioles * Burt Solomon (The Free Press)
2000
Full Count: Inside Cuban Baseball * Milton H. Jamail (Southern Illinois University Press)
Havana Heat * Darryl Brock (Total Sports)
The Head Game: Baseball Seen from the Pitcher's Mound * Roger Kahn (Harcourt)
Imagining Baseball: America's Pastime and Popular Culture * David McGimpsey (Indiana University Press)
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life * Richard Ben Cramer (Simon & Schuster)
Lefty Grove: American Original * Jim Kaplan (Society for American Baseball Research)
Perfect Silence * Jeff Hutton (Breakaway Books)
Red Sox Century: One Hundred Years of Red Sox Baseball * Glenn Stout & Richard A. Johnson (Houghton Mifflin)
Touching All the Bases: Poems from Baseball * Tim Peeler (McFarland)
Cy Young: A Baseball Life * Reed Browning (The University of Massachusetts Press)
2001
Bushville: Life and Time in Amateur Baseball * Jerry Kelly (McFarland)
The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream * Steve Fainaru & Ray Sanchez (Villard)
The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark * Tom Stanton (Thomas Dunne Books)
Gateway to the Majors: Williamsport and Minor League Baseball * James P. Quigel Jr. & Louis E. Hunsinger Jr. (The Pennsylvania State University Press)
Hal Chase: The Defiant Life and Turbulent Times of Baseball's Biggest Crook * Martin Donell Kohout (McFarland)
Marketing Your Dreams: Business and Life Lessons from Bill Veeck * Pat Williams (Sports Publishing Inc.)
Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man * James N. Giglio (University of Missouri Press)
Now Pitching for the Yankees: Spinning the News for Mickey, Billy, and George * Marty Appel (Total Sports Publishing)
The Oldest Rookie: Big League Dreams from a Small-town Guy * Jim Morris & Joel Engel (Little, Brown and Company)
Redleg Journal: Year by Year and Day by Day with the Cincinnati Reds Since 1866 * Greg Rhodes & John Snyder (Road West Publishing)
2002
Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman * Steven Travers (Sports Publishing, LLC)
Baseball's Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus * John Theodore (Southern Illinois University Press)
Black Baseball's National Showcase: The East-West All-Star Game, 1933-1953 * Larry Lester (University of Nebraska Press)
Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era * Charles Alexander (Columbia University Press)
A Legend in the Making: The New York Yankees in 1939 * Richard J. Tofel (Ivan R. Dee)
Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian * David L. Fleitz (McFarland)
Mickey Mantle: America's Prodigal Son * Tony Castro (Brassey's)
Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy * Jane Leavy (HarperCollins)
Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston * Howard Bryant (Routledge)
Yankees Century: 100 Years of New York Yankees Baseball * Glenn Stout & Richard A. Johnson (Houghton Mifflin)
2003
Beyond the Shadow of the Senators * Brad Snyder (Contemporary Books)
Foul Ball: My Life and Hard Times Trying to Save an Old Ballpark * Jim Bouton (Bulldog Publishing)
Glove Affairs: The Romance, History, and Tradition of the Baseball Glove * Noah Liberman (Triumph Books)
Me and My Dad: A Baseball Memoir * Paul O'Neill w/Burton Rocks (Morrow)
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game * Michael Lewis (Norton)
The Perfect Game: American Looks at Baseball * Elizabeth V. Warren (Abrams)
The Road to Cooperstown: A Father, Two Sons, and the Journey of a Lifetime * Tom Stanton (St. Martin's)
Taking on the Yankees: Winning and Losing in the Business of Baseball, 1903-2003 * Henry D. Fetter (Norton)
The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship * David Halberstam (Hyperion)
The Tour to End All Tours: The Story of Major League Baseball's 1913-1914 World Tour * James E. Elfers (University of Nebraska Press)
2004
The Bad Guys Won! * Jeff Pearlman (HarperCollins)
The College World Series: A Baseball History 1947-2003 * W.C. Madden & Patrick J. Stewart (McFarland)
History of the Junior World Series * Bob Bailey (The Scraecrow Press)
Joe: Rounding Third & Heading for Home * Greg Hoard (Orange Frazer Press)
The Last Best League * Jim Collins (Da Capo Press)
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty * Buster Olney (Ecco)
Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution * Neil Lanctot (University of Pennsylvania Press)
The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics * Alan Schwarz (Thomas Dunne Books)
Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero * Leigh Montville (Doubleday)
The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw * Michael Sokolove (Simon & Schuster)
2005
Baseball before We Knew It * David Block (University of Nebraska Press)
The Boys of Spring: Timeless Portraits from the Grapefruit League, 1947-2005 * Ozzie Sweet (Sport Classic Books)
Diamonds Around the Globe: The Encyclopedia of International Baseball * Peter C. Bjarkman (Greenwood Press)
Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball * Howard Bryant (VikingPenguin)
Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig * Jonathan Eig (Simon & Schuster)
Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation ... 2004 Red Sox * Bill Simmons (ESPN Books)
Satchel Paige's America * Willam Price Fox (The University of Alabama Press)
Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World's Finest Private Collections * Stephen Wong (HarperCollins)
A Tale of Two Cities: The 2004 Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry and the War for the Pennant * Tony Massarotti & John Harper (The Lyons Press)
3 Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager * Buzz Bissinger (Houghton Mifflin)
2006
Baseball * David Levinthal (Empire Editions)
The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth * Liegh Montville (Doubleday)
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero * David Maraniss (Simon & Schuster)
The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World * Joshua Prager (Pantheon)
Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball's Lunatic Fringe * Sam Walker (Viking)
A Game of Inches: The Game on the Field and the Game Behind the Scenes * Peter Morris (Ivan R. Dee)
Money Pitcher: Chief Bender and the Tragedy of Indian Assimilation * William C. Kashatus (Pennsylvania State University Press)
Sayonara Home Run: The Art of the Japanese Baseball Card * John Gall & Gary Engel (Chronicle Books)
Spalding's World Tour: The Epic Adventure that Took Baseball Around the Globe * Mark Lamster (Public Affairs)
A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports * Brad Snyder (Viking)
2007
The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs. Yankees: October 13, 1960 * Jim Reisler (Da Capo Press)
Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman * Lee Lowenfish (University of Nebraska Press)
Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball * Norman L. Macht (University of Nebraska Press)
Crazy '08 * Cait Murphy (HarperCollins)
Level Playing Fields: How the Groundskeeping Murphy Brothers Shaped Baseball * Peter Morris (University of Nebraska Press)
Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's Final Season * Jonathan Eig (Simon & Schuster)
Senior Year: A Father, A Son and High School Baseball * Dan Shaughnessy (Houghton Mifflin)
The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip through Buck O'Neil's America * Joe Posnanski (Morrow)
Through a Blue Lens: The Brooklyn Dodgers Photographs of Barney Stein, 1937-1957 * Dennis D'Agostino & Bonnie Crosby (Triumph Books)
Ty and the Babe * Tom Stanton (Thomas Dunne Books)
2008
Almost a Dynasty: The Rise & Fall of the 1980 Phillies * William C. Kashatus (University of Pennsylvania Press)
Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Neil Leifer (Taschen)
Baseball's Greatest Hit: The Story of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" * Andy Strasberg, Bob Thompson & Tim Wiles (Hal Leonard)
Classic Cubs: A Tribute to the Men and Magic of Wrigley Field * John Hanley & Chris De Luca (Cumberland House)
Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees' First Dynasty * Daniel K. Levitt (University of Nebraska Press)
Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty, and the Say Hey Kid: The Year that Changed Baseball Forever * John Rosengren (Sourcebooks)
Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember * John Feinstein (Little Brown)
Red Sox Threads * Bill Nowlin (Rounder Books)
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball * Kadir Nelson (Jump at the Sun/Hyperion)
PREVIOUS CASEY AWARD JUDGES
Paul Adomites (1990), Charles Alexander (1989), Marty Appel (1998), Bob Bailey (1991), Mary Barney (2004), Paul Bauer (1991), Mike Bielawa (1998), Peter Bjarkman (1989), John Boyle (1993), Butch Callery (2006), Pete Cava (1999), Jim Charlton (1995), Tom Chase (1988), Richard Crepeau (1993), Steve Cummings (1995), John Curtis (1994), Charles Einstein (1990), Larry Dickson (1985), Reid Duffy (2001), Chris Eckes (2005), Morris Eckhouse (2000), Larry Gerlach (1992), Kevin Grace (1986), Phil Gray (2005), Wayne Greene (1994), Richard Grossinger (1988), Tracy Hackler (2005), Chris Hanners (2001), Scott Hannig (2007), W. J. Harrison (1983, 1984), Ernie Harwell (1995), Jack Heffron (2009), Paul Herbert (2000), Alex Holzman (1993), Jerome Holtzman (1993), Brooke Horvath (1986), Rollie Jacobsen (2007, 2008), Anne Jewell (2006), Lloyd Johnson (1996), Chris Karhl (2001), Kevin Kerrane (1987), Doug Kimsey (2004), Gary Kitchell (2000), Mike Leadbetter (2002), Bruce Markusen (2002), Andy McCue (1992), Bill McGill (2007), Dick Miller (1996), Willis Monie (2004), Tom Mortenson (1999), Tom Nahigian (2009), Bob Obojski (1987), T.S. O'Connell (2003), Dan Okrent (1986), Wes Parker (2003), Charlie Patton (1998), Bobby Plapinger (1990), David Plaut (1997), Rich Puff (1991), Larry Ritter (1997), Greg Rhodes (1985, 2008), Ray Robinson (1999), Mark Rushing (1985), Joe Santry (2003), Mark Schraf (1992), Mike Shannon (1983, 1984), John Skurkay (2006), Leverett Smith (1987), Eric Soergel (2009), Wayne Tucker (2008), Charles Vascellaro (1996), David Q. Voigt (1988), Paul White (1994), Mike Wickham (1997), Lisa Winston (2002).
HOW THE CASEY AWARD PROCESS WORKS
All baseball books received by Spitball during the calendar year are automatically considered for CASEY Award nomination, without regard to genre or topic. During the month of October the editors compile a "short list" of finalists or CASEY Award Nominees, based on their own opinions, published reviews, and the nominations of publishers, librarians, authors, subscribers, and others. A newly-seated three-Judge panel picks the CASEY winner from this list of Nominees. Working independently of each other, the Judges rank the books from "least best" to "best" in an effort to identify the book which makes "the greatest contribution to baseball literature," with literature being defined in its broadest sense. The Judges return their ballots to the editors of Spitball who certify and announce the results. CASEY Award Judges are instructed to evaluate the Nominated books according to five criteria: literary quality, informational content, analytical content, originality, and artistic appeal. The amount of emphasis to place on each of these critierion is left up to each Judge. The Judges are further instructed to disregard all previous books written by the Nominated authors as the CASEY is not a "lifetime achievement" award.
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