* Simply the best

Spitball Magazine just announced the finalists for the 2008 CASEY Award,

Almost a Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies, by William Kashatus (University of Pennsylvania Press)
Neil Leifer: Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball, by Neil Leifer (Taschen) (See here for samples.)
Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” , by Andy Strassberg, Bob Thompson, & Tim Wiles (Hal Leonard)
Classic Cubs: A Tribute to the Men and Magic of Wrigley Field, by John Hanley & Chris De Luca (Cumberland House)
Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees’ First Dynasty, by Daniel R. Levitt (University of Nebraska Press)
Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid, by John Rosengren (Sourcebooks)
Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember, by John Feinstein (Little Brown)
Red Sox Threads: Odds & Ends from Red Sox History, by Bill Nowlin (Rounder Books)
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, by Kadir Nelson (Jump at the Sun/Hyperion)
101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out, by Josh Pahigian (The Lyons Press)

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, and was the first award to honor the authors and publishers of the best baseball book of the year.

Some of the greatest names in baseball literature, including Roger Kahn, Bill James, John Holway, and Harold Seymour, among others, have won the CASEY.

The award will be presented to the winning author at the annual Casey Banquet, held in the Cincinnati area on a date as yet to be determined.

Problem is, how do you compare a wonderful children’s book (Ship) with a gorgeous coffee table book (Ballet) with a scholarly treatment (Barrow)? If these were all biographies or all of any one genre, it would make more sense (to this humble observer).

If I was on the selection committee, my vote would go to the Leifer book, in a tight duel with Red Sox Threads.