We’re heading into the time of year when baseball announces its major awards. It’s no different for baseball books.
Spitball Magazine just announced the finalists for the coveted CASEY Award for best baseball book of the year. Links under the authors names will take you to Bookshelf Conversations.
- A Baseball Gaijin: Chasing a Dream to Japan and Back by Aaron Fischman
- Baseball: The Movie by Noah Gittell
- Charlie Hustle: the Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball by Keith O’Brien
- Dewey: Behind the Gold Glove by Dwight Evans with Erik Sherman
- The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw & the Burden of Greatness by Andy McCullough
- Mike Donlin: A Rough and Rowdy Life from New York Baseball Idol to Stage and Screen by Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz
- The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City by Kevin Baker
- The Original Louisville Slugger: The Life and Times of Forgotten Baseball Legend Pete Browning by Tim Newby
- Pinch Hitting (a novel) by Morris Hoffman>Season of Shattered Dreams: Postwar Baseball, The Spokane Indians, and a Tragic Bus Crash that Changed Everything by Eric Vickrey
From the Spitball website: “This is another list of great books, which proves once again the inexhaustibility of baseball as a worthy topic for our best writers, as well as a continuing justification (if one were needed) for the very existence of the CASEY Award,” said editor Mike Shannon.
The 42nd annual CASEY Awards will take place in Cincinnati, Ohio, in March 2025.
I finally had the opportunity to attend a CASEY ceremony where I met Shannon (left photo), whom I’ve know more than 20 years but had never met in person, as well as the 2023 winner, Joe Posnanski, similar story although of a lesser time frame.
While in Cincinnati, I took a tour of the Great American Ballpark, which lives up to its name. They have an excellent Reds Hall of Fame. The image with the statues was a bit melancholy. You almost expect them to come to life when the museum closes. Perhaps my favorite part was the collection of baseball cards for each season which recedes into the wall when not being viewed.
And of course, I got a cap.
is available on Amazon.com,
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