The CASEY Award!

Well, here’s a bit of cool news: WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL has won the 2023 CASEY Award as the best baseball book of the year. It’s actually my third CASEY—I won my first for THE SOUL OF BASEBALL and my second for THE BASEBALL 100—and that’s just incredible. I’m so grateful to Mike Shannon, who has kept this wonderful award going since 1983, and to the CASEY judges. What really makes the CASEY special, I think, is that it’s a homegrown thing, built and maintained by real baseball fans.

I have long thought that MLB should sponsor the CASEY Award. Every year for 40 years, the award has gone to a book that celebrates baseball. I simply don’t know what could possibly be better for the game.

I believe the award ceremony will be in Cincinnati on March 24. I’ll give you more details if you’d like to attend; it’s a lot of fun.

Now, here are your CASEY Award winners going back to the beginning, and I’ll add a line or two of commentary when I have something extra to say. If you love baseball, and I know you do, here’s a great reading list.

1983: The Celebrant, Eric Rolfe Greenberg

The first CASEY went to a novel. It’s wonderful, especially if you like historical fiction. The book focuses on Christy Mathewson and the early days of baseball.

1984: Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Peter Goldenbock

1985: Good Enough to Dream, Roger Kahn

I think Roger’s The Boys of Summer changed everything about baseball books. Maybe I’ll talk to Mike Shannon about doing prequel CASEY awards going back a few years so that they can honor books like that and Ball Four and The Long Season and so on.

1986: The Bill James Historical Abstract, Bill James

This is the original. I still go back and read it sometimes. On the CASEY Website, they put a photograph of the NEW Bill James Historical Abstract, which is the classic… it did not win a CASEY because I think they thought of it as merely an update. But it was a complete rewrite, like a new book. This is a good place to say again: Bill should absolutely be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1987: Diamonds are Forever: Artists and Writers on Baseball, Peter H. Gordon

1988: Blackball Stars: Negro League Pioneers, John Holway

John is one of the pioneers of Negro leagues research. This is a marvelous series of interviews with players, and it grows more and more meaningful every year.

1989: The Pitch that Killed: Carl Mays, Ray Chapman and the Pennant Race of 1920, Mike Sowell.

1990: Baseball: The People’s Game, Harold Seymour

1991: To Everything a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia, 1909-1976, Bruce Kuklick

This was a fantastic year for baseball books—you had my friend Mark Winegardner’s incredible book, Prophet of the Sandlot, George Will’s Men at Work, Michael Sokolove’s Pete Rose book, Hustle, and Henry Aaron’s autobiography that he wrote with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had a Hammer.

1992: The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History, Phil S. Dixon and Patrick J. Hannigan

1993: Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark, Michael Gershman

1994: Lords of the Realm: The Real History of Baseball, John Helyar

I re-read this pretty much every year. As relevant today as it was when written 30 years ago.

1995: Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train, Henry W. Thomas

Shortly after this came out, I got a huge package from Henry with this book and all sorts of really cool information. Henry Thomas is Walter Johnson’s grandson. It’s worth comparing this wonderful book to another posthumous biography that came out that year: Al Stump’s spiteful Ty Cobb: The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball.

1996: Slide, Kelly, Slide: The Wild Life and Times of Mike “King” Kelly, Baseball’s First Superstar, Marty Appel

1997: Play for a Kingdom, Thomas Dyja

1998: Judge and Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, David Pietrusza

1999: Slouching Toward Fargo: A Two-Year Saga of Sinnes and St. Paul Saints at the Bottom of the Bush Leagues with Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie and Me, Neal Karlen

2000: Cy Young: A Baseball Life, Reed Browning

Another great book came out this year: Richard Ben Cramer’s Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life. The book was controversial but offered such deep insight into the unknowable Yankee Clipper.

2001: The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark, Tom Stanton

2002: Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, Howard Bryant

The first of two CASEYs for Howard!

2003: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Michael Lewis

The book that changed everything.

2004: Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero, Leigh Montville

My hero, Leigh Montville!

2005: Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig, Jonathan Eig

Wow, there have been some really great baseball biographies—this is one of my favorites.

2006: A Game of Inches: The Game on the Field and the Game Behind the Scenes, Peter Morris.

Just a towering book that I use every time I have a question about baseball history.

2007: The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America, Me!

2008: We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro Leagues Baseball, Kadir Nelson

Kadir is an absurdity, a brilliant artist, a brilliant writer, a brilliant person in every way. Nobody should be given so many gifts.

2009: Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, Larry Tye

A terrific book… special mention should made of how the CASEYs have celebrated the Negro leagues through the decades.

2010: The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, Howard Bryant

So many good baseball books come out each and every year—this year also had my friend Mike Vaccaro’s The First Fall Classic.

2011: 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, Kostya Kennedy

Kostya has also won three CASEY awards. He’s magnificent. Special mention this year for Dick Perez’s The Immortals, a collection of his artwork. Dick was the artist of the Donruss Diamond Kings, and I’ve been helping with a documentary that will be coming out on his life.

2012: Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, Paul Dickson

2013: Heart of a Tiger: Growing Up with My Grandfather, Ty Cobb, Herschel Cobb

The first of two CASEY award-winning Cobb books that tried to right the damage done by Al Stump’s bitter book.

2014: Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, Kostya Kennedy

A really good new Pete Rose book is coming out this year, Keith O’Brien’s Charlie Hustle (the audiobook will be narrated by our own Ellen Adair!). Pete Rose is baseball’s inexhaustible subject.

2015: Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, Charles Leerhsen

I think this book did more to change the narrative about Cobb than any other.

2016: The Last Innocents: The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Michael Leahy

2017: Casey Stengel: Baseball’s Greatest Character, Marty Appel

Marty’s second CASEY!

2018: Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game, Rob Neyer

So many of Rob’s books were CASEY-worthy.

2019: Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player, Jeremy Beer

The first book about the player Buck O’Neil called the greatest he ever saw.

2020: How Baseball Happened: Outrageous Lies Exposed! The True Story Revealed, Thomas W. Gilbert

2021: The Baseball 100, Me!

2022: True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson, Kostya Kennedy

2023: Why We Love Baseball, Me!