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BaseballChronology.com: Dave Moore Award Honorees

By Patrick Mondout

Elysian Fields Quarterly annually bestows one baseball book each year with their Dave Moore Award. A panel of up to six judges decide which book was the "most important work of literature on baseball" during the preceding year. The journal is named for the fabled early baseball park, the Elysian Fields of Hoboken, New Jersey.

First-time authors who win the award receive a $100 honorarium as well as a commemorative plaque. Learn more about Dave Moore, the awards, and the Elysian Fields Quarterly at their website.

We have a list of all winners from 1999-2006 below, including links to the book at Amazon.com for your convenience. Awards announced early in the year for the previous year's books. Thus, the 2005 award below was announced in March of 2006. Click on a year below to see the winners and finalists.

DAVE MOORE AWARD WINNERS
YEAR	WINNER
2006		A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports by Brad Snyder Few people have the special expertise required to write the life of Curt Flood because much of Flood’s historical import comes from his lawsuit’s prominence and his complex personality. Flood’s biographer needs legal expertise to understand and represent his court case properly and he should have the critical honesty to portray Flood as a highly courageous yet deeply flawed person. Brad Snyder’s biography of Flood, A Well Paid Slave does this with dexterity and honesty. Read more...
2005		The Greatest Ballpark Ever: Ebbets Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers by Bob McGee "Drawing on original interviews and letters, as well as published and archival sources, The Greatest Ballpark Ever explores the individual struggle of Charley Ebbets to build Ebbets Field, the days of Wilbert Robinson’s early pennant winners, the era of the Daffiness Boys, Larry MacPhail and the tumultuous field leadership of Leo the Lip, Branch Rickey and the fiery triumph of Jackie Robinson, the golden days of the Boys of Summer, and Walter O’Malley’s ignominious departure. Memorable personalities including Casey Stengel, Zach Wheat, Dazzy Vance, Babe Herman, Van Lingle Mungo, Frenchy Bordargaray, Dolf Camilli, Pistol Pete Reiser, Pee Wee Reese, Mickey Owen, Hugh Casey, and Cookie Lavagetto are all here, as well as Oisk, Skoonj, Gil, Campy, Newk, the Duke, and many more." Read more...
2004		September Swoon: Richie Allen, the '64 Phillies, and Racial Integration by William C. Kashatus "Based on personal interviews, player biographies, and newspaper accounts, September Swoon brings to life a season and a team that got so many Philadelphians, both black and white, to care deeply and passionately about the game at a turbulent period in the city’s—and our nation’s—history. The hometown fans reveled in their triumphs and cried in their defeat, because they saw in them a reflection of themselves. The ’64 Phillies not only won over the loyalties of a racially divided city, but gave Philadelphians a reason to dream—of a pennant, of a contender, and of a City of Brotherly Love." Read more...
2003		Foul Ball: My Life and Hard Times Trying to Save an Old Ballpark by Jim Bouton "In his first diary since Ball Four, Jim Bouton recounts his amazing adventure trying to save Wahconah Park, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Host to organized baseball since 1892, Wahconah Park was soon to be abandoned by the owner of the Pittsfield Mets who would move his team to a new stadium in another town - an all too familiar story." Read more...
2002		The End of Baseball as We Knew It: The Players Union, 1960-81 by Charles P. Korr "The End of Baseball As We Knew It draws on the records of the Major League Baseball Players Association and interviews with ballplayers, journalists, and labor executives to give this insider's view of the famous shift in power from management to players that set the standard in labor relations not just in baseball, but in all professional sports." Read more...
2001		The Final Season by Tom Stanton "Conceived as a game-by-game journal, The Final Season is filled with baseball. Stanton steps up with graceful musings on the game, the park, the Tigers and their history, and, most spiritedly, a pair of living legends--former right fielder Al Kaline and announcer Ernie Harwell. But it's Stanton's thoughts about family--his own family and how the game and the ballpark have connected generations--that truly resonate. In his prose, this lovely old rust bucket of a ballpark, this repository of so many memories, becomes metaphor." Read more...
2000		Havana Heat by Darryl Brock "Deaf-mute pitcher Luther "Dummy" Taylor won 115 games for the New York Giants between 1900 and 1908. Darryl Brock's novel picks up Taylor's story in 1911, when Taylor is unsure what to do with his life. He sets his sights on a return to the big leagues, working out with his brother in the evenings and wrestling with the decision to leave his wife temporarily to pursue his dream. Only when he's picked by his old Giants manager John McGraw for an exhibition trip to Havana, where the Giants face the renowned Cuban national team, does he discover what he has to offer after his pitching arm gives way to younger talent. In his new novel, Darryl Brock takes readers back to the glory days of baseball and Cuba to witness a great player's second chance." Read more...
1999		The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball by Roberto Gonzáles-Echevarria "The "national" in "national pastime" is a relative term in Yale literature professor and former semi-pro catcher Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria's meticulous examination of baseball in the land of his birth. A respected scholar, Echevarria is also a fan, and he manages to weave both objectivity and appreciation throughout a carefully researched and multi-layered narrative that draws from numerous first-person reminiscences. If Echevarria's prose is dry at times, it manages to cover plenty of interesting territory as he threads the game through the fabric of Cuban history, culture, and lore." Read more...
ELYSIAN FIELD'S MOST IMPORTANT WORKS OF BASEBALL LITERATURE