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BaseballChronology.com: Dave Moore Award Honorees for 2005

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. We have a list of all winners from 1999-2005, 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. Here are the results for 2005:

DAVE MOORE AWARD WINNERS & FINALISTS
WINNER		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...
FINALIST		Baseball Before We Knew It by David Block "Block's book takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the centuries in search of clues to the evolution of our modern National Pastime. Among his startling discoveries is a set of long-forgotten baseball rules from the 1700s. Block evaluates the originality and historical significance of the Knickerbocker rules of 1845, revisits European studies on the ancestry of baseball which indicate that the game dates back hundreds, if not thousands of years, and assembles a detailed history of games and pastimes from the Middle Ages onward that contributed to baseball's development. In its thoroughness and reach, and its extensive descriptive bibliography of early baseball sources, this book is a unique and invaluable resource-a comprehensive, reliable, and readable account of baseball before it was America's game." Read more...
FINALIST		Luckiest Man, The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by Jonathan Eig "Jonathan Eig's Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig offers a fascinating and well-rounded portrait of Gehrig, from his dugout rituals and historic games to his relationships with his mother, wife, coaches, and teammates. His complex friendship with Ruth, who was the polar opposite to Gehrig in nearly every respect, is given particularly vivid attention. Take this revealing description of how the two men began a barnstorming tour together following their 1927 World Series victory: "Ruth tipped the call girls and sent them on their way. Gehrig kissed his mother goodbye." Eig also shares some previously unknown details regarding his consecutive games streak and how he dealt with ALS during the final years of his life. Rich in anecdotes and based on hundreds of interviews and 200 pages of recently discovered letters, the book effectively shows why the Iron Horse remains an American icon to this day." Read more...
FINALIST		Satchel Paige’s America by William Price Fox "Captures the sometimes outrageous, often humorous, and always bigger-than-life spirit of the World?s Greatest Pitcher, Leroy Satchel Paige." Read more...
FINALIST		Forging Genius: The Making of Casey Stengel by Steven Goldman "Forging Genius gives insights to Stengel’s irrepressible love of the game and his incorrigible desire to entertain. As Casey put it, "Because I can make people laugh, some of them think I’m a damn fool." His humor camouflaged a relentless hunger for success, glory, and the respectability he desperately sought. Goldman gives readers an unprecedented vision of one man’s lifelong pursuit of genius on the baseball diamond." Read more...
FINALIST		Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City by Jonathan Mahler "New York City in 1977 was in the middle of wild upheaval on all fronts, from the hunt for the Son of Sam killer and the citywide blackout to a brutal mayor's race and the rise of punk rock and the zenith of disco. In Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning, journalist Jonathan Mahler revisits all those storylines through another drama, which grabbed tabloid headlines all summer long: the outrageous--and pennant-winning--New York Yankees. The Yankees weren't the greatest baseball team ever assembled--they weren't even the greatest of the era (the talent-laden Cincinnati Reds were superior player for player). But no modern team has earned more type than the "Bronx Zoo" Yanks of the late '70s, thanks in no small part to such characters as meddling owner George Steinbrenner, firebrand manager Billy Martin, and flashy slugger Reggie Jackson." Read more...
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