Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine, founded in 1981 in Covington, Kentucky, is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2025 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year is The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball, written by John W. Miller and published by Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
The Last Manager received rankings of 1, 2, and 4 for the lowest score of 7.
Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America by Gerald Early finished right behind, with a score of 8 on rankings of 1, 3, and 4. Deadbeats: Dead Balls, and the 1914 Boston Braves by Martin H. Bush came in third, with a score of 11 (2, 4, 5), and Homestand: Small Town Baseball and the Fight for the Soul of America by Will Bardenwerper and One Splendid Season: Baseball and America in 1912 by Phil Rosenzweig finished tied for fourth with 13 points each. The other first-place vote went to One Splendid Season (1, 5, 7), and the other second-place vote went to Homestand (2, 5, 6). It was such a close race that after the first two ballots were turned in, six books still had a chance to win … only 4 had been eliminated.
Spitball Editor Mike Shannon said, “It was clearly a tight horse race this year because the list of great baseball books was so diverse and so strong, but we think the Judges got it right. Mr. Miller had a fantastic subject and he did him justice, creating an unforgettable portrait of a very important figure and, at the same time, bringing much-needed light to bear on a very topical and important subject: namely, the changed role of dugout managers today and the degree to which such men influence the game.” Judge Tom Clavin, a noted baseball author himself, said, “The Last Manager is that rare combination of thorough research and entertaining writing. It helps, too, that John Miller has such a relentlessly interesting subject in Earl Weaver. This book reminds us of how successful and innovative the volatile Weaver was. As the title implies, we may never see his kind again.” Judge Sean Holtz, the founder and administrator of one of the best baseball informational websites, Baseball Almanac, also praised the book, saying, “Long before Moneyball crunched spreadsheets, Earl Weaver was crunching numbers in his dugout, using index cards and instincts. John W. Miller’s The Last Manager reminds us that Weaver’s blend of pitching, defense, and the three‑run homer wasn’t just strategy—it was prophecy. This biography captured baseball’s original disruptor, the man who argued with umpires as fiercely as he argued with tradition—and whose relentless fire and innovation ultimately carried him all the way to Cooperstown.”
The 43rd annual CASEY Awards will take place on Sunday, March 22, 2026, at Braxton Brewing in downtown Covington, Kentucky. The doors open at 1:30 and the program begins at 2:00. The CASEYs are open to the public, and the admission cost includes a one-year subscription to Spitball Magazine. All are invited to join us to honor the winner of the 2025 CASEY Award as well as the other nine Finalists and to enjoy what promises to be a very interesting and entertaining acceptance speech by John W. Miller of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who will receive his blue and gold specially-designed Louisville Slugger CASEY Award baseball bat. Spitball congratulates the authors and publishers of all the Finalists and extends our gratitude to Judges Tom Clavin, Sean Holtz, and Tim Tocher for a job very well done.
For a complete list of previous CASEY Award winners, visit the Spitball Magazine website at www.spitballmag.com. And for more information, please contact Mike Shannon at (513-384-8553) or email him at spitball5@hotmail.com.