2022 Larry Ritter Book Award nominees announced
Each year, SABR’s Deadball Era Committee presents the Larry Ritter Book Award to recognize the best new baseball book primarily set in the Deadball Era that was published during the previous calendar year. The Ritter Award is presented during the Deadball Committee’s meeting at the annual SABR convention.
Here is the list of Ritter Award nominees for 2022:
- The Short Life of Hughie McLoon: A True Story of Baseball, Magic and Murder, by Allen Abel (Sutherland House)
- Gettysburg Eddie Plank: A Pitcher’s Journey to the Hall of Fame, by Dave Heller (McFarland & Co.)
- Banned for Life: The Benny Kauff Story, by Jimmy Keenan (independently published)
- The Paper Tigers: The Untold True Story of How Eight Huys From the Streets of Philadelphia Became Major League Baseball Players for One Day, by Greg Klein and illustrated by Andy Brown (Paper Tiger Press)
- Wahoo Sam Crawford: The King of Sluggers, by Kent Krause (Kodar Publishing)
- The Best Team Over There: The Untold Story of Grover Cleveland Alexander and the Great War, by Jim Leeke (University of Nebraska Press)
- This Never Happened: The Mystery Behind the Death of Christy Mathewson, by Jarol B. Manheim and illustrated by John Payne (Summer Games Books)
- Barney Dreyfuss: Pittsburgh’s Baseball Titan, by Brian Martin (McFarland & Co.)
- Ted Sullivan, Barnacle of Baseball: The Life of the Prolific League Founder, Scout, Manager and Unrivaled Huckster, by Pat O’Neill and Tom Coffman (McFarland & Co.)
- Comeback Pitchers: The Remarkable Careers of Howard Ehmke and Jack Quinn, by Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg (University of Nebraska Press)
- Double Plays and Double Crosses: The Black Sox and Baseball in 1920, by Don Zminda (Rowman & Littlefield)
First presented in 2002, the Larry Ritter Award is the centerpiece of the Deadball Era Committee’s endeavors and is bestowed annually upon the best work set primarily in the Deadball Era published during the preceding year. The award is named in honor of late SABR member Lawrence S. Ritter, author of The Glory of Their Times, the work that revived interest in the Deadball Era and often cited as the greatest baseball book ever written.
The task of reviewing this year’s nominees is assigned to an awards committee chaired by Doug Skipper, with Mark Dugo, Ben Klein, Craig Lammers, Mark Pattison, Andrew Milner, Don Jensen, and John McMurray as the other judges. Finalists will be announced in March, with the 2022 Larry Ritter Award winner to be publicly announced in April.
For a list of past Ritter Award winners, click here.
Originally published: February 23, 2022. Last Updated: February 23, 2022.