By Avery Collins Books on Baseball January 26, 2026

The verdict is in, and appropriately for a subject who hated bunting, the judges of the 43rd annual CASEY Award have swung for the fences.

Spitball Magazine has officially named John W. Miller’s The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball as the winner of the 2025 CASEY Award for the Best Baseball Book of the Year.

In a year packed with heavy hitters—including profound histories of the Negro Leagues and intimate portraits of small-town America—Miller’s electric biography of the Baltimore Orioles’ chain-smoking, umpire-bating genius stood above the rest. It is the definitive account of the man who arguably invented modern baseball strategy, proving that long before spreadsheets took over front offices, Earl Weaver was running the numbers on index cards in the dugout.

The Winner: A Genius in Polyester

The Last Manager (Avid Reader Press) does what the best baseball biographies do: it uses a single figure to explain an entire era. Miller argues that Weaver was the bridge between the “gut feeling” managers of the past and the analytics-driven sterile environments of 2026.

Weaver was a paradox—a manager who looked like a disgruntled factory foreman but thought like a mathematician. He despised the sacrifice bunt (“playing for one run”), worshipped the three-run homer, and understood the value of on-base percentage decades before Moneyball made it cool. Miller captures the full, volatile spectrum of the man—the screaming matches with Jim Palmer, the dirt-kicking tantrums, and the quiet, obsessive preparation that led the Orioles to four pennants and a World Series title.

The judges noted that Miller’s prose crackles with the same intensity as his subject. As Judge Tom Clavin noted in the announcement, “The book reminds us of how successful and innovative the volatile Weaver was… we may never see his kind again.”

The Field: A “Tight Horse Race”

Spitball Editor Mike Shannon called this year’s field “one of the strongest and most diverse” in recent memory. While Miller took the crown, the finalists showcased the incredible depth of current baseball literature:

  • Runner-Up: Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America by Gerald Early – A masterful cultural history that finished a close second.
  • Third Place: Deadbeats: Dead Balls, and the 1914 Boston Braves by Martin H. Bush – A deep dive into the “Miracle Braves.”
  • Honorable Mentions: Homestand by Will Bardenwerper and One Splendid Season by Phil Rosenzweig tied for fourth, offering poignant looks at minor league life and the legendary 1912 season, respectively.

The Ceremony

John W. Miller will be honored with the prestigious “Casey” statue—considered the Oscar of baseball writing—at the 43rd Annual CASEY Awards ceremony. The event is scheduled for Sunday, March 22, 2026, at Braxton Brewing in downtown Covington, Kentucky.

For those of us who grew up watching Earl Weaver turn an argument into performance art, The Last Manager isn’t just a biography; it’s a resurrection. Congratulations to John W. Miller for giving the “Earl of Baltimore” the literary monument he deserves.

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