Dickson ’61 Wins Award from Chicago Baseball Museum for Book

Paul Dickson ’61 is the winner of the fifth annual Jerome Holtzman Award for his 2012 book, Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick.

The Holtzman Award, established in 2008, is presented by the Chicago Baseball Museum to the person who “reflects the values and spirit of its Hall of Fame namesake. The honoree is selected by what is deemed to be the most significant contribution to the promotion of Chicago baseball and the preservation of its history and namesake.”

The book, collecting information and accounts from primary sources and over one hundred interviews, is an in-depth portrait of a baseball innovator, two-time White Sox owner and advocate of racial equality. As owner of the Cleveland Indians, Veeck in 1947 signed Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League.

Dickson is most recently the author of Words from the White House: Words and Phrases Coined or Popularized by America’s Presidents, the first compilation of new words and lexical curiosities originating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. With definitions, etymology, and brief essays, each entry provides a glance at the history of the United States through the language used and invented in the past 200 years.

For more on Paul Dickson’s book on Bill Veeck see this past Wesleyan Connection story.