Dennis Snelling

You can follow Dennis Snelling's projects and see additional material by "liking" his Facebook pages for "Lefty O'Doul: Baseball's Forgotten Ambassador" and "The Greatest Minor League." A baseball fan since age eight, Snelling is proud to have caught a foul ball off the bat of Padres infielder Fernando Gonzalez at San Diego Stadium in 1978. (Interestingly, his best friend and college roommate at the time also caught a foul ball off the bat of the same player at Candlestick Park the next year, and they were sitting next to each other on both occasions. (Their friendship has outlasted both stadiums).

Snelling is a three-time finalist for the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year--for "The Greatest Minor League" in 2011, "Johnny Evers: A Baseball Life" in 2014, and for "Lefty O'Doul: Baseball's Forgotten Ambassador" in 2017. In addition, "Johnny Evers" was a 2015 Seymour Medal finalist. In August 2024 he will begin his 51st season as public address announcer for Downey High School, in Modesto, California, and consults for school districts in business services after retirement as an Associate Superintendent in Roseville, California.

His next book, on the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies "Whiz Kids," will be published by University of Nebraska Press in 2025.