This award is in honor of a fellow Mudville manager whose death at the all-to-early age of 43 stunned our community on March 21, 2000. Bill was a long-time APBA enthusiast who participated in numerous leagues and was commissioner of his own league. He brought with him an unbridled enthusiasm for the game of baseball, respect for his fellow managers, and the energy to participate, communicate, and to bring a dose of regular humor to Mudville. He was the ultimate "good sport" -- his Kern River Rats didn't create many opportunities for gloating!

Bill was reading from "Murder in Wrigley Field" by Crabbe Evers shortly before his death:

"In legend his name was Dean "Dream" Weaver, but that was only an alias. For when he stood out there on that hill, his cap back on his wheat-colored hair, his anvil-broad shoulders outlined against the benign summer sky, he was the Grim Reaper. It did not matter if a latter-day Murderers' Row stood poised at the plate. It did not matter if a gusting hitter's wind rippled the ivy along the outfield walls like fur on an animal's back. It did not matter if the ball was hopped or the bat corked. For when Dream Weaver kicked and his golden arm dealt, he was Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death -- Johnson, Feller, Koufax, and Ryan -- in a single rider on a snorting horse.

Except today, this cruel day, when that horse faltered and its rider grew pale..."

It is in the continuing memory of Bill Brenn that I am pleased to present this award to a fellow Mudville manager who approaches the game and his Mudville colleagues in the same way: