"Buckner's Error" by Joseph Guglielmelli

From: Queens Noir ed. Robert Knightly. Akashic Books, 2008.

Winner of this year's MWA Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for Best First Short Story, "Buckner's Error" is equal parts classic baseball banter and true noir. As the story trundles on the 7 Train from Grand Central Station to Shea Stadium, readers follow an unnamed Mets fan hitman zeroing in on power broker, pervert, and Sox fan Jack Buckner.

NBS Special Report: 2009 Best Short Story Edgar Nominees

As presented by the Mystery Writers of America:

BEST SHORT STORY

"A Sleep Not Unlike Death" - Hardcore Hardboiled by Sean Chercover (Kensington Publishing)
"Skin and Bones" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by David Edgerley Gates (Dell Magazines)
"Scratch of a Woman" - Hardly Knew Her by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
"La Vie en Rose" - Paris Noir by Dominique Mainard (Akashic Books)
"Skinhead Central" - The Blue Religion by T. Jefferson Parker (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD (Best First Short Story)

"Buckner's Error" - Queens Noir by Joseph Guglielmelli (Akashic Books)

Congratulations and good luck to all.

The full list of Edgar nominees via Sarah Weinman's Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.