Tom Heitz

Tom Heitz (1940-  ) was the National Baseball Hall of Fame Librarian for 12 years beginning in 1983. He oversaw a construction project that greatly enlarged the building and made it a modern facility, grew the collections and services, provided for the conservation of materials and expanded access to researchers. “Up to that point,” he told The Baltimore Sun in 1994, “it was a private hunting preserve for scholars and the privileged.” As Hall of Fame Librarian, he first proposed and then helped establish SABR’s Seymour Medal, first awarded in 1996, to honor the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year. After serving in the United States Marine Corps, Heitz worked as an assistant law librarian at the University of Puget Sound and later as a law librarian for the Attorney General of New York before joining the Hall of Fame staff. For 10 years, he served as the official scorekeeper for the Oneonta Tigers of the New York-Penn League. He now serves as general manager of Friends of Doubleday, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York.

Click here to read Steve Gietschier’s profile of Heitz in the Fall 2012 Baseball Research Journal.