About the SABR Oral History Collection
The SABR Oral History Collection includes MP3 audio files from interviews conducted with ballplayers (Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, Negro Leagues, AAGPBL), executives, scouts, authors, writers, broadcasters, and other figures of historical baseball significance. These interviews, some of which date back more than 50 years, were conducted by members of SABR’s Oral History Research Committee and were digitized through a collaboration with the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.
Founded in 1986, the SABR Oral History Committee has recorded lengthy interviews with well-known and lesser-known players, helping to preserve the historical record and to provide for recollections of baseball history which exist in no other place. Interviews with so called cup-of-coffee players can be as illuminating as interviews with baseball’s biggest names. Such interviews typically explore a player’s biography and involvement in notable games in depth, thus allowing for some of the most probing and authoritative accounts in existence. In many cases, the Oral History Committee recording may be the most comprehensive account of a player’s career in existence.
The committee also offers guidelines for conducting effective oral history interviews; many SABR members use Oral History interviews as a launching point to write that person’s biography for the SABR BioProject.
The interviews and transcripts in SABR’s Oral History Collection are made available online for research and general listening. They may not be used for commercial purposes — in whole or in part — without the express written consent of the Society for American Baseball Research.
For questions or feedback, please contact SABR’s Jacob Pomrenke or click here to contact a member of SABR’s Oral History Committee.
