2012 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award winners announced
The 2012 winners of the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, which honors the best articles on baseball history or biography completed during the preceding calendar year, are:
- Thomas L. Altherr for “Basepaths and Baselines: The Agricultural and Surveying Contexts of the Emergence of Baseball”, published in the Fall 2011 edition of Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game. Judges’ comment: “Amazing in all respects … I was absorbed by (this) account of baseball’s rural origins and impact.”
- William Lamb for his biography of New York Metropolitans and Giants owner John B. Day, published as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project. Judges’ comment: “I know much more about Day and about his importance to baseball and the New York sporting scene than I did before. My interest is heightened, and I thank Lamb for being my guide.”
- Geri Strecker for “Dave Wyatt: The First Great Black Sportswriter”, published in the Spring 2011 edition of Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal. Judges’ comment: “Well researched and clearly and simply written.”
All three are SABR members and all three are past winners of the McFarland-SABR award.
Altherr won in 2001 for “A Place Leavel Enough To Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic”, published in NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives.
Lamb won in 2010 for “A Fearsome Collaboration: The Alliance of Andrew Freedman and John T. Brush”, published in Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game.
Strecker won in 2010 for “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field: Biography of a Ballpark”, published in Black Ball: A Journal of the Negro League; and last year for “And the Public Has Been Left to Guess the Secret: Questioning the Authorship of ‘The Great Match, and Other Matches’ (1877)”, published in NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture.
The McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award honors the author(s) of the best articles or papers, published or unpublished, on baseball history or biography completed during the preceding calendar year. Eligible works include magazine and journal articles, previously unpublished chapters or articles in anthologies or other books with multiple authors, and unpublished research papers and written versions of oral presentations. Each winner will receive a plaque and a cash prize of $200.
The awards will be presented at the 42nd annual SABR convention, June 27-July 1, 2012, at the Marriott City Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The selection committee consists of: Len Levin (chair), Phil Bergen, Jan Finkel, Chuck Hilty and Bill Humber. To submit a nomination for the 2013 awards, please send the work’s title, author and publisher information (if applicable) to Len Levin.
For a complete list of winners of the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, click here.
Originally published: May 2, 2012. Last Updated: May 2, 2012.