2014 Jack Kavanagh Memorial Youth Baseball Research Awards announced

The 2014 winners of the Jack Kavanagh Memorial Youth Baseball Research Award are:

College Division: “Reassessing the Likelihood of Joe DiMaggio’s 1941 Hitting Streak,” by Cyrus Hettle, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky

In addition to sabermetrics, Cyrus’s research interests include combinatorics and algebra. He is also interested in boardgame design theory, and is the co-designer, with Robert P. Schneider, of Al-Jabar, a mathematical boardgame based on concepts from group theory and color mixing. Cyrus graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2014 with degrees in Mathematics and Classics, and is pursuing a graduate degree in math.

High School Division: “Rube Foster and the Negro Leagues,” by Abraham Griesbauer, Troy, Missouri

Abraham, a homeschooled senior, was a National Merit Finalist and will be attending the University of Dallas to study either Chemistry or Physics. He has played baseball since he was 10 years old and got to visit the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City with his American Legion team. He plans to continue playing baseball at the University of Dallas. He  also works as an umpire and enjoys playing the piano at the virtuoso level and teaches piano lessons as well. In his community, he volunteers at a soup kitchen and food pantry.

Click the links above to download the winning essays.

No award was given in the middle school division. The winners will receive a plaque honoring their achievement, a $200 prize and a one-year membership to SABR.

The Jack Kavanagh Memorial Youth Baseball Research Award was established in 1999 by the Society for American Baseball Research in recognition of Kavanagh’s writing and research achievements and his contributions to SABR. The Kavanagh Award may be presented each year for either a research presentation given at the SABR National Convention (papers must accompany any oral presentation), or for a research paper that is submitted to the awards committee between the end of one SABR Convention and no later than June 1 of the following year by a researcher in grades 6-8 (middle school category), grades 9-12 (high school category), or undergraduates 22 and under (College Category).

For more information, contact Leslie Heaphy.

Winning entries from previous years can be viewed by clicking here.



Originally published: August 11, 2014. Last Updated: August 11, 2014.