This Week in SABR: August 26, 2016

Welcome to “This Week in SABR!” Click here to view this week’s newsletter on the web. Here’s what we’ve been up to as of August 26, 2016:


Students: One week left to apply for a Fall 2016 internship with SABR

The Society for American Baseball Research is seeking Fall 2016 interns to work in our office in Phoenix, Arizona.

An internship with SABR will involve responsibilities across a variety of disciplines, possibly including:

  • Working on-site at a local SABR conference, such as the SABR Arizona Fall League Experience
  • Working with our Membership Director or Director of Operations on organizational duties, membership renewal drives, customer service
  • Working with our Director of Editorial Content to help publish and/or produce content for our website at SABR.org

Interested candidates should be able to demonstrate basic office-related computer skills. HTML knowledge is a plus.

A working knowledge of baseball — and an awareness of the game’s general history and basic statistics — is required.

The internship is an educational opportunity that may count toward college credit, covering 15-20 hours per week (flexible schedule), at the SABR office in Phoenix, Arizona. The internship will be for a fixed period of time and is designed to provide the intern with skills and training that may be applicable to working in a nonprofit research environment or in other research-based organizations. No housing assistance will be provided.

Please send a resume and cover letter in PDF form to mappleman@sabr.org or jpomrenke@sabr.org by 5:00 p.m. MST Friday, September 2, 2016.


SABR 46: Listen to highlights from select research presentations

At SABR 46 in Miami, we heard 32 informative and interesting research presentations on topics ranging from Bill Veeck’s Miami Marlins and the nuances of free agency to the Havana Sugar Kings and Josh Gibson’s hypothetical salary in the Negro Leagues.

Click here to listen to audio highlights from select SABR 46 research presentations. You can also find full research abstracts and complete presenter bios on that page, as well.

For more coverage of the 2016 SABR convention, visit SABR.org/convention.


SABR 46: More highlights from Miami

Couldn’t make it to Miami for SABR 46? Check out stories, photos, and multimedia clips from the SABR 46 convention in Miami below:

Around the Web

Check out more coverage from the 2016 convention by visiting SABR.org/convention.


Tom Shieber wins 2016 George Michael SABR Pictorial History Award

The 2016 George Michael SABR Pictorial History Award, which was established by SABR’s Pictorial History Research Committee to honor significant contributions to the knowledge and understanding of historical baseball imagery, has been awarded to Tom Shieber, the Senior Curator for the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, New York.

As Pictorial History Committee chair Mark Fimoff writes, “It’s been some time since Tom Shieber left Mt. Wilson for Cooperstown, where he now researches stars of a more terrestrial nature. In our view, the Hall of Fame is very fortunate to have Tom on its team. The fact is, there are very few people around who have world-class level skills when it comes to researching and identifying old baseball imagery, and the Senior Curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum and Library is one of the best.”

Click here to read the full statement released by the Pictorial History Committee.

To view a list of previous award winners, click here.


Learn more about new SABR Diversity and Inclusion Committee

SABR is pleased to announce the formation of a Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which was established during the SABR 46 convention in Miami. 

Our new D&I committee will be dedicated to promoting outreach into traditionally underrepresented communities in SABR’s membership base, and ensuring that SABR events provide a welcoming environment to individuals of all backgrounds. The strategy and vision for the SABR D&I Committee will be led by a steering committee, comprised of SABR Director Emily Hawks, D&I committee chair; SABR Vice President Leslie Heaphy, chair of the Women in Baseball Research Committee; Anthony Salazar, chair of the Latino Baseball Research Committee; and Larry Lester, chair of the Negro Leagues Research Committee

The SABR D&I Committee will also have several affiliate members, who will be crucial in our community outreach and inclusion efforts. If you are interested in joining the committee as an affiliate member, please contact Emily Hawks at emilyhawks@gmail.com.


Educators, sign up your class for a discounted SABR Student Group Affiliate Membership

A Student Group Affiliate Membership will provide students with access to many of the electronic benefits that SABR members enjoy, including “This Week in SABR,” e-book editions of the Baseball Research Journal and The National Pastime, free SABR e-books, and access to the members-only section of SABR.org. This membership will not include any printed publications or voting rights.

In order to make the Student Group Affiliate Membership affordable for groups to join, here are the options we offer:

  • College/University groups/classes: For an annual fee of $250, a group of up to 25 students can receive a one-year electronic SABR affiliate membership.
  • High School/Middle School groups/classes: For an annual fee of $100, a group of up to 20 students can receive a one-year electronic SABR affiliate membership.

Any educational class or student group at the middle school, high school or college/university level is eligible for a SABR affiliate membership, as long as a faculty member, teacher, or advisor is an active SABR member (or registers to join.) The teacher/advisor will be listed as the group contact on the SABR website.

The teacher/advisor will be asked to collect the money, names and e-mail addresses for all students wishing to join, and submit those to the SABR office at one time. In addition, the advisor/instructor must be an active SABR member or sign up for a regular SABR membership; annual dues are $65, with discounts available for adults under the age of 30 or over 65.

To sign up for a Student Group Affiliate Membership, or if you have any questions about how it might work for your group or class, please contact SABR Vice President Dr. Leslie Heaphy at Lheaphy@kent.edu or (330) 244-3304.


Download your free e-book copy of The National Pastime: Baseball in the Sunshine State

Since 2009, The National Pastime has served as SABR’s convention-focused publication. Published annually, this research journal provides in-depth articles focused on the respective geographic region where the national convention is taking place in a given year.

The SABR 46 convention is set to begin this week in Miami, and we have dedicated the theme of The National Pastime to baseball in the Sunshine State. All SABR members receive a free e-book copy of The National Pastime as part of their membership benefits, while attendees of the national convention will also receive a souvenir print edition in their goody bags.

Having trouble downloading our e-books? To view PDF files on your computer, click here to download the free Adobe Reader software. Having trouble downloading e-books to your Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader or iPad? Click here for additional help.

If you aren’t able to attend the convention in Miami, please enjoy this issue of The National Pastime as your virtual trip to South Florida. Happy reading!

To learn more about contributing to a future SABR publication, click here.

— Cecilia M. Tan, editor


Call for reviewers: Fall 2016 Baseball Research Journal

If you are interested in helping out with peer review for the upcoming Fall 2016 Baseball Research Journal, please contact Publications Editor Cecilia Tan.

Peer review is a crucial part of the quality control of the Baseball Research Journal. Your esteemed editors are not experts on every conceivable baseball topic and we augment our knowledge base with the best knowledge base ever: SABR members. To serve as a peer reviewer, you must have been previously published in a SABR publication (i.e. the Baseball Research Journal, The National Pastime, BioProject) or any accredited peer-reviewed journal in your field of specialty. Each reviewer is provided with a rubric for evaluation and your feedback is often extremely helpful in improving the end quality of the publications. All papers and reviewers are anonymous.

Please contact Cecilia Tan with your interest and any subject(s) of expertise, if any.

To learn more about SABR publications, click here.


SABR Digital Library: Cuban Baseball Legends: Baseball’s Alternative Universe

The newest (and first bilingual!) publication from the SABR Digital Library focuses on legendary ballplayers from Cuba’s rich baseball history:

Cuban Baseball Legends: Baseball’s Alternative Universe
Edited by Peter C. Bjarkman and Bill Nowlin
Spanish translations: Reynaldo Cruz

432 pages, 8.5″ x 11″

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-9438-1625-5, $9.99
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9438-1624-8, $21.95

Minnie Minoso. Martin Dihigo. Luis Tiant Sr. and Jr. Orlando “El Duque” and Livan Hernandez. These are only a few of the leading lights profiled in Cuban Baseball Legends: Baseball’s Alternative Universe. The 47 individuals profiled here represent only a small handful of the legions of memorable and sometimes even legendary figures produced over nearly a century and a half by an island nation where the bat-and-ball sport known as baseball is more than a national pastime, it is the national passion. The book presents 47 biographies in all, plus essays on Cuban baseball.

These biographies were researched and written by a team of members of the Society for American Baseball Research. SABR’s BioBroject has produced bios of over 3,800 players since 2002. A Spanish-language edition of the book is also available, a new first for SABR. Haga clic aquí para obtener más información sobre las “Leyendas del Béisbol Cubano.”

Contributors include: Mark Armour, Thomas Ayers, Ray Birch, Peter C. Bjarkman, Ron Briley, Phil Cola, Rory Costello, Reynaldo Cruz, Eric Enders, Joseph Gerard, Peter M. Gordon, Tom Hawthorn, Lou Hernandez, Douglas Hill, Joanne Hulbert, Len Levin, Brian McKenna, Zachary Moser, Bill Nowlin, Jose I. Ramirez, Rick Schabowski, Mark Stewart, John Struth, and Adam J. Ulrey.

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

Más información acerca de leyendas del béisbol cubano mediante la descarga más reciente libro electrónico de SABR:

Having trouble downloading our e-books? To view PDF files on your computer, click here to download the free Adobe Reader software. Having trouble downloading e-books to your Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader or iPad? Click here for additional help.

SABR members will get discounted rates for all Digital Library publications, including many for free. To find more SABR Digital Library books, visit SABR.org/ebooks.


Call for papers: 2017 SABR Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference

All SABR members are invited and encouraged to submit a Research Presentation Proposal Abstract on any topic of 19th-century baseball for the 2017 Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The ninth annual Ivor-Campbell Conference is scheduled for April 21-22, 2017.

The deadline for proposal Abstracts is October 31, 2016. Your abstract must be between 200-500 words for a 20- to 25-minute presentation. Please include name, title, and contact information and send your proposal as a Microsoft Word or PDF attachment to Peter Mancuso at peterplus4@earthlink.net.

This deadline enables us to publish the complete program and schedule in time for the release of our 2017 Winter Issue of our quarterly newsletter, “Nineteenth Century Notes,” in early January, when registration for “The Fred” begins.

For any questions, please contact Peter Mancuso at peterplus4@earthlink.net.


New research resource: Gene Carney Black Sox “Notes” index and archive

For more than 15 years, beginning in 1993, SABR member Gene Carney wrote a semi-regular column called “Notes From The Shadows of Cooperstown” from his home in Utica, New York. At first, Carney’s self-published “Notes” was an eclectic blend of essays, poetry, book reviews, and a little baseball history. Then, in September 2002 until his untimely death in 2009, it took on a singular focus: the Black Sox Scandal.

Carney’s growing interest and fascination with “baseball’s darkest hour” led him to author a groundbreaking book, Burying the Black Sox: How Baseball’s Cover-up of the 1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded (Potomac Books, 2006), and he later became the founder and chairman of SABR’s Black Sox Scandal Research Committee.

Even more than a decade after Carney’s book was published, his “Notes” columns are still chock-full of intriguing discoveries, nagging questions about the scandal, and other meanderings down the “Black Sox Trail.” Carney’s relentless energy and generous spirit were the driving force behind so much of the important research in recent years that has shed new light on the 1919 World Series and the scandal that followed, including the Black Sox Committee’s 2015 book, Scandal on the South Side: The 1919 Chicago White Sox.

It is in this same spirit that we now share the entire collection of Gene Carney’s “Notes” columns related to the Black Sox Scandal, along with a Chronological Index and a Subject-Matter Index for those who are interested in digging deeper. Only a handful of Carney’s original “Notes” columns can still be found online, so we have restored all of the 225 columns focusing on the Black Sox Scandal and made them available for download at SABR.org. As we approach the 100th anniversary of the 1919 World Series, we hope future researchers will find these files useful and help us continue to learn more about the Black Sox Scandal.

Click here to learn more.

— Jacob Pomrenke


4 new SABR biographies published

Four new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 3,838 published biographies. Here are the new bios published this week:

All new biographies can be found here: http://sabr.org/bioproj/recent


World War II replacement players’ biographies now posted online

In SABR’s Who’s on First: Replacement Players in World War II, edited by Marc Z. Aaron and Bill Nowlin and published in 2015, we examined baseball’s true “replacement players” — the players who made their major-league debuts during the four seasons the U.S. was at war in World War II (1942-45).

The war years featured firsts and lasts. The St. Louis Browns won their first (and last) pennant in 1944 — a feat made more amazing by the fact that they had not finished in the first division since 1929. The 1944 team featured 13 players classified as 4-F. The Chicago Cubs appeared in the 1945 World Series but have not made it back since.

The owners brought in not only first-timers but also many oldsters. Chuck Hostetler was called up to the Detroit Tigers at age 40 and then blundered into one of the most notorious bloopers in World Series history. Chet Covington was a talented left-handed pitcher who won more than 200 games in the minor leagues but spent part of just one season in the majors. One-armed outfielder Pete Gray played for the St. Louis Browns.

The SABR BioProject biographies that appeared in Who’s On First can now be read online at: http://sabr.org/category/completed-book-projects/world-war-ii-replacement-players.

You can also purchase the book or download the e-book by clicking here. SABR members can download all SABR Digital Library e-books for free at SABR.org/ebooks.


4 new stories published by the SABR Games Project

Four new game stories were posted this week as part of the SABR Games Project. Here are the new game stories:

All new Games Project stories can be found here: http://sabr.org/gamesproject/recent

  • Get involved: Writing for the Games Project is an easy way to get involved as a SABR member. Find out how by reading the Games Project FAQs section or checking out the Authors’ Guidelines.
  • Seeking a new Chief Editor: Would you like to help contribute to the SABR Games Project? We’re seeking a new Chief Editor (or editors) to help coordinate the editing for all Games Project stories. This is a crucial role, but unglamorous and thankless — though we do try to thank editors as much as we can. If you have any experience editing and would like to help, please contact Greg Erion or Bruce Slutsky. Fact-checkers are also wanted; you could volunteer, for example, to read all game essays from the early 1950s for accuracy. Please contact the Games Project officers above for more details.

Listen to Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM on Sunday nights

Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM, a radio show hosted by SABR President Vince Gennaro, will air this weekend at its regular time, 7:00-8:00 p.m. ET on Sundays, on MLB Network Radio.

This week’s guests are Mike Petriello of MLB.com and August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs.

Now, you can also watch video highlights of Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM on MLB.com and you can also listen to all recent episodes on-demand on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App.

Click here to watch more video highlights of Baseball SABR Style from MLB.com.

Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM focuses on examining and interpreting the statistical analysis that plays a critical role in baseball today. It airs weekly throughout the year on MLB Network Radio, available to subscribers nationwide on XM channel 89, Sirius channel 209, and on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App.


ICYMI: Highlights from last week’s This Week in SABR

We’ve heard your feedback: Some of you have said you look forward to “This Week in SABR” every Friday, but sometimes there are just too many compelling articles and announcements to read every week. We’re not complaining — hey, keep up the great work! — but we know the feeling. So in an effort to make the length of this newsletter more manageable to read, we’ll summarize some of the repeating/recurring announcements in a special “In Case You Missed It (ICYMI)” section of “This Week in SABR”.

Here are some major headlines from recent weeks that we don’t want you to miss:

All previous editions of This Week in SABR can be found here: http://sabr.org/content/this-week-in-sabr-archives.

For more information, click here.


Welcome, new members!

We’d like to welcome all of our new SABR members who have joined this week. You can find all Members-Only resources at members.sabr.org and the Membership Handbook can be downloaded here.

Please give these new members a warm welcome and help them make the most of their membership by giving them the opportunity to get involved in their local chapter or a research committee.

You can find contact information for any SABR member in the online membership directory (SABR.org/directory).

Name Hometown     Name Hometown
Anthony Argenziano Closter, NJ     Neil Merkl New York, NY
Robert Berardino Cuyahoga Falls, OH     Nelson Morales Caracas, VEN
John Erardi Crescent Springs, KY     Dennis Ricci Walpole, MA
Charles Kapp Arlington, VA     Paul Stutzman Seattle, WA
Harry Lang Honeoye Falls, NY     Brett Thomas Columbus, OH
John LaRue Chevy Chase, MD     Peter Xenopoulos Claremont, CA

 


Research Committee news

Here are the new SABR research committee updates this week:

  • Black Sox Scandal: Click here to learn more about the Gene Carney Black Sox “Notes” Index and archive
  • Games Project: Would you like to help contribute to the SABR Games Project? We’re seeking a new Chief Editor (or editors) to help coordinate the editing for all Games Project stories. This is a crucial role, but unglamorous and thankless — though we do try to thank editors as much as we can. If you have any experience editing and would like to help, please contact Greg Erion or Bruce Slutsky. Fact-checkers are also wanted; you could volunteer, for example, to read all game essays from the early 1950s for accuracy. Please contact the Games Project officers above for more details.
  • Pictorial History: August 2016 newsletter

Find all SABR research committee newsletters at SABR.org/research.


Regional Chapter news

Here are the new regional chapter updates this week:

Visit SABR.org/chapters for more information on SABR regional chapters.


SABR Events Calendar

Here is a list of upcoming SABR events:

All SABR meetings and events are open to the public. Feel free to bring a baseball-loving friend … and make many new ones! Check out the SABR Events Calendar at SABR.org/events.


Around the Web

Here are some recent articles published by and about SABR members:

Read these articles and more at SABR.org/latest.


This Week in SABR is compiled by Jacob Pomrenke. If you would like us to include an upcoming event, article or any other information in “This Week in SABR,” e-mail jpomrenke@sabr.org.

Have trouble reading this e-mail? Click here to view this week’s newsletter on the web.

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Originally published: August 26, 2016. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.