SABR to celebrate Founders’ Day with annual celebration beginning in 2025
AUGUST 10, 2024 — On August 10, 1971, L. Robert “Bob” Davids and fifteen other baseball researchers founded SABR at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Beginning in 2025, SABR will hold a Founders’ Day event to celebrate that anniversary, the pioneers who founded SABR, and the groundbreaking research they conducted to help advance our understanding and knowledge of the game we all love.
The Founders’ Day event may occur during an in-person SABR event — such as our Annual Convention or Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference — or the celebration may be held virtually. Programming with a central theme will be organized by SABR staff each year, and regional chapters and research committees are encouraged to engage with the theme and organize watch parties for virtual events.
Tom Hufford of Marietta, Georgia, is the last surviving member of the “Cooperstown 16” who attended SABR’s first meeting at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library. He was honored as the first recipient of the Founders’ Day Award, which recognizes a member who has contributed significant or enduring service as a leader of a regional chapter or research committee.
Hufford was a 21-year-old college student at Virginia Tech when he traveled to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, as one of 16 original founding members at SABR’s first organizational meeting on August 10, 1971. He was elected as the organization’s secretary in 1976 and also served on the Board of Directors from 2004 to 2012.
More details about the inaugural 2025 Founders’ Day event will be shared later this year. To learn more about SABR’s founding, visit SABR.org/about/founders.
Originally published: August 10, 2024. Last Updated: August 14, 2025.