Help us Bring it Home in 2024 and invest in SABR’s future!

SABR has made great progress towards our vision of becoming the essential community for the world of baseball, but there is still work to be done to fulfill that goal. By investing in mission-focused initiatives and outreach, SABR will be well positioned to sustain and grow into the future. Key areas of focus to achieve that growth include the continual addition of research resources, expansion and amplification of programming, and an emphasis on connection for our members and the wider baseball community.

Gifts from members like you will help SABR BRING IT HOME, ensuring we achieve a successful 2024 while making investments in our collective future.

You can support SABR’s annual Bring it Home Campaign by making a gift of $150 or more by December 31, 2024. We will use your best gift of $150, $300, $500, or $1,000 to boost SABR’s general operations.

Contributions from generous donors like you are critical in supporting SABR as we add to our research resources, expand programming, and strengthen the connection of our baseball community.

Here are ways we are focusing on these key areas of research resources, programming, and connection as we Bring it Home in 2024:

Research Resources

Support for baseball-related research, books, articles, and member resources, including:

• Launching the MLB Team Employee Database, which offers a new lens into major-league front and back offices, containing over 40,000 staff members ranging from team owners to ticket sales
• Addition of the Weiss Baseball Questionnaires to SABR.org by the end of 2024, a collection of self-completed surveys of professional baseball players from 1945-2005 now only fully available at Ancestry.com
• Migration of the Lahman Baseball Database to SABR.org, which is now the exclusive home of this indispensable resource for data manipulation and queries, which contains pitching, hitting, and fielding statistics dating back to 1871

Programming

Expanding SABR’s efforts to make more baseball events, shows, and content available to members and all baseball fans: 

• Digitizing articles, bios, game stories, and essays from older SABR publications for the Research Collection at SABR.org, including more than 1,500 such works in 2023 alone
• Introducing the Ballpark Figures Podcast with host Shakeia Taylor, which will feature one-on-one conversations with living Negro Leagues players in its first season
• Establishing an annual SABR Founders’ Day event on August 10 to celebrate the pioneers who built SABR and the groundbreaking research they conducted to help advance our understanding and knowledge of the game we all love
• Publishing of the First At-Bat Home Runs web project, a comprehensive online exploration of baseball’s dazzling debuts

Connection

Strengthening the bonds between SABR members, and the broader baseball community, by: 

• Revamping SABR convention programming to include more communal gatherings, making SABR 53 the most accessible and social convention experience to date
• Welcoming hundreds of students to SABR membership via the MLB Diversity Pipeline at the SABR Analytics Conference
• Hosting monthly New Member Experience virtual meetings, where new SABR members are introduced to key membership benefits and encouraged to get involved with various groups, like research committees, Games Project, BioProject, and SABR publications
• Training and resources for Board members, chapter leaders, and staff as it relates to inclusionary practices needed to reach a broader and more diverse audience

Of course, work continues in many other areas, within SABR committees, chapters, and by individual researchers, that will make new resources and programming available to our members and the global baseball community.

Plus, there are some great incentives for contributing during our Bring it Home Campaign:

All donors making a gift of $150 or more will receive:

• Choice of paperback copy of the new SABR books Sandy Koufax or Dazzling Debuts: First At Bat Home Runs (please indicate selection on online donation form)
• Recognition on SABR website, newsletter, and Annual Report

All donors making a gift of $300 or more will receive:

• Invite to “An Evening with John Thorn”, an exclusive virtual event just for SABR’s top donors, featuring a Q&A session with MLB’s Official Historian
• Choice of paperback copy of the new SABR books Sandy Koufax or Dazzling Debuts: First At Bat Home Runs (please indicate selection on online donation form)

All donors making a gift of $500 or more will receive:

• Exclusive SABR windbreaker jacket
• Invite to “An Evening with John Thorn”, an exclusive virtual event just for SABR’s top donors, featuring a Q&A session with MLB’s Official Historian
• Choice of paperback copy of the new SABR books Sandy Koufax or Dazzling Debuts: First At Bat Home Runs (please indicate selection on online donation form)
• Recognition on SABR website, newsletter, and Annual Report

Thank you so much for your consideration in joining the Bring it Home Campaign!