Tom Hufford selected as 2025 Bob Davids Award winner
Tom Hufford, one of SABR’s original founding members, was announced as the winner of the Bob Davids Award during the SABR 53 Closing Ceremonies on Saturday, June 28, 2025, at the Westin DFW Airport Hotel in Irving, Texas.
The award — which is the Society’s highest honor — honors SABR members whose contributions to SABR and baseball reflect the ingenuity, integrity, and self-sacrifice of the founder and past president of SABR, L. Robert “Bob” Davids.
“No one could love this organization more than I do,” Hufford said. “I thank every single one of you for your support. I’d like to accept this award and share it with the other founding members, who for one reason or another didn’t make it as far as I did.”
Hufford was a 21-year-old student at Virginia Tech when he learned about Bob Davids’s proposal for “statistorians” to develop an organization devoted to baseball research in 1971. When he called to inquire about the event, Bob offered to drive him to Cooperstown if he could make his way from Blacksburg to Washington, DC. Hufford shared his memories of the first organizational SABR meeting in a recent article for the Magnolia/Georgia Chapter newsletter.
Hufford served on SABR’s Board of Directors in 1976 and again from 2004 to 2012. He is a longtime stalwart of the Magnolia Chapter, helping in the production of the SABR 40 convention in Atlanta in 2010. He co-edited a SABR Digital Library publication about the 1995 World Series champion Atlanta Braves, and led the effort to update SABR’s organizational history for the 40th anniversary in 2011.
Retired from his career as an architect and urban planner, where he is now able to spend more of his time studying baseball, Tom lives with his beloved wife Nan in Marietta, Georgia, and they winter in Florida.
The Bob Davids Award was established by the Board of Directors in 1985, and is awarded each year at the annual convention. Click here to view previous winners.
Originally published: June 28, 2025. Last Updated: June 28, 2025.