SABR 53: Jason A. Schwartz, Ebenezer Olubayode win 2025 convention presentation awards
Jason A. Schwartz has won the 2025 Doug Pappas Award for the best oral research presentation and Ebenezer Olubayode has won the SABR Convention Poster Presentation Award for the best poster presentation at SABR 53 in Texas.
Schwartz, co-chair of the SABR Baseball Cards Research Committee, won the Pappas Award for his presentation, “The ‘Savior’ Does Not Answer Letters: Dave Hoskins and the Uneven, Unheralded, and Unfinished Integration of the Texas League,” which he delivered Saturday, June 28 during SABR 53 at the Westin DFW Airport Hotel in Irving, Texas.
Schwartz’s abstract is posted below:
While the integration of the Texas League — and more broadly, organized baseball in Texas — share many parallels with the Jackie Robinson story, one major difference is that the various barrier breakers of the Lone Star State remain largely unrecognized, unsung, and even unknown. This presentation begins with the historic but short-lived integration of the Lamesa Lobos (Class C, West Texas-New Mexico League) in 1951, progresses through the gradual but incomplete integration of the Texas League from 1952-1955 (highlighted by the superlative exploits of two-way sensation Dave Hoskins), and closes with the demise and exit of the league’s last all-white holdout, the Shreveport Sports, in 1957. Along the way, the story will recognize not only the achievements of the Black players involved but also the obstacles they faced, ranging from discrimination to legislation and even death threats.
The Doug Pappas Award was originally established as the USA Today Sports Weekly Award in 1992 and renamed in 2004 to honor the late baseball researcher.
Olubayode, who teaches fitness courses at the University of Oklahoma and works with the Sooners softball team, won the SABR Convention Poster Presentation Award for his poster, “Real-Time Biomechanical Feedback for Injury Prevention in Baseball Pitching.” His abstract is posted below:
The revolution in biomechanical analysis of pitchers’ motions continues unabated. While most tracking systems are based on post-game analysis of the reams of collected data, Olubayode describes an analytic system that can provide immediate feedback to the pitcher, who may be able to adjust his approach based on the results. The PitchPerfectAI system uses computer vision and AI-driven motion analysis to achieve its results. Beyond baseball, it may have utility in medical rehabilitation of musculoskeletal and stroke patients.
The SABR Convention Poster Presentation Award was previously known as the USA Today Sports Weekly Award; it was first presented in 1990 as the John W. Cox Award.
Honorable mentions for the oral presentation were:
- Mark Armour, “How Many Games Did Satchel Paige Pitch?”
- Brenden Gilbreath, “Heroes Get Remembered, But Legends Never Die: Properly Recognizing the Contributions of Negro League Veterans”
Honorable mention for the poster presentation was:
- Allison Levin, “Packaging Baseball: Using Retro Sports Marketing to Increase Baseball Consumers”
For more coverage of SABR 53, visit SABR.org/convention.
Originally published: June 28, 2025. Last Updated: June 29, 2025.