SABR Going Global

Since its inception, The Baseball Index project (TBI) has helped baseball researchers all over the world in countries such as France, South Africa, Venezuela and Australia gain a better understanding of the game.

“When I started thinking about the project in the late 80s, online database were just gaining wide usage,” says TBI project Co-Director Ted Hathaway.  “It occurred to me th

Since its inception, The Baseball Index project (TBI) has helped baseball researchers all over the world in countries such as France, South Africa, Venezuela and Australia gain a better understanding of the game.

“When I started thinking about the project in the late 80s, online database were just gaining wide usage,” says TBI project Co-Director Ted Hathaway.  “It occurred to me that given the long history of baseball and the amount written about it that it would benefit from having an online index to its literature.  Basically, I wanted to create a reference source to facilitate baseball research.”

Started in 1990, The Baseball Index project is the product of dozens of volunteers, organized through SABR’s Bibliography Committee, who have indexed over 194,000 baseball sources. The Baseball Index is part of the SABR’s commitment to advance and support baseball research.  Currently, Hathaway co-directs the project with Andy McCue.

“I know it has helped a number of individual writers, but there are doubtless many others out there I am unaware of,” says Hathaway.  “It is rightly called ‘the first base for baseball research’ because it is such a good and easy place to go in starting nearly any baseball research.”

Although almost completely volunteer driven, TBI depends greatly on monetary contributions for the day-to-day costs of maintaining and updating the baseball index on the internet.  It recently got a big boost thanks to the sizeable donation of former SABR President Claudia Perry who presented a check to Executive Director John Zajc at the national convention in Denver.  

“The scope and impact of TBI on baseball research is nothing short of phenomenal”, says Perry. “I hope my donation underscores to other researchers the importance of keeping this database available to anyone with access to the internet.”
 
Other volunteers including Skip McAfee, Fred and Alma Ivor-Campbell, Steve Milman, Dick Miller, Bernie Esser, Terry Sloope have also made monetary contributions allowing TBI to maintain its presence on the internet. 

“I really believe TBI is the most important research tool SABR has ever produced,” says Zajc. “Maintaining TBI’s presence on the Internet is an integral part of fulfilling SABR’s mission.”

If you are interested in volunteering or making a donation to TBI, contact Ted Hathaway or visit the www.baseballindex.org for more information.