McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award

The McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award honors the authors of the best articles on baseball history or biography completed or published during the preceding calendar year.

This award was previously named the Macmillan-SABR Baseball Research Award (1987-2000). It is presented each year at the SABR Convention to three individuals, groups or groups of individuals whose research projects have greatly expanded our knowledge of baseball. In 1995, the focus of the award was changed to articles about baseball history and biography.

The selection committee consists of: Barbara Mantegani (chair), Stephanie Liscio, and Allen Tait.


2025 award nominations

Submit nominations for the 2025 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, honoring research projects completed in the 2024 calendar year, to Barbara Mantegani by December 31, 2024. Please include author(s) name, project name, publisher, date, online URL (if applicable), and any other relevant information. Self-nominations are welcome. Non-SABR members are also eligible to be nominated.


McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award winners

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

  • Richard Bak, “The Rise and Fatal Fall of Tenny Blount,” unpublished work.
  • Robert Fitts, “Baseball and the Yellow Peril,” Base Ball: New Research on the Early Game, Vol. 10 (McFarland & Co.)
  • John McMurray, “Addie Joss and the Benefit Game,” Base Ball: New Research on the Early Game, Vol. 10 (McFarland & Co.)

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

  • Mark Armour, “A Tale of Two Umpires,” Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2009 (SABR)
  • William F. Lamb, “A Fearsome Collaboration: The Alliance of Andrew Freedman and John T. Brush,” Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Fall 2009
  • Geri Strecker, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field: Biography of a Ballpark,” Black Ball: A Journal of the Negro League, Fall 2009

2009

  • David J. Laliberte, “Myth, History and Indian Baseball: An Unexpected Story of the Game in Minnesota”
  • William J. McGill, “The Greatest College Pitcher: George Sisler at Michigan”
  • David Vaught, “Our Players Are Mostly Farmers: Baseball in Rural California, 1850-1890”

2008

  • Henry D. Fetter, “Revising the Revisionists: Walter O’Malley, Robert Moses, and the Death of the Brooklyn Dodgers”. (Revised text published under title “Revising the Revisionists: Walter O’Malley, Robert Moses and the End of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” in New York History, Vol. 89, No. 1, Winter 2008)
  • Frederick Ivor-Campbell, “Knickerbocker Base Ball: The Birth and Infancy of the Modern Game” Base Ball: A Journal of the Negro League, Fall 2007 (McFarland & Co.)
  • Dick Thompson, “Cannonball Bill Jackman,” The National Pastime #27, 2007 (SABR)

2007

  • Brian Carroll, “Early Twentieth Century Heroes: Coverage of Negro League Baseball in the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender,” Journalism History, Spring 2006
  • Mitchell Nathanson, “The Irrelevance of Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption: A Historical Review,” Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 58, Issue 1, 2005
  • Steve Steinberg, “Matty and the Browns: A Window Onto the AL-NL War,” NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Spring 2006

2006

2005

2004

2003

  • Frank Ardolino, “Missionaries, Cartwright and Spalding,” NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Fall 2002
  • Ron Briley, “In the Tradition of Jackie Robinson: Ozzie Virgil and the Integration of the Detroit Tigers,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2002 (McFarland & Co.)
  • Jim McConnell, “Dahlgren, You’re in There”

2002

2001

  • Tom Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough To Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic”, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives
  • Robert H. Schaefer, “The Lost Art of Fair-Foul Hitting,” The National Pastime #20, 2000 (SABR)
  • Dick Thompson, “The Wes Ferrell Story,” The National Pastime #21, 2001 (SABR)

Previously Awarded as the Macmillan-SABR Baseball Research Award

2000

  • Ron Briley, “As American as Cherry Pie: Baseball and Reflections of Violence in the 1960s and 1970s,” The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 1999
  • Chris Lamb, “L’Affaire Jake Powell: The Minority Press Goes to Bat Against Segregated Baseball,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 1, Spring 1999
  • Stephen Norwood and Harold Brackman, “Going to Bat for Jackie Robinson: The Jewish Role in Breaking Baseball’s Color Line,” Journal of Sport History, Vol. 26, No. 1, Spring 1999

1999

  • David M. Jordan, Larry Gerlach and John Rossi, “A Baseball Myth Exploded,” The National Pastime #18, SABR, 1998
  • Jim McConnell, “Baseball’s Dark Past,” Grandstand Baseball Annual
  • Andrew O’Toole, “Clemente’s First Spring,” Elysian Fields Quarterly

1998

  • Clifford Blau, “The History of Major League Tie Games”
  • John McReynolds, “Nate Moreland, Mystery to Historians,” Los Angeles Sentinel, August 13, 1998
  • Gary Smith, “Damned Yankee,” Sports Illustrated, October 13, 1997

1997

1996

  • James A. Smith Jr. and Herman Krabbenhoft, “Triple Play Project,” The Baseball Quarterly Review
  • Hank Thomas & Chuck Carey, for research involved in “The California Comet” on Walter Johnson’s California semi-pro career
  • Michael O’Grady, “From Covehead to the Polo Grounds: The Story of Henry Haverlock Oxley, Major Leaguer”

1995

  • Peter C. Bjarkman, Baseball with a Latin Beat: A History of the Latin American Game
  • Robert F. Burk, Never Just a Game: Players, Owners and American Baseball to 1920
  • Jack Kavanagh, Walter Johnson: A Life

1994

  • Lloyd Johnson and Miles Wolff, The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball
  • James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues
  • Michael Gershman, Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark

1993

  • Phil Dixon, The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History
  • Barbara Gregorich, Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball
  • William Ryczek, Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of The National Association

1992

  • Robert Gregory, Diz: The Story of Dizzy Dean and Baseball During the Great Depression
  • Herman Krabbenhoft, “Baseball Quarterly Reviews”
  • Mark Stang and Linda Harkness, “Rosters!”

1991

  • Bruce Kuklick, “To Everything a Season — Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia 1909-1976”

1990

  • Dr. Harold Seymour, Baseball: The People’s Game
  • Dick Clark, John Holway and James A. Riley, for work on Negro League statistics in The Baseball Encyclopedia (8th edition)
  • James E. Miller, “The Baseball Business”

1989

  • Bill Deane, Award Voting
  • Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary
  • Marc Okkonen, Major League Uniforms of the 20th Century

1988

  • Melvin Adelman, for his work on 1820-1870 New York City baseball
  • Stew Thornley, “On to Nicollet,” a team profile of the Minneapolis Millers
  • Bob Tiemann and Rich Topp, for their work cataloging managerial changes

1987

  • Andy McCue, Baseball By the Books
  • Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic