Henry Chadwick Award: Bill Deane
Bill Deane (1957 – ): Deane served as the Senior Research Associate at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library from 1986 to 1994, where he helped earn the library in Cooperstown an international reputation for timely and accurate service to baseball fans, scholars, and media personnel. Bill’s personal research interests delve into both the game’s numbers and its history. They include an ongoing list of players who homered in their final major-league at bats; an ongoing list of major leaguers who were murdered, committed suicide, or died accidental deaths; documenting successful executions of the hidden-ball trick; and the debunking and disproving of baseball myths. His compilation of the voting breakdowns for every MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year Award election since 1911 formed the basis of his “Awards and Honors” chapter in Total Baseball and his book, Award Voting, won the SABR-Macmillan Baseball Research Award in 1989. Bill was somewhat of a “boy wonder” (by SABR standards) when he was recognized with a SABR Salute in 2001 at the tender age of 44.
Related link: