Henry Chadwick Award: Dick Cramer
Dick Cramer (1942 – ) has been doing sabermetrics for just about as long as anyone alive. He started analyzing baseball statistics in the middle 1960s, not long after graduating from Harvard, and by 1969 Cramer had discovered (or re-invented) a worthy metric now known as OPS. In 1971, Cramer discovered SABR via a squib in The Sporting News; in short order, Bob Davids introduced him to Pete Palmer. In the ‘70s, Cramer served SABR in various positions and published a great deal of research, including work on clutch hitting that remains a touchstone 40 years later. In 1980, Cramer co-founded STATS Inc. and remained involved with that company until 1994. After a decade-long hiatus, Cramer returned to baseball in 2004, doing important work with Dave Smith and Retrosheet since then.
Related links:
- Read Rob Neyer’s profile of Dick Cramer in the Spring 2015 Baseball Research Journal
- Read “Do Clutch Hitters Exist?” by Dick Cramer (Baseball Research Journal, 1977)
- Read “SABR, Baseball Statistics, and Computing: The Last Forty Years,” by Richard Schell (Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2011)
- Watch/listen to the SABR 43 Statistical Analysis Panel with Dick Cramer, Vince Gennaro, Brian Kenny, Bill Petti and Steve Mann (Philadelphia, 2013)
- Check out highlights from the 2015 SABR Analytics “Origins of Baseball Analytics” Panel with Dick Cramer, John Thorn, Pete Palmer, John Dewan, and John Walsh (Phoenix, 2015)
- Dick Cramer honored with 2019 SABR Analytics Conference Lifetime Achievement Award
- Listen to a 2022 SABR Oral History interview with Dick Cramer, by Brian Hall