Join SABR’s Campaign for Baseball Research!

We say it right in our name. Society for American Baseball RESEARCH.

Research is at the heart of what we do as an organization. SABR’s online Research Collection and array of Research Resources are major sources of pride and a key component in our vision of becoming the essential community for the world of baseball.

Thanks to the previous support of generous donors, we have been able to provide valuable new Research Resources and add to our Research Collection over the past several years. In order to maintain these collected works and introduce exciting additional research assets though, we must continue our fundraising efforts.

Just in the past month, we launched the SABR-Rucker Archive and made 10,000 rare baseball images available to the public. The remainder of the fully digitized archive of over 80,000 images will be online this summer and offers researchers the opportunity to help catalog the collection with breadth and depth that only SABR members could provide. Maintaining and preserving this archive, and continually looking for new opportunities to add to our Research Collection and Research Resources, are examples of how your contributions help efforts to improve our research offerings.

This spring, we invite you to join the Campaign for Baseball Research. Our goal is to raise $60,000 to expand, maintain, and preserve SABR’s Research Collection and Research Resources for current and future generations of baseball enthusiasts.

We will use your best gift of $150, $300, $500, or $1,000 to better serve our growing membership base, attract more attention for our research, and offer new tools to all corners of the worldwide baseball community.

Here are several Research Collection projects and upgrades to our Research Resources, assets, and tools that will be funded by a successful campaign:

New initiatives in the works

• Full access to the Historical Black Newspapers Collection, including titles like the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, and New York Amsterdam News, included with SABR membership dues.
• Adding the Weiss Baseball Questionnaires, a collection of self-completed surveys of professional baseball players from 1945-2005, at SABR.org.
• Digitizing National Association (Minor League Baseball) records acquired by SABR, which include president’s bulletins and player contracts up to 1993.
• Linking all available Sporting News Player Contract Cards to SABR BioProject biographies.

Ongoing projects to maintain and improve

• Long-term maintenance and preservation of the SABR-Rucker Archive, whose 80,000+ rare baseball images have been digitized and are now being cataloged in the online Research Collection at SABR.org.
• Building additional courses in the SABR Analytics Certification Program, making SABR a key hub for students and young professionals looking to build a career in the baseball industry.
• Support for expanding the scope and reach of the BioProject and Games Project, now covering more than 10,000 member-contributed articles between the two initiatives.
• Adding to The Baseball Index, a SABR effort to catalog the entirety of baseball literature, from the earliest references to the present day, currently consisting of over 250,000 citations.
• Adding to and building the MLB Team Employee Directory, a historical database of Major League Baseball team employees from owners to ticket sales, representing nearly 1,000 team-seasons since the 1930s.
• Continuing access to The Sporting News archives via Paper of Record and the Newspapers.com World Collection, all included with SABR membership dues.
• Support for the Baseball Landmarks Research Committee and funding for its SABR Baseball Map, which provides a comprehensive and interactive roadmap of the staggering array of baseball-related sites located across North America
• Maintenance and continued improvements to SABR.org, allowing for fully integrated search capabilities across all available public research resources.

Members like you are integral to our organization’s existence. We are hopeful you will consider a donation to strengthen our efforts to encourage baseball research, offer more resources to members, build our publicly available collections, all while sustaining our wonderful baseball community.

Plus, there are some great incentives for contributing during our Campaign for Baseball Research:

• All donors making a gift of $150 or more will receive:
  • Paperback copy of SABR’s popular new book, Yankee Stadium 1923-2008: America’s First Modern Ballpark.
  • Recognition on SABR website, newsletter, and Annual Report.

• All donors making a gift of $300 or more will receive:
  • Limited-edition baseball card set featuring rare images from the SABR-Rucker Archive of the nine Hall of Famers included in our initial public launch of the collection: Henry Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Ty Cobb, Martín Dihigo, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, and Ted Williams.
  • Paperback copy of SABR’s popular new book, Yankee Stadium 1923-2008: America’s First Modern Ballpark.
  • Recognition on SABR website, newsletter, and Annual Report.

• All donors making a gift of $500 or more will receive:
  • Limited-edition print of the SABR-Rucker Archive image of your choice, selected from the nine featured Hall of Famers included in initial public launch.
  • Baseball card set featuring rare images from the SABR-Rucker Archive of the nine Hall of Famers included in our initial public launch of the collection: Henry Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Ty Cobb, Martín Dihigo, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, and Ted Williams.
  • Paperback copy of SABR’s popular new book, Yankee Stadium 1923-2008: America’s First Modern Ballpark.
  • Recognition on SABR website, newsletter, and Annual Report.

Thank you so much for your consideration in joining the Campaign for Baseball Research!