Editor’s Note: Fall 2024 Baseball Research Journal

First, a little housekeeping. The SABR main office has created a new email address: BRJsubscribe@sabr.org. If you have any questions, concerns, or problems with your BRJ subscription, including lost or missing issues, credit card updates, or if you didn’t sign up to get the print edition at first, but you’ve decided now you’d enjoy taking it in on paper, email BRJsubscribe@sabr.org and the staff can help you.1

In this issue, we’re pleased to present all the baseball research we can squeeze in! SABR membership has grown since 2020, and so have submissions. Members have asked me why recently there were fewer statistical articles and more historical ones, as if I influenced that balance intentionally. But I do very little to influence what SABR members submit. If there are more stats articles in this issue, it means more stats articles were received this year. Ultimately, the interests of SABR members are wide and varied, and in any given issue you might find anything from a biomechanical breakdown of batter swings to the coinage of a new term.2 This issue includes some longtime SABR veterans like Herm Krabbenhoft, who has authored dozens of articles, and who is promoting a new term this time—the pitcher’s cycle— and Mark Armour, who not only has award-winning books on his resume, he also happens to be serving as the president of SABR’s board, which means I don’t know where he found the time to thoroughly research the campaign to get Satchel Paige in the Hall of Fame.

Working his way toward veteran status is John Racanelli, who has published articles on disparate topics including Hack Wilson, the San Diego Chicken, and baseball card litigation. He does double duty here with two articles on unrelated topics, but which both sit at the intersection of SABR interests in history and statistics, one on the “gap years” of 1929–31 in MVP award voting, and one on players who almost hit for the cycle but were missing just the single.

And we have some rookies this issue, as well. A typical BRJ usually contains a few first-timers, some of whom join SABR specifically to be able to publish their work, others who may have been in SABR for a while before they decided to try their hands at a research article. Barrett Snyder brings us a detailed and comprehensive look at pioneer Rachel Balkovec, while Rick Reiff looks back at Deadball Era slugger Clifford “Cactus” “Gavy” Cravath.

I know I just implied above that maybe we have too many submissions coming in for the amount of space we have in the journal. Please do not let that discourage you from submitting, though. Problems of abundance are good ones to have. But also remember the BRJ is not the only way to get involved with research, writing, and publishing through SABR.

By the time this issue appears, we’ll have begun soliciting articles for 2025’s issue of The National Pastime, which will have a Texas theme, since the SABR national convention will be held June 25–29 in Dallas-Fort Worth. The BioProject and the Games Project are adding new articles to their online collections every week. And of course we have anywhere from 8 to 10 new books and themed web projects coming out every year. And that isn’t even counting committee newsletters, Turnstyle, or the Baseball Cards Blog! To learn more, visit SABR.org/writing-opportunities.

To put it mildly, there’s a lot going on. Many members are content to just read and enjoy the publications, and that’s wonderful. But if you want to get more involved, send me a query if you have an article idea, or sign up with the BioProject to research and write a bio of player, or with the Games Project to write up a game, maybe even one you attended. My first year in SABR I volunteered to write an article for something called The Fenway Project. The Fenway Project turned into a book, the book turned into an inspiration for more books, and here we are 22 years later. Get involved and you never know where it might lead.

— Cecilia M. Tan
SABR Publications Director

• Buy the magazine: Purchase the print edition of the Fall 2024 Baseball Research Journal from Amazon.com
• Download the PDF: Click here to download the PDF file of the Fall 2024 Baseball Research Journal
• Read online: Articles from the Fall 2024 Baseball Research Journal are available online at SABR.org

 

Notes

1 Since 2011, SABR has been publishing the Baseball Research Journal in three formats: paperback, ebook, and as articles on the SABR website. Last year, because the cost of printing and shipping has risen so drastically since 2020, SABR instituted a separate subscription fee of $7 per issue for those members who wish to continue receiving the printed edition. There’s been some lingering confusion over the new system, and also the notifications that the system sends out, and the new email address should help anyone with questions to get help quickly.

2 Takeyuki Inohiza, “Hitting Mechanics: The Twisting Model and Ted Williams’s ‘The Science of Hitting,’” Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2014; Wade Kapszukiewicz, “Golden Pitches: The Ultimate Last-at-Bat, Game Seven Scenario,” Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2016.