Bjarkman, Steinberg, Spatz, Wheeler win 2016 SABR Baseball Research Awards
The 2016 SABR Baseball Research Awards, which honor outstanding research projects completed during the preceding calendar year that have significantly expanded our knowledge or understanding of baseball, have been awarded to:
- Peter C. Bjarkman, Cuba’s Baseball Defectors: The Inside Story, published by Rowman and Littlefield
- Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz, The Colonel and Hug: The Partnership That Transformed the New York Yankees, published by University of Nebraska Press
- Lonnie Wheeler, Intangiball: The Subtle Things That Win Baseball Games, published by Simon and Schuster
The authors will receive their awards at the SABR 46 national convention, July 27-31, 2016, in Miami.
Bjarkman writes for BaseballdeCuba.com and is considered to be one of the foremost authorities on pre-revolution and post-revolution Cuban baseball history. He previously won this award in 2005 for Diamonds Around the Globe: The Encyclopedia of International Baseball. He is also the author of A History of Cuban Baseball, 1864-2006.
Steinberg and Spatz’s previous book, 1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York, was awarded the 2011 SABR Seymour Medal as the best baseball book of history and biography for the preceding year. Spatz also won this award in 2002 along with co-authors David Vincent and David W. Smith for The Mid-Summer Classic.
Wheeler, a former sportswriter for both the Cincinnati Post and the Cincinnati Enquirer, has authored numerous books including collaborations on the autobiographies of Hank Aaron (I Had a Hammer), Bob Gibson (Stranger to the Game), Mike Piazza (Long Shot), a baseball dialogue between Gibson and Reggie Jackson (Sixty Feet, Six Inches), and reflections on a summer at Wrigley Field (Bleachers).
The SABR Baseball Research Award, formerly known as The Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award, is designed to honor projects that do not fit the criteria for the Seymour Medal or the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.
The selection committee consists of: Bill Felber (chair), Bill Ryczek, and Marlene Vogelsang.
To see a complete list of SABR Baseball Research Award winners, click here.
Originally published: March 28, 2016. Last Updated: March 28, 2016.