The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, by Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris

Brendan C. Boyd, Fred C. Harris selected as winners of 2023 SABR Jefferson Burdick Award

The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, by Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. HarrisBrendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris, co-authors of The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, were selected as the winners of the 2023 Jefferson Burdick Award, which honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the baseball card hobby, by SABR’s Baseball Cards Research Committee.

For those of a certain generation, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book was the greatest book ever written, certainly the greatest book we had ever read, and Boyd and Harris were Bouton, Tolstoy, and Shakespeare rolled into two. In 152 pages, Boyd and Harris mined the ore of why we all collected baseball cards.

Click here to read more about Boyd and Harris at the SABR Baseball Cards Blog.

Jefferson R. Burdick (1900–63) was a pioneer card collector whose invented classifications still govern the hobby; he donated his enormous collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it remains one of the most popular destinations for researchers. He created The American Card Catalog, the bible of the hobby, and tribute is paid to his lifelong work whenever anyone brings up T-206 or N-162 or other codes common in card collecting. To learn more about his life and legacy, click here.

To learn more about the Burdick Award, click here.

  • On September 23, 2023, a virtual Jefferson Burdick Award Ceremony was held via Zoom to honor Fred C. Harris and Brendan C. Boyd. Click here to watch a replay on YouTube.



Originally published: April 10, 2023. Last Updated: September 25, 2023.