DeLessio: Fast Times at SABR High: Meet SABR’s two new high school groups
From Joe DeLessio at Sports on Earth on December 2, 2015:
While his classmates at New York’s Heschel School take part in extracurricular activities like the school newspaper or model U.N., Max Melamed and his friends gather for nobler pursuits, like debating whether Miguel Cabrera deserved to be named MVP over Mike Trout in 2012.
Heschel is one of two U.S. high schools with official chapters of the Society for American Baseball Research, or SABR. In recent years, the organization has made a push to recruit college students through its affiliate membership program, and it has plans to do the same with high schoolers who have an interest not just in baseball, but in the historical and statistical aspects of the game. “One of the things we’ve been trying to do is, sort of like Major League Baseball, get younger fans involved in the game,” says Marc Appleman, SABR’s chief executive officer.
But even before SABR begins to actively reach out to secondary schools, two have already formed chapters, which have taken on very different forms: Heschel, on New York’s Upper West Side, and Tabor Academy in Massachusetts. The students at those schools, though, aren’t just preparing to be the smartest fans in any room they enter; they’re getting involved in an academic setting thanks to their enthusiasm for the game. In the case of the kids at Heschel, they’re also working together to contribute original research that adds to the existing body of statistical analysis. And if it helps them one day land a job with a Major League team? Well that’s all the better.
Read the full article here: http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/158606524/sabr-chapters-high-school-heschel-tabor
Originally published: December 2, 2015. Last Updated: December 2, 2015.