Gietschier, Schaefer win 2021 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Awards
The 2021 winners of the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, which honors the best articles on baseball history or biography completed or published during the preceding calendar year, are:
- Steve Gietschier, “Before We Forget: The Birth, Life, and Death of The Sporting News Research Center,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2020
- Robert H. Schaefer, “The Fair-Foul Hitting Era: 1864-1876,” scheduled for publication in Base Ball 13: New Research on the Early Game, Fall 2021 (McFarland & Co.)
Gietschier is an author, historian, and college professor, teaching courses on American sport and baseball. From 1986 until 2008, he worked for The Sporting News. He is the editor of Replays, Rivalries, and Rumbles: The Most Iconic Moments in American Sports (2017) and a former member of the SABR Board of Directors.
Schaefer is retired after a forty-year career in the aerospace industry, where he participated in the Apollo, Shuttle, and Space Station Freedom programs. Since retirement, he has conducted extensive research in nineteenth-century baseball. He is a four-time recipient of the McFarland-SABR Research Award, previously winning in 2001, 2002, and 2004.
The McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award honors the author(s) of the best articles or papers, published or unpublished, on baseball history or biography completed during the preceding calendar year. Eligible works include magazine and journal articles, previously unpublished chapters or articles in anthologies or other books with multiple authors, and unpublished research papers and written versions of oral presentations.
The selection committee consists of: Bill Humber (chair), Warren Corbett, and Tom Hufford.
For a complete list of winners of the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, click here.
Originally published: April 8, 2021. Last Updated: April 7, 2021.