Heaphy, Lebowitz re-elected; Armour elected as SABR Director
SABR members have re-elected Vice President Leslie Heaphy and Secretary Todd Lebowitz, and elected newcomer Mark Armour to the organization’s Board of Directors in the 2018 election.
Leslie Heaphy was re-elected as SABR’s Vice President in an unopposed race, receiving 1,006 of 1,008 first-preference votes. Todd Lebowitz was re-elected as SABR’s Secretary in an unopposed race, receiving 988 of 996 first-preference votes.
Mark Armour was also elected as a SABR Director to replace Ty Waterman, receiving 492 of 1,035 first-preference votes. John McMurray finished runner-up for a Director’s seat with 221 first-preference votes. Barry Bloom received 171 first-preference votes and George Skornickel received 146 first-preference votes.
Heaphy was first elected to the SABR Board in 2010 and elected as Vice-President in 2016. She has been a member of SABR since 1989 and chair of the Women in Baseball Committee since 1995. Leslie is an Associate Professor of History at Kent State University at Stark and publishes in the area of the Negro Leagues and women’s baseball. In 2008, she became the founding editor of the journal Black Ball, published by McFarland. She was the 2014 winner of the Bob Davids Award, SABR’s highest honor. She lives in Kent, Ohio.
Lebowitz was first elected as SABR’s Secretary in 2011. He has been an attorney with Baker & Hostetler LLP in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1997. He has offered pro bono legal counsel to SABR since 2005, advising on numerous matters relating to intellectual property, contracts, personnel, business strategy and implementation. He has performed legal work for the Cleveland Indians, including drafting player contracts and negotiating terms with player agents, some work for Major League Baseball related to trademark enforcement, and conducted a study entitled “The Effect of Financial Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation: A Study of Long-Term Contracts in Major League Baseball”. He has been a member of SABR since 2000, is part of the Baseball Records, Business of Baseball and Latino Baseball committees, and has assisted other members with legal and historical research, including understanding legal terminology and decisions. He holds a BA in psychology and a law degree, both from the University of Michigan. He lives in Solon, Ohio.
Armour is the founder and longtime director of SABR’s Baseball Biography Project from 2002-16. He was the recipient of SABR’s highest honor, the Bob Davids Award, in 2008 and the Henry Chadwick Award, honoring baseball’s greatest researchers, in 2014. His book, Joe Cronin: A Life in Baseball was a finalist for the prestigious Seymour Medal in 2011, as was In Pursuit of Pennants, also published by Nebraska, which he co-wrote with Dan Levitt in 2015.
A proposed by-laws revision that appeared on the ballot regarding a change to the organization’s name was withdrawn prior to the tabulation of election results.
Special thanks go out to Tellers Committee members Stephen Barnes, Mort Bloomberg, and Geoffrey Gonsher for certifying the results on April 26 at the SABR office.
The 2018 SABR elections featured online voting for the ninth consecutive year as well as traditional paper ballots. A total of 1,125 votes were received, constituting about 20.23 percent of the membership.
SABR members can find complete 2018 election results, including write-in candidates and voting totals, posted here.
A historical list of SABR’s Board of Directors can be found by clicking here. Past voting totals can be found here.
Originally published: April 26, 2018. Last Updated: April 26, 2018.