SABR Member Benefit Spotlight: The SABR-Rucker Archive
SEPTEMBER 25, 2024 — As a SABR member, you have vast resources and benefits at your disposal. With so much information at your fingertips, we realize it can be overwhelming to absorb it all! To highlight key benefits, read on for a SABR Member Benefit Spotlight, an email series that identifies and explains some of the most valuable features of your membership. We hope this allows you to take full advantage of all SABR has to offer.
Today’s issue highlights the SABR-Rucker Archive, an extensive digitized and searchable collection of rare baseball images available exclusively at SABR.org/rucker-archive.
The SABR-Rucker Archive is one of the most extensive collections of baseball images in North America, containing nearly 80,000 unique images spanning more than 150 years of the sport. As a SABR member, you get complete access to search and view this vast collection of baseball images. Photos show all aspects of the sport, from small-town teams to the major leagues, journeymen players to Hall of Famers; American major league players, Negro League players, town teams, college teams, international teams (such as Cuba and Japan), women’s teams, and novelty teams (such as the House Of David). Hundreds of Hall of Famers and important figures are represented as well, including managers, executives, umpires, and others with close associations to the game.
The SABR-Rucker Archive was donated by longtime SABR member and photo archivist Mark Rucker, a Henry Chadwick Award recipient for his contributions to baseball research.The cataloging of this collection will be an ongoing member project. Keep reading to find out how to search the archive and how you can volunteer to help tag the archive’s images.
How to search the SABR-Rucker Archive
- Navigate to SABR.org.
- Click on The Research Collection option on the main menu bar at the top of the page.
- Inside the top-left box titled SABR-Rucker Archive, scroll down and click on Learn More.
- Using the search bar under the headline, “The SABR-Rucker Archive,” enter keywords, names, or any other search terms you may be looking for in the image collection.
- Images already tagged with information will appear in the search results.
Please note there are 27 distinct metadata fields each image could be tagged with, but some fields might be left empty due to lack of information either on the physical slide or within the image itself. As this is an ongoing project, more images will be added to the digital collection as they are tagged.
How to license SABR-Rucker Archive images
SABR controls the rights to the images in the collection, so images returned in search results on sabr.org will have a SABR logo watermark over them. A downloadable version of the image (without the watermark) can be purchased using the link on the individual image’s page.
- Click on the Purchase Image button below the image.
- You will be taken to a separate page, where you can view the image again, and select Add to Cart.
- Select the option for how you will use the image — either Personal or Commercial/Editorial. If you are unsure of which category your use falls into, please contact a SABR staff member.
- Once you’ve selected the use, please select the size you’d like to download the image at, and click Add to Cart in the bottom right corner.
- From there, you can click Check Out and complete the checkout process.
If you have any additional questions about licensing SABR-Rucker Archive photos, you can fill out this form and someone will be in touch about your inquiry.
How to volunteer with the project
The SABR-Rucker Archive is accepting volunteers to help tag metadata on remaining digitized images to be added to the collection. This project is managed by Pictorial Committee chair Cary Smith and SABR member Jason Schwartz, and you can sign up to help here. Contact a SABR staff member if you have any additional questions about volunteering with this effort.
Here’s a short video on how to search the SABR-Rucker Archive, and how you can get involved:
You can view previous Member Benefit Spotlight videos on this page. Thanks, as always, for your support. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Yours in baseball,
Jessica Smyth
Membership Services Manager, SABR
Originally published: September 25, 2024. Last Updated: September 21, 2024.