This Week in SABR: August 16, 2019

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Welcome to “This Week in SABR!” Click here to view this week’s newsletter on the web. Here’s what we’ve been up to as of August 16, 2019:

Call for papers: 2019 SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience

Arizona Fall LeagueAll SABR members are invited and encouraged to submit a research presentation proposal abstract on any topic related to women in baseball for the SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience on Thursday, October 10 to Saturday, October 12, 2019, in Phoenix, Arizona.

This conference is focused on women in baseball, co-hosted by the International Women’s Baseball Center, and held in conjunction with the Arizona Fall League (MLB.com/AFL), baseball’s premier player development league. In past years, attendees have been treated to sneak peeks at MLB stars like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Buster Posey, Stephen Strasburg, Nolan Arenado, Gerrit Cole, Gary Sanchez, Peter Alonso, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Ronald Acuña Jr. before they hit the big leagues.

To apply: Please send a 150-200 word abstract to Leslie Heaphy at Lheaphy@kent.edu by September 2, 2019. Please include full contact information and a short bio. Please note: You must be registered for the conference in order to give a presentation.

All baseball fans are welcome to attend the SABR Arizona Fall League Experience.

  • Registration: Click here to register online. Registration is $199 for all SABR members and guests; $219 for non-members. Single-day rates are available for $90 on Friday (includes breakfast and game ticket) or $110 on Saturday (including breakfast, lunch, and game ticket).
  • Hotel: SABR’s recommended hotel is The Saguaro (4000 North Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251) in Old Town Scottsdale. Please e-mail Ally Bascom at abascom@thesaguaro.com or call 480-385-4800 and mention “SABR” to book your room at our special group rate of $189/night (plus tax).

Visit SABR.org/AFL for registration information and complete details.

Save the date! Join us for the 2020 SABR Analytics Conference

SABR is pleased to announce that the ninth annual SABR Analytics Conference will be held Friday, March 13 to Sunday, March 15, 2020 at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Renaissance Phoenix Downtown is at 100 N. 1st St., Phoenix, AZ 85004. Conference registration and hotel information for the 2020 conference will be available beginning in October 2019 at SABR.org/analytics.

The SABR Analytics Conference brings together industry insiders from the baseball community, data innovators, thought leaders, members of the media and college students who will participate in the popular Diamond Dollars Case Competition.

Visit SABR.org/analytics to learn more.

Read all stories from The National Pastime: Pacific Ghosts online

The National Pastime serves as SABR’s convention-focused publication. Published annually, this research journal provides in-depth articles focused on the respective geographic region where the national convention is taking place in a given year.

The SABR 49 convention took place this summer in San Diego, and we have dedicated the theme of The National Pastime to baseball on the Pacific Coast. All SABR members receive a free e-book copy of The National Pastime as part of their membership benefits, while attendees of the national convention also received a souvenir print edition in their goody bags.

All articles from the 2019 convention journal, The National Pastime: Pacific Ghosts, can now be read online at SABR.org:

https://sabr.org/research/2019-national-pastime

Click a link below to download the e-book edition or purchase a paperback edition of the 2019 convention journal, The National Pastime: Pacific Ghosts.

If you weren’t able to attend the convention in San Diego, please enjoy this issue of The National Pastime as your virtual trip to SABR 49. Happy reading!

SABR Digital Library: The Newark Eagles Take Flight: The Story of the 1946 Negro League Champions

Add a soaring baseball book to your collection with our newest title from the SABR Digital Library:

The Newark Eagles Take Flight: The Story of the 1946 Negro League Champions 
Edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin 
Associate Editors: Rich Applegate and Len Levin 
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-9701-5906-6, $9.99 
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9701-5907-3, $29.99
8.5″ x 11″, 230 pages

Click here to read the full description at SABR.org.

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

SABRcast with Rob Neyer: Listen to an interview with author Paul Dickson

Paul DicksonListen to a new episode of SABRcast with Rob Neyer, a new weekly podcast hosted by award-winning author and longtime SABR member Rob Neyer — which is now available on your favorite podcast streaming services! Subscribe to SABRcast on your favorite podcast networks, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play, and listen to each episode as soon as it’s released on Mondays.

Visit SABR.org/sabrcast to listen to Episode #20 — our guest this week is Paul Dickson, acclaimed author and baseball historian whose newest book is The Hidden Language of Baseball: How Signs and Sign-Stealing Have Influenced the Course of Our National Pastime. Paul is best known in the baseball research community for The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, now in its third edition, and he was honored with SABR’s Henry Chadwick Award in 2013.

Every week, SABRcast will feature insights and analysis of what’s happening in modern baseball on and off the field, plus compelling interviews with figures from around the game — and music from The Baseball Project.

To learn more, visit SABR.org/sabrcast.

Apply now for SABR Member Engagement Associate positions

Member Engagement Associates — a part-time seasonal position based at the SABR office in Phoenix, Arizona — will assist SABR’s membership efforts while reporting to and partnering with the Chief Executive Officer.

A new position in the organization, Associates will be tasked with outreach to members who need to renew their membership and members who have allowed their membership to lapse. As an Associate you will be responsible for logging member and lapsed member feedback which will allow us to better serve our baseball community.

Click here to read the full announcement at SABR.org.

Students: Apply for a Fall 2019 internship with SABR

SABR is seeking Fall 2019 interns to work in our office in Phoenix, Arizona.

An internship with SABR will involve responsibilities across a variety of disciplines, possibly including:

  • Working on-site at a local SABR conference, such as the SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience
  • Working with our Membership Director or Director of Operations on organizational duties, membership renewal drives, customer service
  • Working with our Director of Editorial Content to help publish and/or produce content for our website at SABR.org

The internship is an educational opportunity that may count toward college credit, covering 15-20 hours per week (flexible schedule), at the SABR office in Phoenix, Arizona.

Click here to read the full announcement at SABR.org.

Become a Friend of SABR by joining our On-Deck Circle with monthly giving

SABR’s mission is to foster the study, discussion, and understanding of all aspects of baseball. In order to fulfill this mission, we rely not only on member dues but also gifts from our generous supporters. You can become a Friend of SABR by giving as little as $10 per month. When you do so, you will be inducted into a community of passionate baseball fans dedicated to supporting SABR’s work.

Get in the SABR On-Deck Circle, and help SABR become the essential community for the world of baseball. Your support will build capacity around all things SABR, including publications, website content, podcast development, and community growth.

A monthly gift is deducted from your bank account or charged to a credit card until you tell us to stop. No more email, mail, or phone reminders.

Visit SABR.org/donate or contact Ben Rose at brose@sabr.org to learn more.

SABR members, get a discount when you subscribe to Baseball Digest Archive

Baseball DigestBaseball Digest is pleased to announce the launch of the Baseball Digest Archive.

Every regular print issue of Baseball Digest from 1942 through March/April 2019 is viewable and searchable online at BaseballDigestArchive.com.

Interested SABR members can subscribe using a special Discount Coupon Code to receive 36% off a one-year rate. Click here to view the discount code at SABR.org.

Register now for the 2019 SABR Minnesota 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium

The SABR Minnesota 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium will take place on Saturday, November 16, 2019, at the Minneapolis Public Library, 300 Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The day-long Saturday symposium will be devoted to 19th-century baseball as it was played and evolved in Minnesota and the greater Midwest region. The event is a joint project of the SABR Nineteenth Century Committee, SABR’s Halsey Hall Chapter, and the Hennepin County Library.

Guest speakers are expected to include John Thorn, MLB’s Official Historian; Larry Millett, longtime St. Paul Pioneer Press architecture critic and author of more than 10 books, including The Curve of the Arch and Lost Twin Cities; Stew Thornley, author of Baseball in Minnesota: A Definitive History and other books; Dan Levitt, author of Paths to Glory: How Great Baseball Teams Got That Way and other books; Mike Haupert, Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse; Kristin Anderson, art and architecture professor and author of an upcoming book on the history of sports facilities in the Twin Cities; Frank White, author of They Played for the Love of the Game: Untold Stories of Black Baseball in Minnesota; Brian Madigan, SABR member and associate librarian for Hennepin County Libraries; and more.

For more information, contact event organizers at sabrMN19c@gmail.com.

Students, last chance to apply for the 2019 SABR Women in Baseball Scholarship

SABR’s Women in Baseball Committee will award one $500 scholarship to a high school senior in its inaugural Women in Baseball Essay Contest in 2019.

Students must write an essay of 1,500 words or less addressing the following question: “Choose one person or event in women’s baseball history that you believe has made a significant impact on the game and explain the importance.”

All applications must be e-mailed or postmarked by August 16, 2019, and sent to Dr. Leslie Heaphy at Lheaphy@kent.edu.

Click here to read the full announcement at SABR.org.

Hotel block almost sold out for SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium

Register now to join us for the SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium on September 27-29, 2019, in Chicago. The SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee will host this once-in-a-century event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1919 World Series.

The event — which is open to all baseball fans — will be highlighted by a research symposium on Saturday, September 28 at the Chicago History Museum.

Please note: There are only a handful of rooms left in our courtesy room block at the Palmer House Hilton. If you want to take advantage of our special discounted rate of $179/night there, register for the Black Sox symposium now to receive the booking link. Sorry, our White Sox ticket block is now closed.

Click here to read the full announcement at SABR.org.

2 new SABR biographies published

Bobby BondsTwo new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 4,978 published biographies. Here are the new bios published this week:

All new biographies can be found here: SABR.org/bioproj/recent

9 new stories published by the SABR Games Project

Kitty BurkeNine new game stories were posted this week as part of the SABR Games Project. Here are the new game stories:

New Games Project stories can be found at SABR.org/gamesproject/recent. Find all published Games Project articles at SABR.org/GamesProject.

  • Get involved: Have memories of a game you attended? Or a game you watched that caught your interest? Write about it! Writing for the Games Project is an easy way to get involved as a SABR member. Find out how by reading the Games Project FAQs section or checking out the Authors’ Guidelines. We have editors and fact checkers who are willing to help you write your first article.

Listen to Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM on Saturdays

Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM, a radio show hosted by former SABR Board President Vince Gennaro, will air this season at a new time. Listen in from 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET on Saturdays on MLB Network Radio.

You can also listen to archives of recent episodes on-demand on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App. Click here to learn more.

Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM focuses on examining and interpreting the statistical analysis that plays a critical role in baseball today. It airs weekly throughout the year on MLB Network Radio, available to subscribers nationwide on XM channel 89, Sirius channel 209, and on the SiriusXM Internet Radio App.

SABR membership tips: Research Resources

Periodically, we like to offer some helpful hints on how to get the most out of the SABR.org website. Today, we’re highlighting our Research Resources page, which includes many online resources that can help you do better baseball research.

The Research Resources page at SABR.org includes a variety of tools and information sources from around the Internet. Some of these sources, including the resources page itself, are only available with a SABR membership — such as our partnership with Paper of Record which gives you complete access to The Sporting News archives dating back to 1886 or a discounted subscription for the Baseball Digest archive. This follows SABR’s longstanding mission to facilitate the dissemination of baseball research information.

Our most popular tools for research can be found on the resources page, starting with How to Do Baseball Research, an ongoing project with tips on research techniques, interviewing, geneaology, finding images, and using libraries. You can also find links on the resources pages to other SABR tools such as The Baseball Index, a catalog of 250,000+ citations on baseball literature; nearly five decades of articles from the SABR Baseball Research Journal; more than 500 audio interviews in the SABR Oral History Collection; Protoball, on the evolution of early baseball games; our Guide to Sabermetric Research; Bob McConnell’s Going for the Fences: The Minor League Home Run Record Book; the SABR Triple Plays Database; and the SABR Spring Training Database; and the SABR/Baseball-Reference Encyclopedia.

Some members have made their specialized research available on the resources page, as well. This includes Bill James’ Baseball Analyst archives from 1982-89; the Business of Baseball Committee’s 1915 Federal League case files; Chuck McGill’s comprehensive list of Minor League No-Hitters; Bill Hickman’s research on Near Major Leaguers; Ken Mars’s guide to the 1887 National Colored League, a precursor to the Negro Leagues; Gene Carney’s Black Sox “Notes” columns; and Chuck Hildebrandt’s Little League Home Runs Database.

The resources page also includes links to non-SABR tools and websites that serve as invaluable sources for every baseball researcher, including the popular statistical websites Baseball Prospectus, Baseball-Reference.com, BrooksBaseball.net, FanGraphs, The Hardball Times, Retrosheet, and more. You can also find subscription newspaper archive sites such as Newspapers.com, Chronicling America, Ancestry.com, Fulton History, and Genealogy Bank; as well as tools such as the Lahman Baseball Database, the Index of Online Baseball Guides (1860-2014), the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, and the Dressed to the Nines MLB uniform database.

Whatever baseball-related subject you have an interest in, we have a helpful resource for you on the Research Resources page. We hope you’ll check it out! If there’s a tool not listed there that you like to use in your own research, e-mail jpomrenke@sabr.org to let us know so we can add it to the page.

Seeking book designers for SABR Publications Program

Are you a SABR member with book design experience? As our Publications Program grows, so does our need for folks who can handle book layout and ebook creation duties. QuarkXPress or InDesign preferred.

If you’d like more information or to throw your hat into the ring, please email your resume and book design samples to Cecilia Tan at PubDir@sabr.org.

In Memoriam: John Gabcik

  • SABR member John Gabcik, 76, died on August 2, 2019, at his home in Brevard, North Carolina, from complications of oral cancer. He joined SABR in 2009 and wrote 10 biographies for the BioProject, concentrating on White Sox pitchers he had seen in action over the years. John also wrote the bio of Lew Fonseca published in SABR’s 2018  book on baseball and the movies. He was a familiar face at the SABR national convention and an active volunteer with Retrosheet.org. John Francis Gabcik was born April 17, 1943, in Chicago and educated in Chicago parochial schools before graduating from Loyola University Chicago, where he was student manager on the 1963 Ramblers men’s basketball team which started four African American players and won the NCAA championship. A lifetime resident of the Chicago area until his retirement in 2007, John worked as an inner-city school English teacher, an insurance agent and financial planner, and later as a certified drug and alcohol addiction counselor. He is survived by his wife Edwina (Edie), with whom he celebrated his 50th anniversary in April, and son Joe and wife Nicole, of Rutland, Vermont. Another son, Larry, predeceased. He was a member of the United Universalists of Transylvania County congregation in Brevard. A service celebrating his life was held there on August 12. Click here to read the full obituary online.

ICYMI: Highlights from last week’s This Week in SABR

We’ve heard your feedback: Some of you have said you look forward to “This Week in SABR” every Friday, but sometimes there are just too many compelling articles and announcements to read every week. We’re not complaining — hey, keep up the great work! — but we know the feeling. So in an effort to make the length of this newsletter more manageable to read, we’ll summarize some of the repeating/recurring announcements in a special “In Case You Missed It (ICYMI)” section of “This Week in SABR”.

Here are some major headlines from recent weeks that we don’t want you to miss:

All previous editions of This Week in SABR can be found here: https://sabr.org/content/this-week-in-sabr-archives.

Welcome, new members!

We’d like to welcome all of our new SABR members who have joined this week. You can find all Members-Only resources at members.sabr.org and the Membership Handbook can be downloaded here.

Please give these new members a warm welcome and help them make the most of their membership by giving them the opportunity to get involved in their local chapter or a research committee.

You can find contact information for any SABR member in the online membership directory (SABR.org/directory).

Name Hometown     Name Hometown
Michael Beardslee Howell, MI     Rodger McKelvey Bloomington, MN
Brian Bolduc Leominster, MA     Paul Rice Sacramento, CA
Alan Brown Martinez, GA     Laurier Shank Orleans, ON
Ty Daubert Pottsville, PA     Arthur Sharp Sun City Center, FL
Jim Easton London, ON     Larry Strickling Chicago, IL
Chris Giraud Hoover, AL     Alexander Thompson Etna, OH
Richard Hughes Asbury, NJ     Jun Hyun Yun Ithaca, NY
Zachary Kleiman Vero Beach, FL     Thomas Zabel Mico, TX

 

Research Committee news

Here are the new research committee updates this week:

Find all SABR research committee newsletters at SABR.org/research.

Regional Chapter news

Here are the new regional chapter updates this week:

Visit SABR.org/chapters for more information on SABR regional chapters.

SABR Events Calendar

Here is a list of upcoming events on the SABR calendar:

All SABR meetings and events are open to the public. Feel free to bring a baseball-loving friend … and make many new ones! Check out the SABR Events Calendar at SABR.org/events.

Around the Web

Here are some recent articles published by and about SABR members:

Read these articles and more at SABR.org/latest.

This Week in SABR is compiled by Jacob Pomrenke. If you would like us to include an upcoming event, article or any other information in “This Week in SABR,” e-mail jpomrenke@sabr.org.

Have trouble reading this e-mail? Click here to view this week’s newsletter on the web.

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Originally published: August 16, 2019. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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