This Week in SABR: March 29, 2013

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Welcome to “This Week in SABR!” Opening Day is almost upon us and we’re excited to begin a new baseball season. Here’s what we’ve been up to as of March 29, 2013:

2013 SABR Board of Directors election begins Monday

SABR members, pay attention to the e-mail address that you have on file with SABR; you will receive a message on Monday, April 1, 2013, with a link to vote online in the 2013 SABR Board of Directors election. The poll will close at 12:00 a.m. Mountain Standard Time on Wednesday, May 15, 2013.

The only way to vote online is through the link you will receive by e-mail. 

All e-mails will come from the address tellers@sabr.org; if you wish to add it to a whitelist in your e-mail client, that may help ensure that you will receive the e-mails. You will receive at least two more voting emails between April 1 and May 15 with active voting links.

Three candidates have announced their intentions to run for three open positions on the Board.

SABR members will vote for President and two Director positions this year, along with three proposed amendment changes to the By-Laws. Details on the By-Laws changes and candidate statements can be found in the 2013 Election Guide, which is available for download here: http://sabr.org/about/2013-sabr-board-directors-election.

Incumbent Vince Gennaro of Purchase, New York, is seeking his second term as President; he was first elected in 2011 and is running unopposed.

Incumbent Leslie Heaphy of Kent, Ohio, is seeking her second term as Director; she was first elected in 2010. Fred Worth of Arkadelphia, Arkansas, is seeking his first term as Director. The top two vote-getters for Director will be elected to the Board at the conclusion of the SABR 43 Annual Business Meeting at this summer’s annual convention in Philadelphia.

Tom Hufford, a founding member of SABR who was elected in 2004, announced last month that he is stepping down from the Board at the conclusion of the Annual Business Meeting.

Download the 2013 Election Guide here: http://sabr.org/about/2013-sabr-board-directors-election

Save the date: 2014 SABR Analytics Conference will be March 13-15 at Hyatt Regency Phoenix

SABR is pleased to announce that the third annual SABR Analytics Conference will be held March 13-15, 2014 at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Hyatt Regency Phoenix is at 122 N. 2nd St., Phoenix, AZ 85004. Hotel room and conference registration information for the 2014 conference will be available in the fall of 2013.

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.

“All these kids that are watching baseball and are analyzing baseball, they’re going to want to go somewhere for their information and have this as a regular part of how they digest baseball,” said MLB Network’s Brian Kenny, a featured speaker at the 2013 Analytics Conference. “Baseball is filled with these young, smart guys and women who are looking at baseball from an economic point of view … and that’s fascinating. The next generation coming, it’s a large, large demographic that’s just going to increase and take over the game.”

For complete coverage of the 2013 SABR Analytics Conference, including multimedia clips, stories and photos, visit SABR.org/analytics/2013.

Watch more panels from the 2013 SABR Analytics Conference on YouTube

Couldn’t make it to Arizona for the second annual SABR Analytics Conference? Visit SABR.org/analytics for full coverage of this exciting event that brings together the top minds in the baseball analytics community in 2013. You’ll feel like you were wandering through the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown and ASU Cronkite School with stories and multimedia clips from the great panel discussions and research presentations on our schedule, photo galleries, and much more.

  • During the conference, you could follow along on Twitter by searching for the hashtag #SABRanalytics or by reading tweets from our account (@SABR) and from other conference attendees.
  • View our photo galleries from each day of the conference at SABR.org/analytics/photos.

Once again, we brought together the top minds of the baseball analytic community under one roof to discuss, debate and share learnings of insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball. Here are some highlights we added this week:

Complete coverage of the 2013 SABR Analytics Conference can be found at SABR.org/analytics.

SABR 43 hotel in Philadelphia filling up fast

This summer’s SABR 43 convention in Philadelphia, July 31-August 4 at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, promises to be spectacular. Seamus Kearney, Dick Rosen, Peter Mancuso and the rest of the Connie Mack Chapter are working hard to line up guest speakers and panelists for the convention, and we hope you’ll join us in Philly for the 43rd annual convention. Register today at SABR.org/convention.

SABR’s group block at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown is going quickly — if you want a room at the Marriott for the SABR convention, you should book your room now. (Don’t forget to register for the convention, too!) If and when our room block sells out, we’ll set up an overflow hotel nearby and post more information at SABR.org/convention.

SABR has secured an exclusive group rate of $139/night (plus tax) at the Marriott for SABR 43. This is a very low rate for a major hotel in downtown Philadelphia during that time of year. The Philadelphia Marriott Downtown is at 1201 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, just blocks from City Hall , Independence Hall and many other Philadelphia landmarks. Click here to book your room online or call (877) 212-5752. The hotel’s website is www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/phldt-philadelphia-marriott-downtown. Please note that our block of rooms is only available for the nights of July 30 to August 4, 2013.

For more information on SABR 43, visit SABR.org/convention.

Students, apply for a Yoseloff Scholarship to attend SABR 43 in Philadelphia

With generous funding from The Anthony A. Yoseloff Foundation, Inc., SABR will award up to four scholarships to college students who wish to attend SABR 43 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 31-August 4, 2013. This scholarship will pay for registration, transportation and lodging up to a total value of $1,250.

The objective of this scholarship fund is to encourage high school and college-level student engagement with baseball research and to engender an active interest in baseball and SABR. The Yoseloff scholarship is to assist young researchers who want to attend SABR’s annual convention and to introduce them to fellow SABR members. Through this fund, SABR hopes to inspire future baseball research, expose students to high-quality research and build the research capability of interested students.

Download an application form: Click here to apply for a Yoseloff Scholarship to attend SABR 43 in Philadelphia

Students must be currently enrolled in a high school, college undergraduate or graduate program, and be between 18 and 29 years of age at the time of the conference. Some form of age verification (photocopy of driver’s license, passport, etc.) must be attached to your application.

Submissions must include a brief letter of recommendation from a current high school/college teacher, guidance counselor or a school administrator. For full details on how to apply, download the PDF application form by using the link above.

All applications must be postmarked or e-mailed to Jeff Schatzki at jschatzki@sabr.org no later than April 15, 2013.

Get 25% discount on a new MLB.TV subscription for entire 2013 season

SABR members, we hope you’ll take advantage of his special offer from MLB Advanced Media for the 2013 season:

This 25% discount is valid for each month of the 2013 season.

If you already have an MLB.com account, please sign in on the next page. If you do not, you will create a new MLB.com account as you purchase.

Watch every 2013 Regular Season out-of-market game LIVE or on-demand in HD Quality. Choose home or away broadcasts. MLB.TV is on your favorite devices, including iPhone, iPad, Android phones, Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation and more. Watch up to four games at once with Mosaic. DVR functionality lets you pause or rewind live games. PLUS watch select 2013 Spring Training games LIVE online.

Help us add baseball-related attractions to our new locator app

As we mentioned last week, SABR has begun working with Arizona State University’s New Media Innovation Lab to develop a location-based mobile app. The purpose of this SABR app is to help fans in the 30 Major League cities find nearby baseball-related attractions, including ballparks, research centers/libraries, museums and restaurants.

The app, which is being developed using the Google Maps API, will include attractions in the 30 Major League cities, with the possibility of adding minor league cities and other locations in the future. SABR members, this is where we need your help! Would you like to contribute your knowledge and expertise of local baseball-related attractions in the 30 Major League cities to help populate this app?

We’ve already added all the Major League stadiums, along with a few other locations, to get it started. Here are some suggestions:

  • Any professional ballpark within the metropolitan area
  • Any major college ballpark within the metropolitan area
  • Historic ballpark sites, especially if there is a plaque or monument at the site. For instance, the Polo Grounds Towers in New York or Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Please list the closest current street address you can find.
  • Restaurants where fans of a particular team meet up
  • Regular SABR chapter meeting locations
  • Sports museums with permanent baseball exhibits or historical societies with baseball artifacts
  • Municipal libraries, university libraries or independent research centers with extensive baseball collections
  • Any other interesting baseball-related attractions you have discovered in your travels

Now, a little fine print:

The spreadsheet is divided into sheets for each Major League city. There are four categories: Ballparks, Restaurants, Attractions/Museums and Libraries/Research Centers. (We may add more categories later, but please use one of these four for now.) Please add baseball-related attractions in the format provided; all fields must be filled out. Use the tabs for each city at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Keep descriptions very brief, one sentence at most. Locations must be within a 50-mile radius of the major league ballpark. We hope to add more categories and cities in the future, but please keep locations within the metropolitan area for now. This is not intended to be a comprehensive listing of every baseball-related attraction in the world. When in doubt, use the best available listing on Google Maps.

Please take this weekend to check out the spreadsheet and add any locations you feel are worth visiting in each city. If you have any questions, please contact jpomrenke@sabr.org.

MLB annual salary leaders, 1874 to 2012

In the Fall 2012 edition of “Outside The Lines,” SABR’s Business of Baseball Research Committee newsletter, Michael Haupert, a Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, published a list of Major League Baseball’s annual salary leaders from 1874 to 2012. We’re pleased to publish it today at SABR.org. Haupert writes:

Perusing the list of annual leaders in various statistical categories is a favorite pastime of baseball fans. So why should the list of salary leaders be any different? For fans of the business of baseball, that list is likely to prove fascinating. And now, thanks to the recent availability of new financial data, such a list is possible.

The salary leaders data is drawn from several primary sources: the New York Yankee ledgers, the Philadelphia Phillies ledgers, the Spalding Guides, the MLBPA, the Long papers, and the contract and transaction card files housed at the Hall of Fame Library. When considering financial data, a primary source would be the originating source for those data, which in the case of a contract would be the two parties signing the contract: player and team. Thus, salary data that has been released each year since 1985 by the MLBPA is considered primary data. The MLBPA salary figures are available from a wide variety of sources on the internet.

To view the list, which ranges in dollar amounts from $840 earned by St. Louis’ John Clap in 1876 to the $33 million per year salary of the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez in 2009-10, click here:

http://sabr.org/research/mlbs-annual-salary-leaders-1874-2012

Related links:

3 new biographies published by the SABR BioProject

Three new biographies were posted as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 2,353 published biographies.

Here are the new bios:

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

You can find the SABR BioProject at SABR.org/BioProject.

Scouts book bios now online: In December 2011, we published the first book in the SABR Digital Library, Can He Play? A Look At Baseball Scouts and Their Profession, edited by Bill Nowlin and the late Jim Sandoval. The biographies from that book have now been posted at the SABR BioProject; you can read them online by clicking here. To order the e-book or paperback from the SABR Bookstore or to learn more about the book, click here.

Bios on more than just ballplayers: The ambitious goal of the SABR Baseball Biography Project is to publish a full-life biography of every major league player in history. But SABR members write about a lot more than just ballplayers. In addition, we have pages for Ballparks, Broadcasters, Executives, Managers, Scouts, Spouses, Umpires and a lot more on the BioProject website. You can browse all of these categories at http://sabr.org/bioproj/browse. So if you’ve ever thought, “Hey, that person (or ballpark) should get the full BioProject treatment” — write the story and we’ll publish it!

Check out the new Baseball Ballparks Project: The SABR Baseball Biography Project has been accepting/publishing “biographies” of Ballparks for a few years, and we have 39 of them on our website at http://sabr.org/bioproj/parks. However, this thing just got real. Ballparks are now its very own PROJECT — the Baseball Ballparks Project, our first official spin-off. The project leader is Scott Ferkovich, who is now in charge of recruiting ballparks articles and publicizing them. Learn more by clicking here.

Get involved! If you’d like to help contribute to the SABR BioProject, visit our BioProject Resources page or read the FAQs section to get started. We’re also looking to expand the BioProject to include all “encyclopedic” articles on baseball-related subjects from past SABR publications or committee newsletters. If you come across an article you think should be included in the SABR “baseball repository” at the BioProject, send a copy or link to markarmour04@gmail.com or jpomrenke@sabr.org.

SABR members McDonnell, Appel launching new course on New York Yankees

SABR members Wayne McDonnell Jr. and Marty Appel are teaming up to teach a new baseball-related course at New York University this summer.

The pair are writing a syllabus and teaching a continuing education course called “Pinstripe Empire: “A History of Baseball’s Most Successful Franchise,” based on Appel’s definitive book on the history of the New York Yankees, Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss (Bloomsbury, 2012.)

McDonnell is a Clinical Associate Professor of Sports Management at New York University who writes regularly at Forbes.com. Appel is the former public relations director of the New York Yankees and author of more than a dozen books.

Anyone can enroll in the 10-week course, which meets once a week at NYU’s Washington Square campus beginning May 29 and ending July 31, 2013. Click the link below for more information or to enroll:

http://www.scps.nyu.edu/content/scps/academics/course_detail.html?id=TCCE1-CE9811&catalogId=20132#sectionBlock

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to meet like-minded baseball fans who want to study the New York Yankees from a world-renowned expert on the topic,” McDonnell said.

March 17 Board minutes posted

Minutes from the Board of Directors conference call on March 17, 2013, have now been posted on the SABR website.

You can view all past minutes of SABR Board meetings by going to the page below:

http://sabr.org/content/sabr-board-minutes

Or you can go to the Members’ Info page and click on “Org. files”, then “Board Minutes” to view the minutes.

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: http://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 New Member 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.

Name Hometown
Rick Davies Annandale, VA
Sean Davis Coppell, TX
Tom DePalma Crystal Lake, IL
William Griggs Fort Wayne, IN
Michael Johnson Manzanita, OR
Dustin Petzold Washington, DC
Steven Stake APO Armed Forces Pacific
Tim Steggall Arlington, TX
Wick Terrell Denver, CO
Garrick Whittle Danville, KY
Stephen Workman Elkins Park, PA

 

Research committee newsletters

Here are the new SABR research committee newsletters published this week:

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

Chapter meeting news

Here are the chapter meeting recaps published this week:

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

SABR Events Calendar

Here is a list of upcoming SABR events:

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.

All previous editions of This Week in SABR can be found here: http://sabr.org/content/this-week-in-sabr-archives. If you would like us to include an upcoming event, article or any other information in “This Week in SABR”, e-mail Jacob Pomrenke at jpomrenke@sabr.org.

Find exclusive Members’ Only resources and information here: http://members.sabr.org

Did you know you can renew your membership at any time? 1- and 3-year SABR memberships are available by clicking “Renew” at http://members.sabr.org. Please also consider a donation to SABR to support baseball research at SABR.org/donate.

Are you following us on Twitter or Facebook? Get SABR updates every day at @SABR or by searching “SABR” on Facebook.

Replying to this e-mail goes to an undeliverable address. If you would like to contact the SABR office, please visit: http://sabr.org/about/contact-sabr


Originally published: March 29, 2013. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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