This Week in SABR: May 27, 2011

May 27, 2011/in This Week in SABR /by jpomrenke

Here’s an update of what we’ve been up to as of May 27, 2011:

SABR 41 research presentations announced

Check out the complete schedule of research presentations — including abstracts and presenter bios — for the SABR 41 national convention, scheduled for July 6-10 at the Long Beach Hilton in Southern California.

SABR 41’s presentations appear to be less “thematic” than in recent years. On Thursday afternoon, we’ve put together a set of integration-related papers, and also two dealing with Latinos in baseball. As usual, there’s a session, on Saturday morning, full of sabermetric presentations.

The presentations were chosen after more than 50 volunteer reviewers vetted the abstracts and submitted thoughtful evaluations. Thanks to Scott Fischthal and Neal Traven, co-chairs of the SABR 41 Research Presentations committee, for heading up the process.

We hope you enjoy these stimulating and challenging research presentations at SABR 41.

DON’T FORGET TO REGISTER! To register for the convention or any other events, visit the SABR Store. Please note that the hotel room rate of $119 will expire after June 13, so be sure to book your spot in Long Beach quickly if you haven’t already done so. Registration forms (available for download here) must be postmarked by June 24 and sent to the SABR office at 4455 E. Camelback Road, Ste. D-140, Phoenix, AZ 85018. Online registration for the convention will end at 11:59 p.m. MST on June 29.

SABR 41 Film Festival

One of the highlights of SABR 41 will be the weeklong Film Festival, which will be held in the Atlantic Room at the Long Beach Hilton.

The films scheduled to be shown run the gamut from Headin’ Home, a 1920 silent film starring Babe Ruth, to Holy Land Hardball, a 2011 documentary about the Israel Baseball League. Some films are as obscure as One Run Elmer, a 1935 Buster Keaton short, and some are as famous as 1992’s A League of Their Own, a fictionalized account of the World War II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

You can also watch World Series highlight films involving the Dodgers and Angels; the premiere episode of the 1950s TV series Home Run Derby, which was filmed at Los Angeles’ Wrigley Field, featuring Willie Mays vs. Mickey Mantle; documentaries such as The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and Black Baseball in Indiana; and feature-length presentations including Eight Men Out and 61*.

(Please note that all films listed above may not be shown. The schedule and showtimes are tentative, and subject to change.)

Pick the Top 40 Storylines of the SABR Era

SABR members, we need your help!

We’re putting together a list of the Top 40 Baseball Storylines of the SABR Era (1971-2011), in conjunction with the organization’s 40th anniversary in August.

These can include anything from individual games or series (such as “Game 6 of the 1975 World Series” or simply “the 1991 World Series”); player/team streaks, “record chases” or record-setting performances (Aaron’s 715, Rose’s 4,192, Hershisher’s 59, Ripken’s 2,131, Bonds’ 73 or 762 HRs, the 1998 Yankees, the 2001 Mariners, the 2002 A’s, etc.); off-the-field issues (such as the advent of free agency, 1980s collusion, the building of “retro” ballparks starting in 1992, the 1981 labor dispute, the 1994 labor dispute, “Moneyball”, the Steroid Era, baseball’s response to 9/11), or anything else along those lines.

You can submit your ideas by posting in this SABRNation discussion thread, or e-mail them to jpomrenke@sabr.org.

In a few weeks, we’ll ask you to rank the most-suggested ideas from 1 through 40, and reveal the final list later this summer.

New SABR chapter in Central Oklahoma

At its spring quarterly meeting on May 20-21, SABR’s Board of Directors approved the formation of a new regional chapter in Central Oklahoma.

The Central Oklahoma Chapter will serve the counties, cities and towns in and around Oklahoma City. The chapter’s temporary liaison will be Howard Johnson, pending the election of officers.

The Central Oklahoma Chapter is SABR’s 59th regional chapter, joining the Rio Grande Chapter in New Mexico as new regions approved in 2011. There are now SABR regional chapters covering 33 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.; plus international chapters in Canada (Quebec and Ontario), Japan and the United Kingdom.

If you would like to join the Central Oklahoma Chapter, click here. For more information, contact Howard Johnson.

Four new bios posted at BioProject

The Baseball Biography Project moves closer to 1,600 complete and published biographies with the posting of four new entries this week:

Bombo Rivera, by Rory Costello

Joe Rudi, by Rory Costello

Jim O’Toole, by Mike Havey

Joe Medwick, by Charles Faber

If you’d like to contribute to the BioProject — whose purpose is to solicit, write, edit, and maintain high quality journal-length biographies of every player who ever played in the major leagues, as well as any other person connected with baseball in a significant way — check out the BioProject Resources page or contact director Mark Armour.

New edition of Oxford’s “Baseball” series lists Dorothy Mills as co-author

SABR member Dorothy Jane Mills, whose baseball work is published under the name Dorothy Seymour Mills, is after 50 years finally listed as co-author of the books she wrote with the late Harold Seymour.

The three volumes, originally published under the name Harold Seymour, are considered the classic histories in the field. They are Baseball: The Early Years (1960); Baseball: The Golden Age (1971); and Baseball: The People’s Game (1990).

Timothy Bent, Executive Editor of OUP USA, announced in August 2010 the company’s decision to give formal credit to Mills’s co-authorship of these books despite her late husband’s neglect to do so. The books have just become available in their new edition.

Dorothy Mills, now married to Roy Mills, a retired officer of the Royal Canadian Air Force and a retired champion curler, states that she increasingly took over the work of preparing these books and that by the time she and Seymour reached the third volume, she was doing more of the work than he was.

In other recent SABR news:

Originally published: May 27, 2011. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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