This Week in SABR: November 1, 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 November 1, 2019:

Watch: 2019 Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners to be announced Sunday

Rawlings Platinum Glove AwardThe 2019 Rawlings Gold Glove Award® winners will be unveiled during a live, one-hour airing of ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” at 7:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, November 3.

For the seventh consecutive season, the SABR Defensive Index will be used to help select the winners of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and Rawlings Platinum Glove Award™, presented by SABR. The SABR Defensive Index accounts for approximately 25 percent of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award selection process which are added to the votes from the managers and coaches. The final SDI results will be released following the announcement of the Gold Glove winners on Sunday night.

Following the show, voting will begin online for the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award™, presented by SABR. The Rawlings Platinum Glove Award winners are determined by combining votes based on an adjusted SABR Defensive Index for each of the nine Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners in each League and the votes from baseball fans worldwide.

Save the date! 2020 SABR Jerry Malloy Conference in Birmingham to celebrate 100 years of the Negro Leagues

One hundred years ago, the Negro National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs (NNL) was established as a viable option for professional Black athletes barred from the all-White major leagues to showcase their talents. In 2020, SABR’s Negro Leagues Research Committee will celebrate their pleasure, passion, and purpose-driven path to athletic glory and honor with a centennial celebration at the SABR Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference, which will be held on June 11-13, 2020, in Birmingham, Alabama.

NNL founder Rube Foster’s mantra of “We Are The Ship … All Else The Sea” spoke to their exclusion from Major League Baseball. Their struggles became our successes as Black baseball exploded in popularity and became an integral part of baseball Americana. This is your opportunity to honor the triumphs and accomplishments of men and women who paved the way to integrate our national game.

Check back at SABR.org/malloy soon for registration and hotel information for the 2020 Malloy Conference. We hope to see you in Birmingham!

— Larry Lester

Early registration now open for the 2020 SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix

Early registration is now open for the ninth annual SABR Analytics Conference on March 13-15, 2020, at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown in Arizona, where we’ll bring together the top minds in the baseball analytics community to discuss, debate and share insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball. Register today to join us!

The Analytics Conference schedule consists of a combination of Guest Speakers, Panels, and Research Presentations — plus the unique Diamond Dollars Case Competition, in which undergraduate, graduate and law school students from across the country analyze and present a real baseball operations decision.

Programming will begin on the afternoon of Friday, March 13 and will run through Sunday afternoon on March 15. A large block of rooms for SABR Analytics Conference attendees is available on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Click here for highlights of the high-quality content from the 2019 conference.

SABR has a long and storied history with baseball statistical analysis, evidenced by the link between our name and sabermetrics. SABR’s long history in this area of baseball research, coupled with our mission of advancing the understanding and knowledge of baseball, makes us the perfect choice to coordinate and host this ground-breaking event.

For more information on the 2020 SABR Analytics Conference, or to register, visit SABR.org/analytics.

Submit your presentation abstract for 2020 SABR Analytics Conference

SABR and Baseball Info Solutions are excited to announce the call for presentations for the ninth annual SABR Analytics Conference.

Abstracts of proposed research presentations should be no more than 500 words in length, and must include the abstract’s title, review of previous work on the subject, a summary of the research methodology and anticipated results, and the expected contribution to the field of baseball analytics offered by this work. Submissions are open to the general public, with student presenters considered in a separate track.

Please send all abstracts to this e-mail address: analytics@baseballinfosolutions.com. The submission deadline for 2020 SABR Analytics Conference presentation abstracts is 11:59 p.m. MST, Wednesday, November 27, 2019. Note: If your presentation abstract is selected as a semi-finalist, you will be required to register for the conference in order to be eligible for a presentation slot.

Click here for complete details and criteria at SABR.org.

It’s time to renew your membership for 2020

For those of you whose SABR memberships expire by December 31 — you can check your current membership status here — it’s time for you to renew!

From the Baseball Research Journal and the SABR Digital Library to “This Week in SABR” and our extensive list of research resources — and, of course, all the memorable conferences, chapter meetings, and events — we hope you enjoyed the many benefits of SABR membership this past year.

We hope you please continue your support by renewing your SABR membership today.

  • Pay online: Click here to renew your SABR membership for 2020!
  • Renew by mail: To pay by check or money order, mail this downloadable PDF form and your payment to the office at SABR, Cronkite School at ASU, 555 N. Central Ave. #416, Phoenix, AZ 85004.
  • Pay by phone: To process your credit-card payment over the phone, please call the SABR office at (602) 496-1460 during regular business hours. (We accept Visa, Mastercard, or Discover Card.)

Thank you for your support of SABR as we continue to strive to make SABR membership a great experience and a great value!

Join the Friends of SABR and support baseball research

As we wrap up 2019, we want to thank you for your continuing support of SABR. Thanks to your dedication and generosity, SABR is stronger today than ever, with a vast array of capabilities.

We also want to invite you to join the Friends of SABR, a circle of members who are committed to using their financial support to improve our baseball community and our efforts to increase the understanding of the game we love. None of these accomplishments would have been possible without your generosity — which is why we hope you will continue and even increase your support today!

We have been busy in the last year at SABR HQ and will continue to pour our energy into notable projects in 2020. Members like you are helping us turn our shared vision into a reality.

You can join the Friends of SABR by making a gift of at least $100 at SABR.org/donate. We will use your best gift of $100, $250, $500, or $1,000 to bring more young people into the world of baseball; to publish groundbreaking books and articles; and to promote research, preservation, and scholarship. In addition, SABR HQ will also donate 10% of all member gifts back to the chapters each donor is affiliated with.

Baseball makes the world better! Thank you so much for believing that and for joining us in this endeavor.

— Scott Bush, SABR CEO

One week left to register 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.

SABR Digital Library: The Babe

The Babe book coverTime to call your shot and add our newest SABR Digital Library baseball book to your collection:

The Babe
Edited by Bill Nowlin and Glen Sparks
Associate editors: Carl Reichers and Len Levin
Introduction by Jane Leavy   
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-9701-5917-2, $9.99 
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9701-5916-5, $29.95
8.5″ x 11″, 312 pages

Click here to read the full description of this book at SABR.org.

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

Having trouble downloading our e-books? To view PDF files on your computer, click here to download the free Adobe Reader software. Having trouble downloading e-books to your Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader or iPad? Click here for additional help.

SABR Digital Library: The Base Ball Palace of the World: Comiskey Park

Comiskey Park book coverFire up the pinwheels and add a baseball book to your collection with our newest title from the SABR Digital Library:

The Base Ball Palace of the World: Comiskey Park
Edited by Gregory H. Wolf
Associate editors: Bill Nowlin, Kevin Larkin, and Len Levin  
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-9701-5915-8, $9.99 
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9701-5914-1, $29.95
8.5″ x 11″, 320 pages

Click here to read the full description of this book at SABR.org.

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

To find more books from the SABR Digital Library, visit SABR.org/ebooks.

Clint Hurdle to speak at Rocky Mountain Chapter’s 22nd annual banquet tomorrow

Clint HurdleThe SABR Rocky Mountain Chapter is pleased to announce that our 22nd Annual Chapter Banquet will be held on Saturday, November 2, 2019. For the fifth consecutive year it will be held at Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. The banquet is open to all SABR members and baseball fans.

Our keynote speaker will be none other than former Rockies and Pirates manager Clint Hurdle. The theme will be a celebration of the 2007 NL Champion Rockies. As usual, we will conduct our Silent Auction of baseball memorabilia and artifacts. We will reprise last year’s popular book sale and feature a special sale of Rockies baseball cards.

Tickets for the banquet are $65 per person and can be purchased online by visiting RMSABR.org and clicking on the “Banquet” tab.

For more information, visit RMSABR.org.

Register now for the 2019 Canadian Baseball History Conference

The fourth annual Canadian Baseball History Conference will be held on November 9-10, 2019, at Museum London in London, Ontario. All baseball fans are invited to attend. The event, which brings together baseball fans and researchers from across the country, is once again being organized by SABR member Andrew North, a longtime Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame volunteer and the co-founder of the Centre for Canadian Baseball Research.

This year’s conference will also include a bus trip to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Marys, Ontario, where attendees will have a chance to visit the newly expanded facility.

The registration fee for the conference is $70, which covers all of the presentations, continental breakfasts both days, a catered lunch on Saturday, and tours of both the Museum London Art Gallery and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

For a complete list of the presentations and for more information, visit http://baseballresearch.ca/london-2019.

Join us in November for Oscar Charleston book signing event at Changing Hands in Phoenix

Oscar Charleston book coverSwing by … introducing Oscar Charleston: Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player:

7:00 p.m., Thursday, November 14, 2019
Changing Hands Bookstore
300 W. Camelback Rd.
Phoenix, AZ 85013

Please join us! As we approach the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro National League, come hear Nick Piecoro, Diamondbacks beat writer for the Arizona Republic, discuss the legacy of the Negro Leagues and its best all-around player, Oscar Charleston, with SABR member Jeremy Beer, author of the new biography, Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player.

The event is free and open to all baseball fans.

Attendees are asked to consider making a tax-deductible donation in support of SABR and our Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project, which funds headstones for Negro Leagues players buried in unmarked graves.

Those who make a donation of $150 or more are invited to attend a free private dinner at Southern Rail, located next door to Changing Hands, immediately afterward with Piecoro, Beer, SABR CEO Scott Bush, and members of the SABR staff. Click here to make a donation online.

If you plan on attending this event, please RSVP to brose@sabr.org by Friday, November 8.

SABRcast with Rob Neyer: Listen to an interview with baseball writer Joe Sheehan

Joe SheehanListen 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!

Visit SABR.org/sabrcast to listen to Episode #31 — our guest this week is Joe Sheehan, a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to The Athletic, FanGraphs, Sports Illustrated, Baseball America, and many other publications. He publishes the popular daily subscription Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter and has written extensively about baseball for the last 25 years.

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. 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.

New team ownership histories: Montreal Expos, Newark Peppers

Montreal ExposThe SABR Team Ownership Histories Project is a joint effort of SABR’s Business of Baseball Committee and the BioProject. The intention is to keep its essays up-to-date and to provide as much detail as possible about the organization and composition of ownership groups, franchise sales, relocations, stadiums, and other issues that provide the financial context for team success on the field.

Two new articles were published this week:

Click here to read all published team ownership histories at SABR.org.

The project has been expanded to include teams from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the Negro Leagues, and the Federal League, as well as defunct 19th-century teams from the American Association, National Association, National League, and Union Association, an expansion pioneered by Charlie Bevis. Click here to read all published stories from the AAGPBL, Federal League, and Negro Leagues. Click on the Defunct 19c Teams tab here to read all other stories from those teams.

Some team articles have been assigned, but anyone who wishes to contribute is encouraged to contact Andy McCue at amccue@sabr.org. To learn more or to read the author guidelines, click here.

1 new SABR biography published

Frank O'ConnorOne new biography was posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 5,020 published biographies. Here is the new bio published this week:

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

Read all bios from Time for Expansion Baseball book online

Time for Expansion Baseball book coverIn Time for Expansion Baseball, edited by Maxwell Kates and Bill Nowlin and published in 2018, we told the story of how each new expansion franchise was formed, built its team, and began play.

Key players from each team’s early years are profiled in this book, from early Angels like Eli Grba and Duke Maas to Senator Tom Sturdivant, from Seattle Pilots Tommy Harper and Lou Piniella to Seattle Mariners Julio Cruz and Rick Jones, and “Mr. Marlin” Jeff Conine and original Rockies catcher Joe Girardi.

You can now read every biography from Time for Expansion Baseball online at the SABR BioProject.

Click here to download your free e-book or get 50% off the paperback edition at SABR.org.

Visit SABR.org/ebooks to find all titles from the SABR Digital Library.

10 new stories published by the SABR Games Project

Jacob deGromTen 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.
  • Read all stories from Met-rospectives book online: In Met-rospectives: A Collection of the Greatest Games in New York Mets History, edited by Brian Wright and Bill Nowlin and published in 2018, we offered Mets fans a chance to soak in some Amazin’ memories with dozens of game stories on the most memorable moments in franchise history. From Tom Terrific and the Miracle Mets to the triumphant 1986 World Series champions and beyond, all of the game summaries from our Met-rospectives book can now be read online at the SABR Games Project. Click here to download your free e-book or get 50% off the paperback edition at SABR.org.

Listen to a new episode of 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, is back for the Hot Stove offseason at a new time! Listen to a new episode at 4:00-5:00 p.m. ET on Saturdays on MLB Network Radio.

This week’s guests are SABR member Tyler Kepner of the New York Times and Zach Rymer of Bleacher Report.

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.

Volunteers needed to help with Sporting News contract card collection

The Sporting News Player Contract Cards project needs volunteers this weekend to help with cleaning up player name and birthdate data on about 4,000 of the 180,000+ cards that will be made available online at LA84.org. This is one of the last tasks that needs to be done before we can go live.

The task is simple enough: put a number in a column on a spreadsheet that identifies the best choice for the last name, and, for extra credit, look at the card contents to see if there is birthdate information and put that in if available. The task takes about 10 seconds per card on average so we are looking for 40,000 seconds of volunteer time, roughly 12 hours in all. If you can spare an hour to work on this, please email F.X. Flinn at FXFlinn@gmail.com.

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
James Barr League City, TX     Mike Lucas Waverly Hall, GA
Jeanette Castellon Inglewood, CA     Will Macht Fairfax Station, VA
Megan Cusey Auburn, IL     K. David Mitchner Webster, KY
Matt Dailey Tallahassee, FL     John Mocek Arlington, TX
Michael Donohue Rockaway Park, NY     Ted Orr Johnson City, TN
Ed Donovan State College, PA     Andy Rupert State College, PA
Nathan Grimes Glendale, AZ     Shonn Showlund Everett, WA
David Kramer Anaheim, CA     Tyler West Chillicothe, OH
Fred Lageschulte St. Joseph, MO     Brian White Winchester, VA
Sarah Langs New York, NY        

 

Research Committee news

There are no 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.

Are you receiving our e-mails? “This Week in SABR” goes out by e-mail to all members on Friday afternoons. If they’re not showing up, try adding “sabr.notes@sabr.org” to your contact list to ensure they show up in your inbox (and not the spam folder.)

 

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Originally published: November 1, 2019. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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