This Week in SABR: November 21, 2012

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Welcome to This Week in SABR! Here’s what we’ve been up to as of November 21, 2012:

Joe Posnanski added to 2013 SABR Analytics Conference lineup

We’re happy to announce that National Sportswriter of the Year Joe Posnanski will be a featured speaker at the 2013 SABR Analytics Conference, March 7-9 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Posnanski is a Senior Writer for Sports on Earth, a joint venture between The USA Today Sports Group and Major League Baseball Advanced Media. He was formerly Senior Writer at Sports Illustrated from 2009 to 2012 and a sports columnist for The Kansas City Star from 1996 to 2009. He has been named best sports columnist in America twice by the Associated Press Sports Editors and has been nominated for 21 APSE awards. He has written two books on baseball, The Machine: The Story of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds and The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America.

Other featured speakers expected for the 2013 Analytics Conference are: Stan Kasten, President/CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers; Derrick Hall, President/CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks; and Brian Kenny, MLB Network host. More speakers will be announced soon!

Once again, SABR is bringing together the top minds of the baseball analytic community under one roof to discuss, debate and share insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball for the second annual:

SABR Analytics Conference
presented by Major League Baseball and Bloomberg Sports
March 7-9, 2013
Phoenix, Arizona

The schedule will consist 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.

Conference registration is available now at the SABR Store. Click here to register. The conference is open to all baseball fans.

The 2013 SABR Analytics Conference will be held Thursday, March 7 through Saturday, March 9, 2013, in the Phoenix, Arizona area. The World Baseball Classic will also be in Phoenix that weekend, with first-round games scheduled at Chase Field and Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, and we plan to talk more about global baseball issues at the second annual Analytics Conference.

Some of the topics we are planning to cover include:

  • General Managers Panel on how analytics shapes front-office decisions
  • Measuring Player Performance
  • New innovations in baseball analytics
  • Player Agents — their view of analytics
  • Advances in medical information and its impact on decisions
  • New applications of PITCHf/x data
  • The use of analytics in scouting
  • Player panel — the impact of data and information on performance
  • The International Game — the next hot spot for talent development

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.

The inaugural SABR Analytics Conference in 2012 was an enormous success. For complete coverage of the 2012 SABR Analytics Conference, visit SABR.org/analytics/2012.

Call for papers: 2013 Pitch F/X Summit at SABR Analytics Conference

Our friends at Sportvision encourage interested participants and analysts to submit a paper for presentation at the fifth PITCHf/x Summit at the 2013 SABR Analytics Conference, March 7-9 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Topics related to PITCHf/x, HITf/x, COMMANDf/x and FIELDf/x are welcome. Past topics include Aging Curves, Plate Discipline, Catcher Framing, FIELDf/x Fielder Metrics and many, many more! Further developments in those area as well as new topics are encouraged.

Please submit abstracts and data sample requests via e-mail to Graham Goldbeck.

Sportvision is collaborating with SABR to integrate its PITCHf/x Summit into the SABR Analytics Conference. In its inaugural year, the SABR Analytics Conference attracted an international audience of almost 300 attendees, including MLB front office personnel from 18 teams. Integrating these two popular gatherings of influential baseball analysts and thought leaders will further enhance this event as the premier baseball analytics conference. Sportvision will manage a series of presentations specifically related to f/x data much like the PITCHf/x Summit. The presentations will be integrated with other SABR Analytics talks throughout the course of the event.

Students, get your application in for a Yoseloff Scholarship to attend 2013 SABR Analytics Conference

With generous funding from The Anthony A. Yoseloff Foundation, Inc., SABR will award up to four scholarships to college students who wish to attend the 2013 SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 7-9, 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 student engagement with baseball analytics, and to engender an active interest in baseball research and SABR. The Yoseloff scholarship is to assist young researchers who want to attend SABR’s Analytics Conference and to introduce them to fellow SABR members and professionals within the baseball community. Through this fund, SABR hopes to inspire future baseball research, expose students to high-quality research and build the research capability of interested students.

For details on the scholarship requirements or to download an application form, click here. 

Please note: Participants in the Diamond Dollars Case Competition are not eligible for the Yoseloff scholarship.

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.

The SABR Bookshelf: Fall 2012

Periodically throughout the year, SABR.org publishes listings of new books that are received at the SABR office. This feature is called The SABR Bookshelf, continuing a popular section from the old SABR Bulletin.

Here are The SABR Bookshelf listings for Fall 2012:

http://sabr.org/content/sabr-bookshelf-fall-2012

To get your NEW book listed on The SABR Bookshelf, make sure a review copy is sent to: The SABR Bookshelf, Society for American Baseball Research, 4455 E. Camelback Rd., Ste. D-140, Phoenix, AZ 85018.

To ensure a listing in The Baseball Index — SABR’s online catalog of baseball research materials at www.baseballindex.org — make sure a review copy is sent to The Baseball Index, 4025 Beechwood Pl., Riverside, CA 92506.

Bolded names indicates that the author(s) is a SABR member. Click here for a list of publishers found in the SABR Bookshelf, along with their contact information.

Click the link above for more detailed information on each of these books:

  • Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes, by John Rosengren 
  • Small Town Baseball, Big League Dreams, by Bob Meyer 
  • Images of America: Baseball in Orange County, by Chris Epting
  • Deacon Bill McKechnie: A Baseball Biography, by Mitchell Conrad Stinson
  • Reasoning with Sabermetrics: Applying Statistical Science to Baseball’s Tough Questions, by Gabriel B. Costa, Michael R. Huber and John T. Saccoman
  • Arlie Latham: A Baseball Biography of the Freshest Man on Earth, by L.M. Sutter
  • Kid Nichols: A Biography of the Hall of Fame Pitcher, by Richard Bogovich
  • Hazen “Kiki” Cuyler: A Baseball Biography, by Ronald T. Waldo
  • Big Klu: The Baseball Life of Ted Kluszewski, by William A. Cook
  • Players and Teams of the National Association, 1871-1875, by Paul Batesel
  • Occasional Glory: The History of the Philadelphia Phillies, Second Edition, by David M. Jordan
  • Baseball Hall of Fame Autographs: A Reference Guide, by Ron Keurajian 
  • When Baseball Was Still King: Major League Players Remember the 1950s, by Gene Fehler
  • New York Versus New York, 1962: The Birth of the Yankees-Mets Rivalry, by Bill Morales
  • Baseball and Social Class: Essays on the Democractic Game that Isn’t, edited by Ronald E. Kates and Warren Tormey
  • Making It in the Minors: A Team Owner’s Lessons in the Business of Baseball, by Arthur P. Solomon with Allyn I. Freeman
  • Baseball Myths: Debating, Debunking and Disproving Tales From the Diamond, by Bill Deane
  • Cellar Dwellers: The Worst Teams in Baseball History, by Jonathan Weeks
  • Family Ties: A Comprehensive Collection of Facts and Trivia About Baseball’s Relatives, by Richard A. Cuicchi
  • The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych, by Doug Wilson
  • Sandlot Stats: Learning Statistics With Baseball, by Stanley Rothman
  • The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2013, edited by Dave Studenmund
  • Red Sox By The Numbers, by Bill Nowlin and Matthew Silverman
  • Bucky: A Story of Baseball in the Deadball Era, by Fred W. Veil
  • Fenway Park at 100: Baseball’s Hometown, by Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime
  • Golden Boys: Baseball Portraits, 1946-1960, by Andy Jurinko and Christopher Jennison
  • Baseball’s Biggest Miracle: The 1914 Boston Braves, by John Holway with Frank Ceresi

All new SABR Bookshelf listings can be purchased at the SABR Bookstore, powered by Amazon.com. In addition, check out new books published by SABR at SABR.org/ebooks.

2012 season data now available at Retrosheet

A note from SABR member David W. Smith, founder of Retrosheet.org:

I am pleased to announce that the Retrosheet website has had its fall update with many additions and revisions.

1. The 2012 season data are now available and player pages are up to date with this information.

2. Play by play files have been added for both leagues for 1946, 1945 and for the 1931 AL. In each case, we have between half and two thirds of the games, but those have all received our standard rigorous proofing of comparing totals against the official totals on a daily basis. The 1931 project received great help from Cliff Blau, who input many games into our computer format, Walter LeConte, who scanned hundreds of games from St. Louis newspapers, and Clem Comly who entered the games Walter collected and also did all the early stages of the proofing.

3. This proofing has led to the discovery of many discrepancies with the official totals and all are thoroughly documented on our site. Also, the 1948 and 1949 seasons have had their discrepancies completed to encompass all the games we have posted for those years.

4. Tom Ruane has completed the careful processing of the 1915 AL and NL official daily data to create his excellent, detailed box scores for that season. This information has also been incorporated into the player pages. The 1915 Federal League is not included yet, but work is underway there as well.

5. David Vincent has undertaken a systematic review of event files from the present back to 1972 and is continuing to work on earlier seasons. He has not only standardized the syntax of events of many cases, but also added details for hundreds of ejections. To do this, he created a new type of comment record which documents each of these events in a consistent format. The ejectee, his role (player, manager, coach), the umpire and a brief description of the reason are in each record. David has been helped by some others who researched details: Rich Carletti, Paul Golba, and Trent McCotter have been especially helpful in this regard.

As always, we work very hard to make all parts of our data as accurate as possible. However, with the huge amount of information on our site, there are bound to be some glitches. Our loyal readers have always been tremendously helpful in alerting us to issues that we need to address. I ask you to please continue that help and send any questions you have to me or to our webmaster, Mark Pankin.

For more information, visit Retrosheet.org.

Call for SABR award nominations

  • Larry Ritter Award, due 12/31/2012: Each year, SABR’s Deadball Era Committee presents the Larry Ritter Book Award to recognize the best new book primarily set in the Deadball Era that was published during the previous calendar year. The award is presented during the committee’s meeting at the annual SABR convention. If you have a book to nominate with a 2012 publication date, contact Gail Rowe at growes36@comcast.net by December 31, 2012. Deadline for receipt of nominated books by the committee is January 16, 2013. 
  • SABR Baseball Research Award, due 1/31/2013: The SABR Baseball Research Award (formerly the Sporting News-SABR Baseball Research Award) honors those whose outstanding research projects completed during the preceding calendar year have significantly expanded our knowledge or understanding of baseball. To submit a nomination for the 2012 awards, please contact Steve Gietschier at sgietsch@gmail.com.
  • McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, due 2/15/2013: The McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award honors the authors of the best articles on baseball history or biography completed or published during the preceding calendar year. To submit a nomination for the 2012 awards, please contact Len Levin at lenlevin5@hotmail.com.

2013 “The National Pastime”: Call for Papers

The 2013 issue of The National Pastime, our annual convention journal, will be published at SABR 43 in Philadelphia next summer.

Our theme will be baseball in the Philadelphia area (the Tri-State area of Southeast Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Delaware.) We are looking for submissions dealing with various levels of baseball from Little League and sandlot ball to all levels of professional leagues. Philly has a rich tradition of baseball from its early beginnings in the 1830s, to the National League and American Association Athletics, to Connie Mack’s A’s, the Hilldale Daisies, the Philadelphia Bobbies, the Philadelphia Stars and, of course, the Phillies. We are looking to provide a broad perspective of Philadelphia baseball from its early years to the present day.

If you are interested in submitting an article, please send an abstract to Morris Levin. Please include not only your topic, but why it interests you, and how you are qualified to research it. What sources do you plan to use? A typical article in The National Pastime runs 2,000 to 5,000 words. Upon receipt of your abstract, we will forward a copy of the SABR guidelines for submission of papers.

All interested authors should make sure their SABR membership is up to date. It is longstanding SABR policy that only the work of SABR members is published in our journals. You can renew your membership online at members.sabr.org before you submit your paper.

To read articles from this year’s The National Pastime, focusing on baseball in Minnesota, click here. The TNP archives can be found here.

You can also follow the SABR Connie Mack Chapter on its new Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/SabrConnieMackChapter

More events added to SABR Day 2013 page

The fourth annual SABR Day is coming up sooner than you think: January 26, 2013. We’re starting to compile details now on 2013 SABR Day chapter meetings around the country. We’ll post them as soon as we get them at SABR.org/sabrday. Chapter leaders, please send your SABR Day plans to Jacob Pomrenke at jpomrenke@sabr.org.

Regional SABR meetings are open to all baseball fans and are usually free to attend, so bring a friend! Guest speakers often include current and former baseball players, managers, umpires, executives, scouts, writers and authors.

Check back soon at SABR.org/sabrday for more information on a SABR Day meeting close to you.

1 new biography published by the SABR BioProject

One new biography was posted as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 2,122 published biographies.

Here is the new bio:

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

You can find the SABR BioProject at its new home page: SABR.org/BioProject.

1960 Pirates biographer needed: SABR is working on a BioProject book about  the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates, and we need a biographer for Bennie Daniels. The SABR member who was working on Daniels had to undergo surgery and is unable to work on Daniels during his recovery. He has asked that someone else take over the work, but would be glad to supply some materials. If you want to be part of this book, and think you could complete this bio by the end of the year, please contact Bill Nowlin at bnowlin@rounder.com.

Bios on more than just ballplayers: Many of us have researched a ballplayer’s life outside of baseball and found their spouses’ lives to be equally compelling. Their stories deserve to be told, too. So in addition to Broadcasters, Executives, Managers, Scouts, etc., we recently added a new Spouses category to the BioProject website. You can browse all of these categories, and more, at http://sabr.org/bioproj/browse. So if you’ve ever thought, “Hey, that ballplayer’s wife should get the full BioProject treatment herself” — write the story and we’ll publish it!

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.

It’s time to renew your SABR membership

As you probably know by now, we switched to the “rolling calendar” membership system last year. Anyone who joined SABR before then — which is most of you — should renew your SABR membership before December 31 as you’ve done in the past. Thanks again for all your support.

You can renew your membership for 1 year or 3 years online at the SABR Store; by phone at (602) 343-6450; or by mailing this downloadable PDF form and your payment to the SABR office at 4455 E. Camelback Road, Ste. D-140, Phoenix, AZ 85018.

Dues are the same as they have been in recent years: for this, you get three high-quality research publications (two issues of the Baseball Research Journal and one issue of The National Pastime); deep discounts to all publications in the SABR Digital Library; access to research resources such as Paper of Record (with complete archives of The Sporting News); discounts to SABR conferences such as the national convention (Philadelphia 2013), the SABR Analytics Conference, the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference, and the Arizona Fall League Conference; access to a growing network of SABR baseball community, including our 27 research committees and 60+ regional chapters.

We believe SABR has something for everyone, from the active researcher to someone passionate about baseball. We hope you’ll invite your friends, colleagues and family members to join at http://store.sabr.org.

Donate to SABR and support the future of baseball research

This has probably been SABR’s most active year since our founding in 1971. We held our first Analytics Conference in March and are busily planning for the next one in March of 2013. Our deal with Major League Baseball Advanced Media provides a far-reaching outlet for our research. SABR 42 in Minneapolis was a tremendous success, and we are looking forward to SABR 43 in Philadelphia. On top of that we published three research journals, the Emerald Guide, and several e-books, continued to build our digital content, and held conferences covering the Negro Leagues, the Arizona Fall League, and 19th Century Baseball.

In the coming year we plan to do all of the above, plus publish a major book on the history of baseball broadcasting, continue to expand the BioProject, and create more team biography books. All of this is made possible by our strong professional staff in Phoenix and our all-star team of volunteer members around the world.

Of course, accomplishing all of this requires funding beyond the annual dues we all pay. The dues allow SABR to survive; it is donations from people like you that help us thrive. Since 2004 we have asked for, and have been fortunate to receive, additional funding from members who believe in what SABR does and can afford to give something extra. Also since 2004, we continue to say thank you to our donors by offering them small gifts to show the appreciation felt by all of our members who care about what we do in support of the greatest game on earth.

SABR is a 501(c)3 organization, which means your donation is tax deductible in the U.S. to the fullest extent of the law.

THE DONOR PROGRAM*

  • $25-$99: receive a “Donor” convention badge ribbon entitling early entry into the SABR Convention Awards Banquet
  • $100-$249: receive the above benefit plus a ticket to the SABR Convention Donor Breakfast that features a “State of SABR” presentation by our executive leadership
  • $250-$499: receive all of the above benefits plus the new SABR Lapel Pin
  • $500-$1,499: receive all of the above benefits plus a SABR MVP Polo Shirt
  • $1,500-$2,499: receive all of the above benefits plus a junior suite upgrade at the SABR Convention hotel
  • $2,500 and up: receive all of the above plus an executive level room upgrade at the SABR Convention hotel.

*convention-related premiums assume payment of registration fees and attendance

Please join me in supporting SABR and send your donation to the address above, or by visiting SABR.org and pressing the convenient DONATE button. By doing so you help SABR fulfill its mission and increase the impact of our baseball analysis and historical study.

— Paul Hirsch

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.

Here is a list of new members:

Name Hometown     Name Hometown
Evan Bladh South San Francisco, CA     Mark Rucker Peachland, BC
Matthew Clifford Mendota, IL     Ichiro Shinohara Tokyo, JP
Tim Fodge Dayton, OH     Joseph Shroba Fort Collins, CO
David Matsumura Chicago, IL     Joe Zanino Walworth, NY
Rob Nee West Roxbury, MA     Alexander Zweig New York, NY
William Norem Seattle, WA        

 

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 recaps

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: November 20, 2012. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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