This Week in SABR: October 14, 2011

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Here’s what we’ve been up to as of October 14, 2011:

Exciting schedule on deck for AFL conference

The lineup for the third annual SABR Arizona Fall League Conference, scheduled for November 3-5, 2011, at the Hilton Phoenix East/Mesa, is shaping up to be an impressive one. Conference attendees will see:

  • Four AFL games, including the premier Rising Stars Game on November 5 in Surprise and games at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick and Hohokam Park in Mesa.
  • Major League Alumni Awards Dinner, featuring Roland Hemond, Laurel Prieb, Dustin Pedroia, Steve Cobb and Clint Meyers.
  • A tour of the “Play Ball: The Cactus League Experience” museum exhibit at the Arizona Historical Society in Tempe
  • A tour of Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks
  • Flame Delhi Chapter meeting, with MLB.com writer Barry Bloom and former major league umpire Travis Katzenmeier

To register: Registration for the conference is available now at the SABR Store: $125 for SABR members and guests, or $159 for nonmembers. The conference is open to all baseball fans.

To book your room: The Hilton Phoenix East/Mesa is at 1011 West Holmes Avenue, Mesa, AZ 85210. SABR has reserved a block of rooms for $99/night (plus tax) for the nights of November 1 through November 8. Click here to book your room online or call (800) 544-5866 and tell them you’re registering for the SABR Arizona Fall League Conference. Conference attendees will receive complimentary parking, complimentary breakfast buffet (for up to two people per room) and complimentary wireless high-speed Internet in guest rooms. Please book your room by October 18 — next Tuesday — to guarantee a spot.

Almost time to renew your membership

Most of you should have received an e-mail on Thursday with information on how to renew your SABR membership, which expires on December 31*.

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 publications (two issues of the Baseball Research Journal and one issue of The National Pastime); 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 (Minneapolis 2012), the Arizona Fall League Conference, the spring Baseball Analytics Conference and Case Competition, and the summer Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference; access to a growing network of SABR baseball community, including our 26 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.

* All members are on the “rolling” calendar system as of August 1, 2011. If you signed up before that date and continue to renew, your membership will expire annually on December 31 as it always has.

Silver anniversary of a memorable postseason

SABR member Mark Simon, ESPN’s Baseball Research Specialist and New York Mets historian, is spending the next three weeks reminiscing about the 1986 postseason, which ended in the Mets’ second World Series championship. You can find his stories here:

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/mets/tag/_/name/1986-mets

Here’s a sampling:

The 1986 Mets were a great team, but they were very, very fortunate to escape the 1986 NLCS, arguably the best of the LCS’s that have been played since the format began in 1969.

As we look back 25 years later, we have to acknowledge that the Mets were very lucky just to get past a very good Astros team. …

In the history of postseason play, which dates back to 1903, only two teams have won a postseason series in which they finished with an OPS below .500. One is the 1918 Red Sox, a team most famous for being the last to win the World Series before the Curse of the Bambino set in. The other is the 1986 Mets. …

The Mets never led in Games 1 or 4 of the NLCS, which they lost, never led in Games 3 or 5 until the game-ending plays, and didn’t lead in Game 6 until the 14th inning, an advantage that lasted for a total of two hitters.

The Mets were outhit, outwalked, outhomered, allowed more extra base hits, had fewer walks, fewer steals, and struck out 17 more times in the 1986 NLCS. Yet they somehow outscored the Astros, 21-17 because they got a few timely hits (see Len Dykstra’s walk-off home run) and got a few breaks (that would foreshadow those they would get in the World Series).

Friday’s post commemorated the 25th anniversary of Gary Carter’s go-ahead RBI single in the 12th inning of Game 5. Tomorrow, Mark will have a story on the epic 16-inning battle between the Mets and Astros in Game 6, so stay tuned for that.

Three new biographies posted at SABR BioProject

Three new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, bringing us to a total of 1,685 published biographies.

All new biographies can be found here: http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=n&m=61

Writing a biography for the BioProject is an easy way to get involved as a SABR member. Find out how by visiting our BioProject Resources page or reading the FAQs section.

1914 Braves biographers needed: We’ve got some players who need a biographer for the 1914 Boston Braves project: Gene Cocrehan, Ensign Cottrell, Dick Crutcher, Tommy Griffith, Otto Hess, Billy Martin, Jim Murray, Paul Strand, Fred Tyler and Possum Whitted. If you are interested in writing any of these biographies, please get in touch with Bill Nowlin at bnowlin@rounder.com.

Armstrong added to Rocky Mountain Chapter banquet festivities

SABR’s Rocky Mountain Chapter will hold its 14th annual chapter banquet on November 4 at the Denver Athletic Club. Cocktails begin at 6 p.m., dinner and program at 7. The banquet will take place in the Grand Ballroom of the DAC, 1325 Glenarm Place, Denver, CO 80204.

John Thorn, Official Historian of Major League Baseball, will be the keynote speaker. Rob Neyer, baseball editor at SB Nation, will be the featured speaker.

Jim Armstrong, the Denver Post’s Rockies beat writer, will serve as master of ceremonies.

For more information, contact Paul Parker or visit RMSABR.org. For a downloadable PDF registration form, click here.

SABR internship opportunities

  • In Phoenix: The SABR office is seeking an intern with journalism and multimedia skills for the spring of 2012. The ideal candidate will produce and edit content to be displayed on our website at SABR.org, working with our Web Content Editor/Producer and other staff members. This internship will include responsibilities across a variety of disciplines. This internship is an unpaid educational opportunity, covering 15-20 hours per week (flexible schedule), at the SABR office in Phoenix, Arizona. The internship will be for a fixed period of time and is designed to provide the intern with skills and training that may be applicable to working in a nonprofit research environment or in other research-based organizations. No housing assistance will be provided. Internships may count toward college credit. Please send a resume, cover letter and 4-6 samples of published articles in PDF form by 12 p.m. MST November 15 to jpomrenke@sabr.org.
  • In Boston: As SABR moves into the frontier of e-books and digital distribution, our Publications Director, Cecilia Tan, is looking for Boston-area interns to help grow the program. (She works out of a home office in Cambridge, Massachusetts.) The ideal candidate should be a current college student or recent graduate who knows baseball and is interested in exploring a career in publishing, editing or journalism/writing. Good writing skills and knowledge of computers are musts. To apply, send the following by e-mail to ctan@sabr.org as a Word .doc attachment: a cover letter introducing yourself; your resume; a short writing sample up to 5 pages (class paper, blog entry, article, etc.); your predictions for who will win the 2012 World Series including a short explanation of your pick. Deadline for applications: October 25. The internship runs 12 weeks, either the winter term (Nov/Dec/Jan) or spring (Feb/Mar/Apr) and can be adjusted to fit a semester schedule.

Chapter meeting recaps

If you would like to include your chapter meeting recap in “This Week in SABR”, please e-mail a notice to Jacob Pomrenke.

Upcoming SABR events:

In other recent SABR news:

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

Find more information about SABR and SABR.org at the Members’ Info page here: http://sabr.org/about/members-info.

If you would like us to include an upcoming event, article or any other information in “This Week in SABR”, please send an e-mail to Jacob Pomrenke.


Originally published: October 14, 2011. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.

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