Waterman, 2 incumbents elected to SABR Board of Directors
Members of the Society for American Baseball Research have elected a new Director and re-elected two incumbents to the organization’s Board of Directors.
Bill Nowlin was re-elected as SABR’s Vice President, receiving 693 of 867 first-preference votes. Runner-up candidate Chris Dial received 171 votes. This will be Nowlin’s fifth term as Vice President; he has served on the Board since 2004. Last year, Nowlin was named as recipient of the Bob Davids Award, SABR’s highest honor. He has specialized in Red Sox research since he turned to writing and research in the late 1990s and has published about 30 books and several hundred articles, almost all of which are Red Sox-related. He is one of three founders of Rounder Records, one of America’s most successful independent record labels. He’s traveled widely, visiting more than 125 countries to date, and has recently returned to academia (he taught college for 12 years), offering an online course on “Baseball and Politics” at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Todd Lebowitz was re-elected as SABR’s Secretary in an unopposed race, receiving 799 of 813 first-preference votes. Lebowitz, who was first elected to the SABR Board in 2011 to fill the vacant Secretary seat, has been an attorney with Baker & Hostetler LLP in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1997. He has offered pro bono legal counsel to SABR since 2005, advising on numerous matters relating to intellectual property, contracts, personnel, business strategy and implementation. He has performed legal work for the Cleveland Indians, including drafting player contracts and negotiating terms with player agents, some work for Major League Baseball related to trademark enforcement, and conducted a study entitled “The Effect of Financial Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation: A Study of Long-Term Contracts in Major League Baseball”. He has been a member of SABR since 2000, is part of the Baseball Records, Business of Baseball and Latino Baseball committees, and has assisted other members with legal and historical research, including understanding legal terminology and decisions. He holds a BA in psychology and a law degree, both from the University of Michigan. He lives in Solon, Ohio.
Ty Waterman of Attleboro, Massachusetts, was elected to an open Director’s spot in a close race, receiving 429 first-preference votes out of 845 ballots cast. Runner-up Bill Staples Jr. of Chandler, Arizona, received 407 votes. Waterman will replace outgoing Director Gary Gillette at the conclusion of the Annual Business Meeting, which will be held during the SABR 42 national convention at the Marriott City Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The meeting is scheduled from 8:30-9:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 28, 2012, in Ballrooms 1-2 of the hotel.
Waterman has been a SABR member since 1996 and is a frequent presenter at Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood Chapter meetings. He is the creator of the Great American Fantasy League (GAFL), a baseball simulation board game in which 26 SABR members participate as members of all-time franchise teams. He has attended every SABR national convention since 1999 and was involved in the creation of the Games and Simulation Research Committee in 2010. Waterman is the co-author of The Year The Red Sox Won The World Series: A Chronicle of the 1918 Championship Season, published by Northeastern University Press in 1999. He is a season-ticket holder for the Pawtucket Red Sox Triple-A team and is a strong advocate for minor league baseball. Since 1996, he has worked as a social worker, supervising foster homes in Boston, Massachusetts. He has a bachelor’s degree in Physical Education from the University of Maine, Orono, and a master’s degree in Theology from Boston University.
Special thanks go out to Tellers Committee members Mort Bloomberg, Annie Chaloupka and Bob Flynn for certifying the results on May 22 at the SABR office.
The 2012 SABR elections featured online voting for the third consecutive year as well as traditional paper ballots. A total of 867 votes were received, constituting about 15.67 percent of the membership.
A complete history of SABR’s Board of Directors can be found here.
SABR members can find complete 2012 election results, including write-in candidates and voting totals, posted here.
Originally published: May 23, 2012. Last Updated: May 23, 2012.