This Week in SABR: June 26, 2020

June 26, 2020/in This Week in SABR /by Jacob Pomrenke

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 June 26, 2020:

Registration now open for SABR Virtual online conference in July

Baseball fans, join us throughout the month of July 2020 for SABR Virtual, a series of online presentations, chats, and panel discussions featuring authors, scholars, and figures from around the game.

Registration is now open at SABR.org/virtual-meetings for each SABR Virtual session.

SABR Virtual sessions are scheduled each weekend from Thursday, July 9 to Sunday, July 26, highlighted by:

Nearly 40 research presentations on all aspects of baseball, past and present, from the major leagues, minor leagues, and Negro Leagues
Half a Century in Half an Hour: SABR’s 50 at 50 Project, with Leslie Heaphy, John Thorn, and Jason Schwartz
Evaluating Baseball Art: Storytelling in a Digital Age, with Graig Kreindler, Anika Orrock, Dick Perez, and Anthony Salazar
MLB Diversity Initiatives and Social Justice Resources, with Tyrone Brooks and Corey Smith
Annual Business Meeting on Saturday, July 11, with Bob Davids Award announcement to follow (SABR’s Board of Directors welcomes any questions from members; please fill out our online form to submit a question in advance)
Online raffle in which all SABR members will have the opportunity to win baseball memorabilia

SABR members will have first priority to reserve their spot for each daily two-hour session, which are limited to the first 100 participants. Sessions will be opened to all baseball fans based on availability. Recordings will be available for all baseball fans to view afterward on SABR’s YouTube channel.

Visit SABR.org/virtual-meetings to find the full schedule and register for each session.

Check out MLB social justice resource guide

Major League Baseball has put together a social justice resource guide to help baseball fans learn more about promoting and supporting an inclusive environment for everyone to enjoy the game we all love.

Visit MLB.com/diversity-and-inclusion/social-justice to learn more.

New SABR website highlights 50 years of groundbreaking baseball research

Our new design at SABR.org, which relaunched last week, enhances the user experience and provides greater visual appeal, while a new search engine will better connect SABR’s rich content archive from our first 50 years.

Thousands of stories from SABR’s Research Collection are now available online, showcasing the breadth and depth of our members’ groundbreaking work on all aspects of baseball, from the sport’s early origins to the Negro Leagues to sabermetric analysis of the modern game. Here are some highlights that you can find on the Research Collection page:

Baseball Research Journal archives: Nearly every article from SABR’s flagship publication over the past half-century can be found online, including the newest edition from Spring 2020. All Baseball Research Journal articles from SABR’s first decade (1972 to 1981) is searchable online, as are the complete BRJ archives from 2010 to the present. More articles will be added to the website over time. Almost all editions of the journal can also be downloaded as PDF e-book editions.
The National Pastime archives: Since 2009, The National Pastime has served as SABR’s convention-focused publication, with all articles available online through last summer’s SABR 49 convention in San Diego. From 1982 to 2008, the magazine was intended as a more literary outlet for SABR members to publish their research, in comparison to the more statistically inclined Baseball Research Journal.
Baseball Biography Project: More than 5,000 published biographies of baseball figures from around the game can be found at the SABR BioProject. But SABR members write about a lot more than just ballplayers. You can also browse through our new category pages to learn more about Ballparks, Broadcasters, Executives, Games, Managers, Scouts, Spouses, Umpires, Writers, people who were Famous Outside Baseball, and a lot more.
Games Project: The SABR Games Project was formed in 2014 to research, write, and publish accounts of major-league regular season, postseason, and All-Star Games, along with other games of historical significance such as Negro Leagues games, no-hitters, four home-run games, Opening Day games, and hitting for the cycle, or all stories from SABR Digital Library books such as Inventing Baseball: The Greatest Games of the 19th Century or Wrigley Field: The Friendly Confines at Clark and Addison.
Oral History Collection: The SABR Oral History Collection at oralhistory.sabr.org includes hundreds of interviews conducted with ballplayers (Major Leagues, Minor Leagues, Negro Leagues, AAGBBL), executives, scouts, authors, writers, broadcasters, and other figures of historical baseball significance. These interviews, some of which date back more than 50 years, were conducted by members of SABR’s Oral History Research Committee and were digitized through a collaboration with the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.
SABR Digital Library: More than 70 publications on all aspects of baseball are available as free e-book downloads for SABR members through the SABR Digital Library. SABR members can also take a 50% discount when purchasing the paperback edition of these titles, which include books on such varied subjects as Babe Ruth, the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, the complete history of the Winter Meetings, Puerto Ricans in baseball, umpires, scouts, the New York Mets’ most memorable games, the first half-century of the Kansas City Royals and San Diego Padres, and the Federal League. Find them all at SABR.org/ebooks.
Research Resources: This extensive page of research tools is a SABR member benefit. Log in to SABR.org/research/resources to find resources such as Paper of Record (The Sporting News archives), The Baseball Index, Guide to Sabermetric Research, SABR Defensive Index, The Sporting News Contract Card Collection, Triple Plays Database, and much more.
How to Do Baseball Research: Whether you’re just starting out or an experienced author, check out SABR’s Baseball Research Handbook for tips and techniques on all aspects of baseball research.

The Research Collection highlights SABR’s immense value to our members and the broader baseball community. The new SABR.org website will also serve as home to an upcoming series of SABR 50 at 50 web features that shine a light on baseball’s evolution over the past half-century.

With a growing audience of nearly 2.5 million annual visitors, SABR.org highlights the organization’s passionate community of baseball fans, which includes everyone from academics to professional sportswriters to amateur historians and statisticians to students and casual fans who enjoy reading about baseball history and gathering with other members at local chapter events and national conferences to learn more about the game we all love.

We hope you’ll take a spin around SABR.org and check out the many great articles, resources, and benefits available to SABR members and all baseball fans online. If you haven’t visited in a while, SABR members can log in to the members-only area at profile.sabr.org using your e-mail address (username) and password.

Read all articles from the Spring 2020 Baseball Research Journal online

Good news! The Spring 2020 edition of the Baseball Research Journal is now available to read online:

Click here to read the Spring 2020 Baseball Research Journal at SABR.org

Those of you who receive the print edition should find your BRJ arriving in the next few weeks. For digital subscribers, the e-book edition was delivered to your inboxes on Wednesday, June 24.

To read more articles from the BRJ archives, our flagship publication for nearly the past half-century, click here.

To learn more about contributing to a future SABR publication, click here.

We hope you enjoy reading the Spring 2020 Baseball Research Journal!

SABR Digital Library: Harvey’s Wallbangers: The 1982 Milwaukee Brewers

Add a pennant-winning baseball book to your collection from the SABR Digital Library:

Harvey’s Wallbangers: The 1982 Milwaukee Brewers
Edited by Gregory H. Wolf
Associate Editors: Len Levin, Bill Nowlin, and Carl Riechers
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-970159-27-1, $34.95
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-970159-26-4, $9.99
8.5” x 11”, 407 pages

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

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of Harvey’s Wallbangers for FREE from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, Kindle/MOBI and EPUB formats.
Paperback: Get a 50% discount on the Harvey’s Wallbangers paperback edition from the SABR Store ($17.95 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Kindle Direct Publishing can take up to 4-6 weeks.)

SABR members can download all Digital Library e-books for free or get 50% off the paperback editions. Find past titles at SABR.org/ebooks.

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.

Get a 25% discount on pre-orders of new SABR 50 at 50 book

Baseball has seen many changes in the last 50 years, and SABR’s 50th anniversary provides an opportunity to highlight the most memorable players, teams, and events from the game’s glorious past.

SABR 50 at 50: The Society for American Baseball Research’s Fifty Most Essential Contributions to the Game, edited by Bill Nowlin and now available for pre-order from the University of Nebraska Press, celebrates and highlights SABR’s wide-ranging contributions to baseball history.

SABR members can get a 25% discount off the cover price by using the discount code 6SFF when ordering at nebraskapress.unl.edu or calling 800-848-6224. (To order outside of North America, please call +44 (0)1423 526350 and use the discount code CS40UNP.)

Click here to read the full announcement at SABR.org.

Join us for more Stay Home With SABR virtual events

SABR chapters and committees are encouraged to set up virtual meetings to stay engaged with our members throughout the world at SABR.org, as part of our Stay Home With SABR initiative to assist in limiting the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

This week, we heard from former MLB pitcher and Houston Astros TV analyst Mike Stanton and author Justin DiBiase.

Here are some more upcoming virtual events you can “attend” online:

June 27: Allan Roth (L.A.) Chapter meeting with author Ron Rapoport and SABR CEO Scott Bush (10:00 a.m. PDT)
June 27: Sweet Lou Johnson Lexington Chapter meeting (1:00 p.m. EDT)
June 27: Hemond-Delhi Arizona Chapter meeting (1:00 p.m. MST)
June 28: Baseball Cards Committee meeting with Micah Johnson, Nick Vossbrink, Scott Hodges, and Jason Schwartz (4:00 p.m. EDT)
June 28: Detroit Chapter book club meeting (7:00 p.m. EDT)
June 29: Women in Baseball Committee meeting with umpires Perry Barber, Lisa Turbitt, and The Fairlady (7:00 p.m. EDT)
June 29: Juan Marichal (D.R.) Chapter meeting (8:00 p.m. EDT)
June 29: Pandemic Baseball Book Club panel with authors Jon Pessah, Jason Turbow, Dale Tafoya, Mitch Nathanson, John Shea, and Justin McGuire (8:00 p.m. EDT)
July 1: Baltimore Babe Ruth Chapter meeting with author Thomas Stone (7:00 p.m. EDT)

Find more upcoming virtual meetings and watch replays of past events on our SABR Virtual Calendar page.

Last call: Cast your vote for the 2020 SABR Overlooked 19th Century Base Ball Legend

Each year, SABR’s Nineteenth Century Research Committee selects its Overlooked 19th Century Base Ball Legend — a 19th century player, manager, executive or other baseball personality not yet inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Committee members vote to narrow down the ballot to 12 finalists, then all SABR members are eligible to cast a vote for the winner. The winner will be announced in July during a Nineteenth Century Committee virtual meeting.

This December, the Hall of Fame’s Early Baseball Committee will meet and vote on eligible candidates for induction whose greatest contributions to the game were realized prior to 1950. This committee is not scheduled to vote again for 10 more years, until 2030.

2020 finalists: Earlier this year, members of the Nineteenth Century Research Committee selected the finalists for the 2020 Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend. Click here to download a PDF with the finalists’ bios, compiled by project co-chairs Adam Darowski and Joe Williams. Voting in the final election will run until June 29, and will be open to all SABR members.
Vote now! Click here to access the 2020 ballot. All SABR members are eligible to vote in the election for this year’s Overlooked 19th Century Legend. You *MUST* select five candidates — ranking them from first choice to fifth choice — from among the candidates presented. You are only allowed to vote once. ALL BALLOTS MUST BE CAST PRIOR TO 11:59 p.m. PDT on Monday, June 29, 2020.

Click here for a list of past winners or to learn more about the project.

Call for papers: 2020 SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference

SABR and the International Women’s Baseball Center have announced a call for papers for the second annual SABR/IWBC Women in Baseball Conference, scheduled for September 11-13, 2020, at Rockford University in Rockford, Illinois.

This year’s conference theme is celebrating African American women in baseball. All topics related to women’s baseball and the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues are welcome for individual oral and poster presentations.

Please submit abstracts of approximately 200 words, along with contact information and a short biography, by July 15, 2020, to Leslie Heaphy at Lheaphy@kent.edu.

Click here to read the full announcement at SABR.org.

SABR office continuing to work remotely

The SABR office, housed at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, Arizona, has been closed indefinitely due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) situation. Staff members will work remotely until it is advisable to resume normal operations on-site.

Please contact a member of the SABR staff by email or phone with any questions.

SABRcast with Rob Neyer: Listen to an interview with author David Nemec

Baseball fans, tune in this season to SABRcast with Rob Neyer, a weekly podcast hosted by award-winning author and longtime SABR member Rob Neyer.

Episode #65 on Monday, June 22 featured David Nemec, author of a newly updated edition of The Official Rules of Baseball Illustrated and many other baseball books. He is a 2015 recipient of SABR’s Henry Chadwick Award, honoring baseball’s greatest researchers, and he is best known for his work in the field of 19th-century baseball history.

Visit SABR.org/sabrcast to listen to the full episode.

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. To learn more, visit SABR.org/sabrcast.

4 new SABR biographies published

Four new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project. Here are the new bios published this week:

Dolly Gray, by Chris Rainey
Nick Testa, by Chris Rainey
Fred Winchell, by Aidan Jackson-Evans (first-time author)
Kerry Wood, by Steve Dunn

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

Find any SABR biography: You can visit sabr.org/bioproject to search for any player — or manager, executive, scout, spouse, broadcaster, or umpire — who appears in the SABR BioProject. In addition, we have pages for Ballparks, Broadcasters, Executives, Games, Managers, Scouts, Spouses, Umpires, Writers, people who were Famous Outside Baseball, and a lot more.

5 new stories published by the SABR Games Project

Five new game stories were posted this week as part of the SABR Games Project. Here are the new game stories:

September 29, 1955: Tommy Byrne’s pitching gives Yankees 2-0 lead in World Series, by Thomas J. Brown Jr.
August 7, 1963: Jim Hickman becomes first Mets batter to hit for the cycle, by Mike Huber
June 21, 1974: Randy Moffitt makes first, and only, career major-league start for Giants, by Jack Zerby
July 10, 1999: Vizquel’s walk-off home run salvages Candiotti’s return to Cleveland, by Ray Danner (first-time author)
August 2, 2019: Weird baseball: Phillies pitcher Velasquez records an outfield assist while position player pitches, by Laura H. Peebles

New Games Project stories can be found 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.
Social media: Follow the SABR Games Project on Twitter or Facebook to keep up with new stories and updates.

Listen to recent episodes 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 at a new time. Listen to new episodes at 4:00-5:00 p.m. ET on Saturdays on MLB Network Radio.

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.

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.

Name	Hometown	Name	Hometown
Bill Bauer	Madison, WI	John Monti	Boca Raton, FL
Tom Bowen	Dallas, TX	Thomas Moore	Linden, CA
David Boyer	Biltmore Lake, NC	Tom Nardacci	Loudonville, NY
Michael Corcoran	Portsmouth, NH	Kenneth Nichols	Oswego, NY
Tim Deeth	Toronto, ON	Edward Nixon	Everett, WA
Eric Dewberry	Mooresville, NC	Rich Rhoades	Brookville, PA
Joseph Dorinson	Brooklyn, NY	Joe Ross	Nashua, NH
Robert Eres	Chandler, AZ	Kyle Sammin	Cheltenham, PA
The Fairlady	New Port Richey, FL	Jonathan Soliz	McAllen, TX
Andrew Follo	Newington, CT	Paul Sullivan	Palo Alto, CA
Michael Gold	Columbia, MO	Allan Tamm	Lopez Island, WA
Thomas Griesedieck	Oklahoma City, OK	Bob Trostler	Norwich, CT
Sean Hite	Raleigh, NC	Alex Tucker	Littleton, CO
Jared Kerstein	Dallas, TX	Russ Walsh	Morrisville, PA
Kibby Kleiman	Oakland, CA	Natalie Wells	Manhasset, NY
Meg Madden	Washington, DC	Claire Wilson	New Canaan, CT
Bill McCune	Naples, FL

Research Committee news

Here are the new research committee updates this week:

Black Sox Scandal: June 2020 newsletter
Collegiate Baseball: Spring/Summer 2020 newsletter (and Excel supplement)
Nineteenth Century: Summer 2020 newsletter

Find all SABR research committee newsletters at SABR.org/research/committees.

Regional Chapter news

Here are the new regional chapter updates this week:

Boston Chapter: Read a new “Dispatches From the Mudville Bureau,” by Joanne Hulbert (Boston, MA)
Boston Chapter: June 25 meeting recap (Boston, MA)
Ted Williams Chapter: June 2020 newsletter (San Diego, CA)

Visit SABR.org/chapters for more information on SABR regional chapters.

SABR Virtual Events Calendar

Here are the upcoming virtual events on the SABR calendar:

June 27: Allan Roth (L.A.) Chapter meeting with author Ron Rapoport and SABR CEO Scott Bush (10:00 a.m. PDT)
June 27: Sweet Lou Johnson Lexington Chapter meeting (1:00 p.m. EDT)
June 27: Hemond-Delhi Arizona Chapter meeting (1:00 p.m. MST)
June 28: Baseball Cards Committee meeting with Micah Johnson, Nick Vossbrink, Scott Hodges, and Jason Schwartz (4:00 p.m. EDT)
June 28: Detroit Chapter book club meeting (7:00 p.m. EDT)
June 29: Women in Baseball Committee meeting with umpires Perry Barber, Lisa Turbitt, and The Fairlady (7:00 p.m. EDT)
June 29: Juan Marichal (D.R.) Chapter meeting (8:00 p.m. EDT)
June 29: Pandemic Baseball Book Club panel with authors Jon Pessah, Jason Turbow, Dale Tafoya, Mitch Nathanson, John Shea, and Justin McGuire (8:00 p.m. EDT)
July 1: Baltimore Babe Ruth Chapter meeting with author Thomas Stone (7:00 p.m. EDT)

Find more virtual meetings on our SABR Virtual Events Calendar page.

Around the Web

Here are some recent articles published by and about SABR members:

Emma Baccellieri: Would MLB Be Better Off in a Bubble? Experts Say … Maybe (Sports Illustrated)
Eno Sarris: Six things we know about the shape of the coming baseball season (The Athletic)
Jim Margalus: Baseball is back, at least until it isn’t (Sox Machine)
Jay Jaffe: Team Entropy Could Be the Real Winner in a 60-Game Season (FanGraphs)
Michael Baumann: The Biggest MLB Story Lines You May Have Forgotten About This Offseason (The Ringer)
Jayson Stark: An ode to great (and not-so-great) moments of pitchers at the plate (The Athletic)
C. Trent Rosecrans: Baseball’s in her DNA: Reds operations analyst Katie Krall living a dream (The Athletic)
Rachael McDaniel: What’s Love Got to Do With It? (FanGraphs)
Kim Severson: With Baseball Up in the Air, What About the Ballpark Peanuts? (New York Times)
Craig Muder: Baseball Hall of Fame reopening this week in Cooperstown (BaseballHall.org)
Kamila Hinkson: A look at Jackie Robinson’s thoughts on the tactics of protesters in 1964 (Baseball Prospectus)
Bill James: Why We Need Runs Saved Against Zero (Bill James Online)
Rob Arthur: The Rangers’ Stadium Deal Is A Travesty (Baseball Prospectus)
David Margolick: 63 Years Later, a Confession in a Legendary Yankees Scandal (New York Times)
Rob Fitts: Solving the Mystery of Togo Hamamoto (RobFitts.com)
David Laurila: A Conversation With Former White Sox and Orioles IF/OF Don Buford (FanGraphs)
Tom Verducci: Love, Loss and Baseball: Letters From the Hub (Sports Illustrated)
Alexis Brudnicki: Twins scout John Manuel on ‘serendipitous’ journey (MLB.com)
Sarah R. Ingber/Davy Andrews/Roger Cormier: Too Far From Town: Jackson Generals (Baseball Prospectus)
Celia Storey: How the Black Sox scandal helped the Travs (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
Mark Simon: Key players in Japan’s NPB (ACTA Sports)
Rob Mains: How a Universal DH Will Change Gameplay (Baseball Prospectus)
Erik Brady: Joe Overfield wrote the book on Buffalo baseball; his son continues the story (Buffalo News)
Bruce Adams: Interview with Hank Thomas and Tim Kurkjian (Big Train TV)
David A. Scott: The 1920 Indians derail the Big Train (Medium.com)
Nick Vossbrink: Digital Marketplace (SABR Baseball Cards Blog)

Please note: Some articles may require a separate subscription to view online. SABR does not endorse, and is not responsible or liable for, any content that appears on a third-party website.

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.

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