This Week in SABR: May 1, 2020

May 1, 2020/in This Week in SABR /by Jason Best

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 May 1, 2020:

SABR Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference rescheduled for 2021

Due to the global COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, SABR’s Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference has been rescheduled for June 10-13, 2021, at the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama.

Since 1998, the Malloy Conference has been the only symposium dedicated exclusively to the examination and promotion of Black baseball history. The conference, which is open to baseball and history fans of all ages, promotes activities to enhance scholarly, educational, and literary objectives. Each year, monies are targeted to donate books to schools or libraries; raise funds for the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project; and award scholarships to high school seniors in a nationwide essay contest and an annual art contest.

Anyone who has already registered for the Malloy Conference is encouraged to contact Deb Jayne at the SABR office to discuss options regarding their conference registration fees, including converting it into a donation toward SABR’s Sustainability Campaign fund.

The Negro Leagues Committee is one of SABR’s original committees, formed in 1971. It has continued to preserve and highlight the contributions of African-American players in baseball history. Visit SABR.org/malloy to learn more.

Donate today to the SABR Sustainability Campaign fund

SABR is an organization focused on baseball history, research, and benchmarks, and this is unquestionably a first. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is changing around us daily. We are all searching for silver linings, distractions, and ways to minimize the distance we are all feeling and the challenges we are facing.

One constant you can rely on — now more than ever — is that SABR will continue to uphold our mission to foster the study, discussion, and understanding of all aspects of baseball. But we need your help!

Click here to donate to the SABR Sustainability Campaign fund

We’re facing major challenges in the coming year. The postponement of the SABR 50 convention to July 14-18, 2021, will cause SABR to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. These resources are essential in pursuing our mission and delivering the membership experience our community has come to expect.

Please contribute to the SABR Sustainability Campaign fund. The SABR Board of Directors is leading the way, as all Directors are donating their SABR 50 registration fee to this fund. The Board is joined by hundreds of members who are doing the same.

We are asking all members to make a donation above and beyond their normal giving, equivalent to SABR 50 registration. This is an extraordinary request made due to extraordinary circumstances. We thank all of our members who have donated their registration fees and thank all members in advance for their charitable contributions to the fund.

If you donate $330 (the cost of annual convention registration), you will receive:

$50 off your 2021 Annual Convention registration
Hard copy of the 2020 edition of The National Pastime delivered to your door
Exclusive VIP online streaming video content with baseball personalities

If you donate $500, you will receive:

All the benefits listed above
Hard copy of the SABR 50 at 50 anthology book, featuring the 50 most influential articles SABR has published

All gifts are tax deductible except for the value of the benefits received. Visit SABR.org/donate/sustain to learn more.

2020 SABR Board of Directors election ends on Monday

SABR members, please pay attention to the e-mail address that you have on file with SABR; you should have received messages on Monday, April 20 and Monday, April 27 with a link to vote online in the 2020 SABR Board of Directors election. The poll will close at 11:59 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on Monday, May 4.

You can read the candidate biographies, along with full descriptions of the positions and responses the candidates made to a series of questions, in the 2020 SABR Election Guide which is available for download below:

Download the 2020 SABR Election Guide here (PDF)

When you vote, please rank the candidates in order of preference, with 1 being your top choice. SABR elections use a simplified preferential voting system, allowing voters to rank their preferred candidates 1-2-3 and transferring preferences until a winner with more than 50 percent of votes is achieved.

You will find three items on the 2020 election ballot: the election of the SABR Vice President, Treasurer, and one (1) Director’s position. The candidates are:

For Vice President

Leslie Heaphy

For Treasurer

F.X. Flinn

For Director

Karl Cicitto
Tara Krieger
Daniel Levitt
John McMurray
Gregory H. Wolf

The only way to vote online is through the link you will receive by e-mail. All e-mails will come from the address tellers@sabr.org; if you wish to add it to a whitelist in your e-mail client, that may help ensure that you will receive the e-mails. You will receive at least one additional voting email between April 20 and May 4 with active voting links.

Members who did not have an e-mail address on file with SABR as of April 10, 2020, will receive a paper ballot in the mail. Please do not vote online and send in the paper ballot; if you do, the paper ballot will be discarded, and only the online vote will count. If you would like to register your e-mail address on file with SABR so you can vote online (and also receive our “This Week in SABR” newsletter on Fridays), please contact Membership Director Deb Jayne at djayne@sabr.org.

Join us for more Stay Home With SABR virtual events

This month, we launched our Stay Home With SABR initiative, an eight-week effort from April 1 to May 31 to assist in limiting the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. During this time, all new membership dues SABR receives will be split with Heart to Heart International, a nonprofit organization that distributes urgently needed equipment and medication to partners around the world during this global crisis.

SABR chapters and committees are encouraged to set up virtual meetings to stay engaged with our members throughout the world at SABR.org. This week, we heard from Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, Hall of Name author D.B. Firstman, Iowa Cubs broadcaster Alex Cohen, and Chicago White Sox broadcaster Jason Benetti.

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

May 2: Talkin’ Baseball with Mitchell Nathanson (9:00 a.m. EDT)
May 2: Central Pennsylvania Chapter meeting (1:00 p.m. EDT)
May 2: Emil Rothe Chicago Chapter: Zoom chat with Andrew Aronstein (2:00 p.m. CDT)
May 3: Emil Rothe Chicago Chapter: Facebook Live with Jeff Johnson (2:00 p.m. CDT)
May 3: Detroit Chapter book club discussion (7:00 p.m. EDT)
May 4: SABRcast Live with Rob Neyer and special guest Fred Claire (5:00 p.m. PDT)
May 4: Larry Dierker Chapter meeting (7:00 p.m. CDT)
May 4: Juan Marichal Chapter meeting (8:00 p.m. EDT)
May 8: Women in Baseball Committee meeting with Anika Orrock and Kat Williams (2:00 p.m. EDT)

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

SABR Digital Library: Braves Win! The 1995 World Champion Atlanta Braves

Add a championship baseball book to your collection from the SABR Digital Library:

Braves Win! Braves Win! Braves Win! The 1995 World Champion Atlanta Braves
Edited by Tom Hufford and Bill Nowlin
Associate editors: Len Levin and Carl Riechers
Foreword by John Schuerholz
ISBN (e-book) 978-1-9701-5922-6, $9.99
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9701-5923-3, $34.95
8.5″ x 11″, 484 pages

It has been 25 years since that magical night in Atlanta, October 28, 1995, when the Braves became the first team in any professional sport to give Atlanta a world championship.

Braves Win! Braves Win! Braves Win! The 1995 World Champion Atlanta Braves presents biographies of each of the 40 players who took the field in a Braves uniform in 1995. Many had long and successful big-league careers, and for others their time in The Show was brief. But they all contributed to that championship season, and they all have interesting stories. Nine players made their major-league debuts with the 1995 Braves, and for three team members, that season marked the end of their big-league careers.

Four members of the 1995 Atlanta Braves — Tom Glavine, Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz — along with manager Bobby Cox and general manager John Schuerholz (who wrote the book’s foreword) have been enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cooperstown, New York.

This book from the SABR Digital Library features exciting stories of the 10 most notable games of the 1995 season, and not all were in the postseason, as you might have thought. You will find behind-the-scenes stories of many of the Braves’ front office personnel, who worked tirelessly, both at the major-league and the minor-league levels, to mold a championship organization. Not all are familiar names, but each played an integral part in making the Atlanta Braves the team they are today.

What this 1995 team accomplished was the pinnacle of a nearly 30-year run of excellence for the Braves, and that tradition continues.

A dedicated group of 56 SABR members contributed to this book as researchers, authors, and/or editors. Contributors include: Mark Armour, Jesse Asbury, Bob Barrier, Matt Bloss, Richard S. Brimer, Thomas J. Brown Jr., Ken Carrano, Alan Cohen, Warren Corbett, Joe Cox, Richard Cuicchi, Tim Deale, Kyle Eaton, Millard Fisher, Sam Gazdziak, Peter M. Gordon, Paul Hofmann, Mike Huber, Tom Hufford, Bill Johnson, Chris Jones, Greg King, Justin Krueger, Bob LeMoine, Len Levin, Dan Levitt, Lee Lowenfish, Scott McClellan, Wynn Montgomery, Alan Morris, Bill Nowlin, Tony S. Oliver, Bill Pearch, Laura H. Peebles, Jacob Pomrenke, James Lincoln Ray, Carl Riechers, Joel Rippel, C. Paul Rogers III, Steven D. Schmitt, J. Scott Shaffer, Curt Smith, Dana Sprague, Creg Stephenson, Mark S. Sternman, John Struth, Sean Teters, Stew Thornley, Clayton Trutor, Cosme Vivanco, Nick Waddell, Joseph Wancho, Darin Watson, Bob Webster, Steve West, Gregory H. Wolf, and Jack Zerby.

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of Braves Win! for FREE from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, Kindle/MOBI and EPUB formats.
Paperback: Get a 50% discount on the Braves Win! 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 edition. Find more 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.

Baccellieri, Staples, VanDeMortel win 2020 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Awards

The 2020 winners of the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, which honors the best articles on baseball history or biography completed or published during the preceding calendar year, are:

Emma Baccellieri, “A Brief History of the Many Times Baseball Has Died,” Sports Illustrated, August 29, 2019.
Bill Staples Jr., “Early Baseball Encounters in the West: The Yeddo Royal Japanese Troupe Play Ball in America, 1872,” International Pastime, July 18, 2019.
Dan VanDeMortel, “White Circles Drawn in Crayon,” in The Polo Grounds: Essays and Memories of New York City’s Historic Ballpark, 1880-1963; ed. Stew Thornley (McFarland & Co.)

The McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award honors the author(s) of the best articles or papers, published or unpublished, on baseball history or biography completed during the preceding calendar year. For a complete list of winners of the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, click here.

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

Charles DeMotte, Jeremy Beer win 2020 SABR Larry Ritter Book Award

During their lifetimes, James T. Farrell and Oscar Charleston shared little in common. Farrell, an Irish American from the South Side of Chicago who embraced the American League’s White Sox, penned more than 50 novels and political works. Charleston, an African American from Indianapolis, served in the Army before employing a unique blend of speed, strength and fierce competitive drive to embark on a lengthy career in the Negro Leagues as one of the greatest players in the history of the game.

Both men came of age during and were shaped by baseball’s Deadball Era, and each is the subject of a book that shares the 2020 Larry Ritter Book Award. Charles DeMotte’s James T. Farrell and Baseball: Dreams and Realism on Chicago’s South Side and Jeremy Beer’s Oscar Charleston; The Life and Legend of Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player, both published by University of Nebraska Press, have been named co-winners by SABR’s Deadball Era Committee.

The award is granted annually by SABR’s Deadball Era Committee to the author of the best book about baseball between 1901 and 1919 published during the previous calendar year. The winner’s work must demonstrate original research or analysis, a fresh perspective, compelling thesis, impressive insight, accuracy, and clear, graceful prose.

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.

On Monday, March 16, ASU announced that all in-person classes would transition to online instruction for the rest of the spring semester through the end of April. A reassessment of the situation will take place at that time. Please contact a member of the SABR staff by email or phone with any questions.

Last call: Students, apply now for a SABR Negro Leagues Committee scholarship in 2020

SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee will award $1,000 scholarships to high school seniors in its 12th annual Thomas R. Garrett Scholarship essay contest in 2020. Students must write a 1,200-word essay answering a question related to one of the Negro League figures who are the namesakes of the scholarships.

Visit SABR.org/malloy to learn more about each scholarship or to download an application. All applications must be sent or postmarked no later than May 4, 2020, and emailed to Dr. Leslie Heaphy at Lheaphy@kent.edu.

Eligible applicants must be 1) a current high school senior, 2) anticipating completion of high school diploma at the time of application, 3) planning to pursue a degree at an accredited U.S. post-secondary institution, and 4) carrying a minimum 2.5 GPA at the end of their junior year of high school.

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

SABRcast Live with Rob Neyer: Listen to an interview with White Sox broadcaster Jason Benetti

As part of our Stay Home With SABR intiative, SABRcast with Rob Neyer will be recorded via online livestream each Monday night at 5:00 p.m. PDT. Each episode will feature nationally known guests plus an interactive Q&A in which all baseball fans can participate.

Episode #57 on Monday, April 27 featured Jason Benetti, who has been a TV play-by-play broadcaster with the Chicago White Sox since 2016. He has also worked as a broadcaster for ESPN since 2011, calling college football bowl games, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, and other sports, along with calling select Chicago Bulls games for NBC Sports Chicago.

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

Join us: Listen to SABRcast Live on Monday, May 4 with former Los Angeles Dodgers GM Fred Claire

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.

3 new SABR biographies published

Three new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 5,189 published biographies. Here are the new bios published this week:

Paul Gillespie, by Mike Cooney
Harry Luff, by Bill Lamb
Bob Welch, by Glen Sparks

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

Search for any SABR biography: You can now visit sabr.org/bioproj_search to search for any player — or manager, executive, scout, spouse, broadcaster, or umpire — who appears in the SABR BioProject. You can also browse all of these BioProject categories and a lot more, including 300-game winners, Hall of Famers, 1960s All-Stars, or Negro Leaguers, at our Browse page: sabr.org/bioproj/browse.

3 new stories published by the SABR Games Project

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

April 19, 1964: Mets beat Pirates for first win at Shea Stadium, by Thomas J. Brown Jr.
April 8, 2001: Aramis Ramirez attains liftoff for Pirates with three home runs, by John Fredland
August 13, 2016: Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge hit back-to-back homers in first major-league at-bats, by Matt Faltas

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.

**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.

SABR members, get a $300 discount on Sports Management Worldwide online courses

Brush up on your baseball knowledge with Sports Management Worldwide, the leaders in online sports education. SABR members can receive a $300 discount for any eight-week online courses, which include:

Questions: Just fill out this form or register today at SMWW.com and use the code SABR at checkout.

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
CJ Remmel	Fort Hunt, VA	Jason Amico	West Hartford, CT
Marc Carig	Cedar Grove, NJ	Michael Daniel	Brownsburg, IN
Jason Forari	Phoenix, AZ	Patrick Hancock	Junction City, KS
Alan Stewart	St. Catharines, ON	Charles St Clair	Houston, TX
Joe Soberon	Oswego, IL	David Collins	Hollywood, FL
Paul Taberner	Duxbury, MA	Steve Andreycak	Pleasantville, NY
David Leland	Columbus, OH	Tom Aldrich	Cleveland Heights, OH
Jason Lewis	Portland, OR	Michael Kane	Erie, PA
Jared Fitzsimons	Medford, NY	Hal Campbell	Maple Grove, MN
Jessica Smith	Medford, NY	Gregory Abdur-Rasheed	Des Moines, IA
Bruce Perweiler	Arlington, VA	Russell Light	Fort Worth, TX
Ronald Socash	Dallas, TX	Brent Weber	Redding, CA
Mitchell Lehrer	Staten Island, NY	Andrew Maher	Carrollton, TX

Research Committee news

Here are the new research committee updates this week:

Asian Baseball: Spring 2020 newsletter
Business of Baseball: Spring 2020 newsletter
Official Scoring: Spring 2020 newsletter

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

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)
Goose Goslin Chapter: April 25 meeting recap (Cherry Hill, NJ)

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:

May 2: Talkin’ Baseball with Mitchell Nathanson (9:00 a.m. EDT)
May 2: Central Pennsylvania Chapter meeting (1:00 p.m. EDT)
May 2: Emil Rothe Chicago Chapter: Zoom chat with Andrew Aronstein (2:00 p.m. CDT)
May 3: Emil Rothe Chicago Chapter: Facebook Live with Jeff Johnson (2:00 p.m. CDT)
May 3: Detroit Chapter book club discussion (7:00 p.m. EDT)
May 4: SABRcast Live with Rob Neyer and special guest Fred Claire (5:00 p.m. PDT)
May 4: Larry Dierker Chapter meeting (7:00 p.m. CDT)
May 4: Juan Marichal Chapter meeting (8:00 p.m. EDT)
May 8: Women in Baseball Committee meeting with Anika Orrock and Kat Williams (2:00 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:

Jay Jaffe: Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 will have to wait a year for Induction Weekend (FanGraphs)
Jayson Stark: What we could have learned in April (The Athletic)
Rob Arthur: It’s better to start the MLB season too late than too early (Baseball Prospectus)
Sam Miller: Happy 58th birthday to Don Mattingly … or is it Happy 59th? (ESPN.com)
Marc Carig: Fort Knox gold, Dodger blue, plus pinstripes: Ranking baseball’s best uniforms (The Athletic)
Shakeia Taylor: Effa Manley’s hidden life (SB Nation)
Craig Edwards: Mike Trout and the greatest decades of all time (FanGraphs)
Mark Simon: The best defensive units of the 21st century (ACTA Sports)
Greg Prince: Rodney McCray and the stolen plate appearance (Fear and Faith in Flushing)
Emma Baccellieri: No one threw harder than Steve Dalkowski (Sports Illustrated)
Gary Cieradkowski: Jack Dunn and the 1921 Orioles (Studio Gary C)
Peter Morris: RBI champion Ralph ‘Spud’ Johnson died in obscurity (Our Game)
Richard Cuicchi: 1976 exhibition launches Superdome baseball amid hopes for MLB franchise (Crescent City Sports)
Sarah R. Ingber/Davy Andrews/Roger Cormier: Too far from town: Billings Mustangs (Baseball Prospectus)
Berry Tramel: What if Mickey Mantle had signed with the Dodgers? (The Oklahoman)
Graham Womack: Maury Wills looks back on Dodgers career (Sports Illustrated)
David Kronheim: 2019 major- and minor-league baseball attendance summary and analysis (NumberTamer.com)
Evan Katz: Oliver Drake’s journey from Massachusetts to Major League Baseball (Baseball by the Sea)
David A. Scott: Throwing it around in the old days with the 1920 Indians (Medium.com)
Bill Deane: Billy Martin, beyond the 1982 A’s (WordPress)
Jeff Cohen: Baseball and BBQ interview with Mark Healey (Baseball and BBQ podcast)
Matthew J. Prigge: Card #1: A History (SABR Baseball Cards Blog)
Chris Kamka: Stadium Club before Stadium Club (SABR Baseball Cards Blog)
Jason Schwartz: Five sheets to the wind with 1981 Donruss (SABR Baseball Cards Blog)

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.

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