This Week in SABR: October 26, 2018

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 October 26, 2018:


2018 Rawlings Gold Glove Award finalists announced

On Thursday, Rawlings announced the finalists for the 2018 Rawlings Gold Glove Award®, honoring the best individual fielding performances at each position in the American League™ and National League™. The winners will be unveiled during a live, one-hour airing of ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” at 9:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, November 4.

Following the show, voting will begin online for the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award™, presented by SABR. The Rawlings Platinum Glove Award winners are determined by combining votes based on an adjusted SABR Defensive Index for each of the nine Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners in each League and the votes from baseball fans worldwide.

For the sixth consecutive season, the SABR Defensive Index will be used to help select the winners of the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and Rawlings Platinum Glove Award™, presented by SABR. The final SABR Defensive Index rankings will be released on November 4.

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


Help us reach our 2018 donation-drive goal

This has been another outstanding year for SABR, with an entertaining, informative SABR 48 convention in Pittsburgh and a special day at the ballpark at PNC Park, innovative research and publishing projects, and outstanding involvement from volunteers. Your year-end charitable gift will help us close out 2018 and enable us to make 2019 even more successful.

Please help us reach this year’s giving goal! As a 501(c)3 organization, tax-deductible donations allow SABR to expand member opportunities and to become an even larger voice in the baseball community. Many members have already become donors, and you can join them right now by making your gift online at SABR.org/donate. By doing so you help SABR fulfill its mission and increase the impact of our baseball analysis and historical study.

All of us at SABR appreciate your support of our great organization and the game we love. If you have questions regarding your gift, feel free to e-mail SABR CEO Scott Bush at sbush@sabr.org


2019 SABR Analytics Conference early registration is now open

Join us for the eighth annual SABR Analytics Conference on Friday, March 8 to Sunday, March 10, 2019, at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix, where we’ll bring together the top minds in the baseball analytics community to discuss, debate and share insightful ways to analyze and examine the great game of baseball. All baseball fans are welcome to attend. The early-bird registration discount ends on Monday, January 14, 2019, so register today to join us!

The Analytics Conference schedule consists 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.

For more information on the 2019 SABR Analytics Conference, visit SABR.org/analytics.


Coming up: 2018 SABR Arizona Fall League Experience next week

We have an All-Star lineup of speakers at the 10th annual SABR Arizona Fall League Experience, which will be held Thursday, November 1 to Saturday, November 3, 2018. Sign up now to join us!

The event will feature four AFL games showcasing baseball’s top prospects. On Friday night, we’ll come together for a special taco bar dinner at our host hotel, The Saguaro, just steps away from Scottsdale Stadium and many Old Town Scottsdale attractions.

On Saturday morning after our conference breakfast, attendees will join members of SABR’s Hemond-Delhi Arizona Chapter for their regional fall meeting with research presentations and these guest speakers:

  • Scott Bush, SABR Chief Executive Officer
  • Bernie Pleskoff, baseball scout and analyst at Clubhouse Corner, with a 2018 AFL prospect breakdown
  • A panel discussion on MLB rule changes with Forbes MLB columnist Barry Bloom, San Francisco Giants radio broadcaster Marty Lurie, former major-league pitcher John D’Acquisto, and former Chicago Cubs general manager Ed Lynch

We’ll conclude the conference with the nationally televised Fall Stars Game on Saturday evening at Surprise Stadium. All of this is included in one low registration price.

  • Register now by clicking here! Registration is $239 for all SABR members and guests. (Note: The early-bird registration discount has now expired.)
  • Host hotel: SABR’s recommended hotel is The Saguaro (4000 North Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251) in Old Town Scottsdale. Click here to book your room online or call the hotel at (480) 470-8247 and mention “SABR” to book your room at our special group rate of $129/night (plus tax).
  • Schedule: Visit SABR.org/AFL for the detailed schedule

Your registration fee includes four game tickets; an AFL Media Guide; the poolside taco bar dinner on Friday; and the conference breakfast on Saturday.

Note: Local or visiting SABR members can purchase extra or optional tickets to the Friday evening taco bar dinner ($45) at The Saguaro, the Saturday morning breakfast at The Saguaro ($25), or any of the ballgames, including the Fall Stars Game at Surprise Stadium ($7 apiece). Extra AFL Media Guides ($12) are also available for purchase while supplies last. Please contact Deb Jayne at djayne@sabr.org for details.


It’s time to renew your membership for 2019

For those of you whose SABR memberships expire by December 31 — you can check your current membership status here — it’s time for you to renew!

From the Baseball Research Journal and the SABR Digital Library to “This Week in SABR” and our extensive list of research resources — and, of course, all the memorable conferences, chapter meetings, and events — we hope you enjoyed the many benefits of SABR membership this past year.

We hope you please continue your support by renewing your SABR membership today.

  • Pay online: Click here to renew your SABR membership for 2019!
  • Renew by mail: To pay by check or money order, mail this downloadable PDF form and your payment to the office at SABR, Cronkite School at ASU, 555 N. Central Ave. #416, Phoenix, AZ 85004.
  • Pay by phone: To process your credit-card payment over the phone, please call the SABR office at (602) 496-1463 during regular business hours. (We accept Visa, Mastercard, or Discover Card.)

Dues are the same as they have been in recent years: $65 for one year or $175 for three years, with discounts available to anyone under 30 or over the age of 65. Please note: If you have had trouble logging in to the SABR website, please try resetting your password using this reset link. Then try logging in to renew at the link above.

Thank you for your support of SABR as we continue to strive to make SABR membership a great experience and a great value!


New SABR book on the World Series in the Deadball Era brings baseball history to life

A special new publication produced by SABR’s Deadball Era Research Committee vividly brings back the exploits of Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Home Run Baker, and Babe Ruth to life with more than 250 rare photos: 

The World Series in the Deadball Era: A History in the Words and Pictures of the Writers and Photographers
Edited by Steve Steinberg
Foreword by Dr. Charles Alexander
Published by St. Johann Press
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-9379-4345-5, $45.00
306 pages, 8.5″ x 11″

Click here for a complete description of this book at SABR.org.

This book is available for purchase from Amazon.com, your local bookstore, or directly from the publisher at St. Johann Press.


Seeking nominations for the 2019 SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards

What are the best baseball analytics articles you’ve read in 2018?

The 2019 SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards recognize baseball researchers who have completed the best work of original analysis or commentary during the preceding calendar year. Click here to learn more or to submit a nomination.

Voting for the winners will be conducted online in January-February 2019 at SABR.org, BaseballProspectus.com, FanGraphs.com, HardballTimes.com and BeyondtheBoxScore.com, with results weighted equally at 20%. Results will be announced and presented at the eighth annual SABR Analytics Conference, March 8-10, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix in Arizona.


Registration still open for next week’s SABR Rocky Mountain Chapter banquet

The SABR Rocky Mountain Chapter is pleased to announce that our 21st Annual Chapter Banquet will be held on Saturday, November 3, 2018. For the fourth consecutive year it will be held at Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. The banquet is open to all SABR members and baseball fans.

Rocky Mountain SABR welcomes several special guests to this year’s event, including Keynote Speaker Jamey Wright, former Rockies pitcher and the franchise’s first No. 1 draft pick; Featured Speaker Doug Marino of AT&T Sportsnet; SABR Director Emily Hawks; and our Master of Ceremonies for the evening, former Rockies pitcher Jason Hirsh.

As usual, we will conduct our Silent Auction of baseball memorabilia and artifacts. We will reprise last year’s popular book sale and feature a special sale of Rockies baseball cards. Tickets for the banquet are $65 per person and can be purchased online by visiting RMSABR.org and clicking on the “Banquet” tab. You may also mail a check to RMSABR Banquet, 5803 Orchard Creek Lane, Boulder, CO 80301. Please make checks payable to “Rocky Mountain SABR.”

For more information, visit RMSABR.org.


Save the date! SABR 49 will be in San Diego in 2019

Save the date! SABR will be returning to San Diego for our 49th national convention on June 26-30, 2019, at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in downtown San Diego, California. Registration information and our special hotel room block will be available at SABR.org/convention in early 2019. The Padres are scheduled to play at home against the St. Louis Cardinals that weekend.

The Manchester Grand Hyatt is conveniently located within walking distance from Petco Park; our host hotel, a frequent host of baseball’s Winter Meetings, features a spectacular waterfront resort-like setting with shopping, dining, and entertainment venues in abundance at the nearby Gaslamp Quarter. The San Diego Central Library’s Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center, just a few blocks away, is home to the spectacular SABR Collection curated by our host chapter, the San Diego Ted Williams Chapter.

SABR 49 will be our second convention held in San Diego and first since 1993. Our 23rd annual convention that year featured a keynote address from former Padres manager Dick Williams and a panel celebrating the 1984 National League champions. Learn more about SABR’s convention history by clicking here.

SABR’s 2019 national convention will be our 49th annual gathering; the organization’s founding in Cooperstown in 1971 is counted as the first.

For more information on the SABR convention, visit SABR.org/convention.


SABR Digital Library: Met-rospectives: A Collection of the Greatest Games in New York Mets History

New York Mets fans can soak in some Amazin’ memories with the newest book from the SABR Digital Library:

Met-rospectives: A Collection of the Greatest Games in New York Mets History
Edited by Brian Wright and Bill Nowlin

Associate Editors: Len Levin and Carl Riechers

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-943816-87-3, $14.95

ISBN (e-book): 978-1-943816-86-6, $9.99

139 pages, 8.5″ x 11″

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

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

SABR members will get discounted rates for all Digital Library publications, including many for free. Find all past titles in our collection 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.


One week left to submit abstracts for 2019 SABR Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference

All SABR members are invited and encouraged to submit a Research Presentation Proposal Abstract on any topic of 19th-century baseball for the 2019 Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The 11th annual Ivor-Campbell Conference is scheduled for April 26-27, 2019.

The deadline for proposal Abstracts is October 31, 2018. Your abstract must be between 200-400 words for a 20- to 25-minute presentation. Please include name, title, and contact information and send your proposal as a Microsoft Word or PDF attachment to Peter Mancuso at peterplus4@earthlink.net.

Click here for complete details and submission criteria at SABR.org.

To learn more about the Ivor-Campbell Conference, visit SABR.org/ivor-campbell19c.


Join us for the 2018 SABR Cleveland 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium

Join us for the SABR Cleveland 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium, which will take place on Saturday, November 10, 2018, from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. at the majestic Main Branch of the Cleveland Public Library in the heart of downtown Cleveland.

Click here to download a complete schedule (PDF). We hope to see you there!


New team ownership history: Seattle Mariners

The new SABR Team Ownership Histories Project, which launched last year at SABR.org, is a joint effort of SABR’s Business of Baseball Committee and the BioProject. The intention is to provide as much detail as possible about the organization and composition of ownership groups, franchise sales, relocations, stadiums, and other issues that provide the financial context for team success on the field.

One new article was published this week:

Click here to read all published essays in the Team Ownership Histories Project. To learn more about contributing, contact Andy McCue.


Protoball.org seeking new website developer/advisor

Our friends at Protoball.org are looking to hire a website developer/advisor with experience and expertise in the MediaWiki software to help out with general maintenance, organization of resources, helping to integrate new data that comes in (such as SABR member Bob Tholkes’ repository of 5,000 pre-Civil War ballgames), and resolving any other technical issues or questions that pop up with their site from time to time.

The Protoball Project was established to help researchers and writers locate and refine primary data on the evolution and spread of ball play from ancient times to up to 1870, just before the first professional baseball league began.

This is a part-time remote position. If you are interested in applying, please contact Larry McCray at lmccray@mit.edu.


1 new SABR biography published

One new biography was posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 4,651 published  biographies. Here is the new bio published this week: 

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


6 new stories published by the SABR Games Project

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

New Games Project stories can be found at SABR.org/gamesproject/recent. Find all published Games Project articles at SABR.org/GamesProject.


Read all stories from No-Hitters online at the SABR Games Project

In No-Hitters (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin, we told the stories of the pitchers who threw no-hitters and the no-hitters they threw. All of the game stories that appeared in No-Hitters are now available to be read online at the SABR Games Project.

Here are the new stories added this week:

To download the e-book edition of No-Hitters for free or get a 50% discount off the paperback edition, click here.


Listen to archives of Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM

Behind the Numbers: Baseball SABR Style on SiriusXM, a radio show hosted by SABR President Vince Gennaro, will be on hiatus during the MLB postseason. After the World Series ends, the show will air again at its regular time, 7:00-8:00 p.m. ET on Sundays, on MLB Network Radio.

You can still 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.


In Memoriam: Hank Greenwald

Longtime San Francisco Giants broadcaster and SABR member Hank Greenwald, 83, died on October 22 after an onset of bronchitis, following months of heart issues and kidney failure, at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. 

Greenwald joined SABR in 1980 and remained an active member of the Lefty O’Doul/Bay Area Chapter for more than three decades because, as he recently explained, “I care about the history of the game and feel it’s important for future generations to know and appreciate it.”

With a broadcasting career that spanned 40 years across the country, Greenwald was most well-known as the Giants’ lead radio voice from 1979 to 1996. With a wry sense of humor that endeared him to Bay Area fans, Greenwald was “enthusiastic, hearty, and a fan of the game to his core,” as Stuart Shea wrote in SABR’s Calling the Game.

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


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 (SABR.org/directory).

Name Hometown     Name Hometown
Jonathan Baer Washington, DC     William Landers Lorain, OH
Thomas Ciolino Columbia, MO     Bobby Palazzo Westlake Village, CA
Joy Feagan Philadelphia, PA     Matthew Perry Boston, MA
Jimmy Friery Moorpark, CA     Noel Roby N. Kingstown, RI
Ralph Gigliotti Lone Tree, CO     Dusty Turner West Point, NY
Christopher Jones Los Angeles, CA        

 


Research Committee news

Here are the new research committee updates this week:

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


Regional Chapter news

Here are the new regional chapter updates this week:

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


SABR Events Calendar

Here is a list of upcoming events on the SABR calendar:

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.


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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Originally published: October 26, 2018. Last Updated: April 3, 2020.