This Week in SABR: September 13, 2019

September 13, 2019/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 September 13, 2019:

Student rate now available for 2019 SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience

Students can take advantage of our special discounted rates to attend the 2019 SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience.

Join us on October 10-12, 2019, at The Saguaro in Scottsdale, Arizona. This conference is focused on women in baseball, co-hosted by the International Women’s Baseball Center, and held in conjunction with the Arizona Fall League (MLB.com/AFL), baseball’s premier player development league. The Saguaro is located in Old Town Scottsdale, at 4000 North Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251.

The discounted student rate of $20 (single-day) or $35 (two days) includes access to all programming at The Saguaro hotel on Friday, October 11 and Saturday, October 12. All currently enrolled full-time students are eligible to attend. You must show your student ID at the door. Please visit SABR.org/afl/students to register online.

Our featured speakers are expected to include Elizabeth Benn, Coordinator of Labor, Diversity, and Baseball Development at MLB’s Office of the Commissioner; Jennifer Blatt, founder of the Women’s Sports School and WISE Arizona; Stephanie Jarvis, Interim Director of Arizona State University’s Sports Law & Business Program; Bridget Binsbacher, Executive Director of the Cactus League; Meg Rowley, Managing Editor of FanGraphs and The Hardball Times; Eric Longenhagen, Lead Prospect Analyst, FanGraphs; Debbie Castaldo, Vice President, Corporate & Community Impact with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Executive Director of the Arizona Diamondbacks Foundation; William Boor, Reporter/Producer, MLB.com and MLBPipeline.com; and more. Please note: All speakers are subject to change depending on availability.

Click here to view the full schedule of events for the SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience. All baseball fans are welcome to attend.

Registration: Click here to register online. Registration is $199 for all SABR members and guests; $219 for non-members. Single-day rates are available for $90 on Friday (includes breakfast and game ticket) or $110 on Saturday (includes breakfast and game ticket). Students: $20 per day or $35 for both days; please visit SABR.org/afl/students for details.
Hotel: SABR’s recommended hotel is The Saguaro (4000 North Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251) in Old Town Scottsdale. Please e-mail Ally Bascom at abascom@thesaguaro.com or call 480-385-4800 and mention “SABR” to book your room at our special group rate of $189/night (plus tax).
Schedule: Click here for the full schedule of events at the 2019 SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience

Visit SABR.org/AFL for registration information and complete details.

Hotel block expires next week for SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience

If you wish to book your room at The Saguaro hotel for the 2019 SABR/IWBC Arizona Fall League Experience, the deadline to book your room at the discounted SABR group rate is 5:00 p.m. MST on Friday, September 20.

The Saguaro is located in the heart of Old Town Scottsdale at 4000 North Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251. Please e-mail Ally Bascom at abascom@thesaguaro.com or call 480-385-4800 and mention “SABR” to book your room at our special group rate of $189/night (plus tax).

We hope to see you in Arizona for the AFL Experience!

SABR BioProject reaches milestone with 5,000th baseball biography

When Mark Armour first proposed the Baseball Biography Project back in 2002, he could not have imagined it would grow into SABR’s most ambitious research initiative. Inspired by Tom Simon’s award-winning Green Mountain Boys of Summer book of biographies on Vermont-born major league players, Armour invited other SABR members to produce comprehensive, peer-reviewed profiles of every person who ever played or managed in the major leagues, as well as other subjects significant to baseball history.

From those auspicious roots, the BioProject has grown into SABR’s most prolific and productive effort, with nearly 750 SABR members contributing as writers, editors, or peer reviewers over the past two decades. This week, the BioProject has reached a milestone with its 5,000th published biography. It’s a project that, we hope, will never end.

“There were people in SABR who can and would do good research who hadn’t really figured out what their interests were,” said Armour, who was elected earlier this year as President of the Board of Directors.

“SABR had done, and is still doing, so much extraordinary work, but most of it was hard to find at the time. What if we created a massive, never-ending, online project that would provide research avenues for SABR members forever, and would also allow SABR to show off the work it does?”

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

David Pietrusza to speak at SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium

We’re just two weeks away from the SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium in Chicago, and we’re excited to welcome former SABR Board President and critically acclaimed author David Pietrusza as a featured speaker.

The SABR Black Sox Scandal Research Committee will host this once-in-a-century event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1919 World Series from 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 28, 2019 at the Chicago History Museum. All baseball fans are welcome to attend; click here to register.

Click here to view the full symposium schedule. Here are our featured speakers:

Bruce S. Allardice, history professor at South Suburban College near Chicago, and author of numerous articles on the Black Sox Scandal
Kevin P. Braig, a partner with the law firm of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP, and a member of the International Masters of Gaming Law
Dr. Susan Dellinger, author of Red Legs and Black Sox: Edd Roush and the Untold Story of the 1919 World Series and granddaughter of Hall of Famer Edd Roush
Michael Haupert, Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and co-chair of SABR’s Business of Baseball Committee
Rick Huhn, associate editor of Scandal on the South Side and the author of three baseball books, including Eddie Collins: A Baseball Biography
Bill Lamb, author of Black Sox in the Courtroom: The Grand Jury, Criminal Trial and Civil Litigation and the 2019 recipient of SABR’s Bob Davids Award
Daniel A. Nathan, Professor of American Studies at Skidmore College and author of Saying It’s So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal
David Pietrusza, author of Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series and other award-winning books
Jacob Pomrenke, SABR’s Director of Editorial Content, chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee, and editor of Scandal on the South Side
Bill Savage, English professor at Northwestern University, instructor at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and baseball author/historian

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

Join us on September 14 in Philadelphia to honor baseball pioneers Hicks Hayhurst and Octavius Catto

The SABR Nineteenth Century Grave Marker Project will hold a commemoration to honor Philadelphia baseball pioneers Hicks Hayhurst and Octavius Catto in a dual ceremony to further recognize their contributions to American and Philadelphia history.

The ceremony will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 14 at Mount Peace Cemetery, 3111 W. Lehigh Avenue in Philadelphia. All baseball fans are welcome to attend this free event, which should last about 30 minutes.

A Republican councilman for Philadelphia, Hayhurst was also a baseball player and president of the National Association champion Athletics of Philadelphia of the late nineteenth century. In 1866 Catto, a civil rights activist, helped found one of the earliest black clubs in the U.S., the Pythian Base Ball Club. Together they organized the first widely reported integrated baseball game in United States history in September 1869; the game was the first of its kind in Philadelphia.

SABR’s Connie Mack Chapter will honor the 150th anniversary of the first integrated game between the Olympic Ball Club and Catto’s Pythians Club. The game was played on September 3, 1869, a victory for the Olympics witnessed by 4,000 fans. The SABR Nineteenth Century Gravemarker Project will dedicate a new grave marker for Elias Hicks Hayhurst and his wife Elizabeth.

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

SABR launches new SocialLink communication tool for members

SABR has launched a new communication tool for members called SocialLink, along with a fresh look for our membership system at profile.sabr.org.

The SocialLink platform will allow for all groups (research committees, chapters, and more) to communicate in online forums. Each chapter and research committee will have its own dedicated discussion forum, and we will also have new community-wide discussion forums that all SABR members can access online or through the SocialLink app.

In addition, members will be able to message one another directly and there will be more traditional social media functionality, allowing all SABR members to connect with each other regardless of chapter affiliation or research committee involvement.

Finally, members who download the SocialLink app will be able to access this functionality from their smartphones or tablets, creating greater access to member benefits and eliminating the need to be on a computer to communicate with other members.

We’ll highlight some of the new features in the SocialLink platform in the coming weeks, but we encourage you to start taking advantage of the new tools available to all SABR members today!

To start exploring SocialLink, visit profile.sabr.org.

Call for papers: 2020 SABR Frederick 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 2020 Frederick Ivor-Campbell 19th Century Base Ball Conference at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The 12th annual Ivor-Campbell Conference is scheduled for April 24-25, 2020.

The deadline for proposal Abstracts is October 31, 2019. 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 to read the full announcement at SABR.org.

Save the date! Join us for the 2020 SABR Analytics Conference

SABR is pleased to announce that the ninth annual SABR Analytics Conference will be held Friday, March 13 to Sunday, March 15, 2020 at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Renaissance Phoenix Downtown is at 100 N. 1st St., Phoenix, AZ 85004. Conference registration and hotel information for the 2020 conference will be available beginning in October 2019 at SABR.org/analytics.

The SABR Analytics Conference brings together industry insiders from the baseball community, data innovators, thought leaders, members of the media and college students who will participate in the popular Diamond Dollars Case Competition.

Visit SABR.org/analytics to learn more.

SABR Digital Library: The Newark Eagles Take Flight: The Story of the 1946 Negro League Champions

Add a soaring baseball book to your collection with our newest title from the SABR Digital Library:

The Newark Eagles Take Flight: The Story of the 1946 Negro League Champions
Edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin
Associate Editors: Rich Applegate and Len Levin
ISBN (e-book): 978-1-9701-5906-6, $9.99
ISBN (paperback): 978-1-9701-5907-3, $29.99
8.5″ x 11″, 230 pages

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

SABR members, get this e-book for FREE!

E-book: Click here to download the e-book version of The Newark Eagles Take Flight for FREE from the SABR Store. Available in PDF, Kindle/MOBI and EPUB formats.
Paperback: Get a 50% discount on the The Newark Eagles Take Flight paperback edition from the SABR Store ($15.99 includes shipping/tax; delivery via Kindle Direct Publishing can take up to 4-6 weeks.)

SABRcast with Rob Neyer: Listen to an interview with Black Sox Scandal committee chair Jacob Pomrenke

Listen to a new episode of SABRcast with Rob Neyer, a new weekly podcast hosted by award-winning author and longtime SABR member Rob Neyer — which is now available on your favorite podcast streaming services!

Visit SABR.org/sabrcast to listen to Episode #24 — our guest this week is Jacob Pomrenke, SABR’s Director of Editorial Content, chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee, and editor of Scandal on the South Side: The 1919 Chicago White Sox. Later this month, the committee is hosting the SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium in Chicago to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the fixed 1919 World Series and shine a light on baseball’s “darkest hour.” The committee also produced the Eight Myths Out project to debunk many common misconceptions about the Black Sox Scandal.

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. Every week, SABRcast will feature insights and analysis of what’s happening in modern baseball on and off the field, plus compelling interviews with figures from around the game — and music from The Baseball Project.

To learn more, visit SABR.org/sabrcast.

Become a Friend of SABR by joining our On-Deck Circle with monthly giving

SABR’s mission is to foster the study, discussion, and understanding of all aspects of baseball. In order to fulfill this mission, we rely not only on member dues but also gifts from our generous supporters. You can become a Friend of SABR by giving as little as $10 per month. When you do so, you will be inducted into a community of passionate baseball fans dedicated to supporting SABR’s work.

Get in the SABR On-Deck Circle, and help SABR become the essential community for the world of baseball. Your support will build capacity around all things SABR, including publications, website content, podcast development, and community growth.

A monthly gift is deducted from your bank account or charged to a credit card until you tell us to stop. No more email, mail, or phone reminders.

Visit SABR.org/donate or contact Ben Rose at brose@sabr.org to learn more.

Register now for the 2019 SABR Minnesota 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium

The SABR Minnesota 19th Century Baseball Interdisciplinary Symposium will take place on Saturday, November 16, 2019, at the Minneapolis Public Library, 300 Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The day-long Saturday symposium will be devoted to 19th-century baseball as it was played and evolved in Minnesota and the greater Midwest region. The event is a joint project of the SABR Nineteenth Century Committee, SABR’s Halsey Hall Chapter, and the Hennepin County Library.

Register: Click here to register online for the symposium. You may also download the registration form and mail a check made out to “SABR” to Peter Mancuso, 6970 Ely Road, New Hope, PA 18938. The deadline to register is November 8, 2019.
Cost: $40 per person. Fee includes continental breakfast, buffet lunch, and afternoon beverages and snacks.
Schedule: Click here to download the full schedule and registration details (PDF)

Guest speakers are expected to include John Thorn, MLB’s Official Historian; Larry Millett, longtime St. Paul Pioneer Press architecture critic and author of more than 10 books, including The Curve of the Arch and Lost Twin Cities; Stew Thornley, author of Baseball in Minnesota: A Definitive History and other books; Dan Levitt, author of Paths to Glory: How Great Baseball Teams Got That Way and other books; Mike Haupert, Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse; Kristin Anderson, art and architecture professor and author of an upcoming book on the history of sports facilities in the Twin Cities; Frank White, author of They Played for the Love of the Game: Untold Stories of Black Baseball in Minnesota; Brian Madigan, SABR member and associate librarian for Hennepin County Libraries; and more.

For more information, contact event organizers at sabrMN19c@gmail.com.

4 new SABR biographies published

Four new biographies were posted this week as part of the SABR Baseball Biography Project, which brings us to a total of 5,000 published biographies! Here are the new bios published this week:

Steve Biras, by Chris Rainey
Ryne Sandberg, by Tim Herlich
Mule Suttles, by Stephen V. Rice
Taft Wright, by Warren Corbett

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.

7 new stories published by the SABR Games Project

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

April 12, 1912: Cincinnati’s Redland Field hosts its first game, by Richard Cuicchi
April 26, 1915: Reds blow big lead, come back to beat Cubs, 13-12, by Norm King
June 11, 1915: Reds’ Rube Benton fans 14 in extra-inning shutout, by Joseph Wancho
April 16, 1918: Reds’ Pete Schneider tosses one-hitter on Opening Day, by Gregory H. Wolf
August 24, 1973: Yaz takes over for Red Sox … at third base?, by Kurt Blumenau (first-time author)
June 24, 1991: Dave Winfield becomes oldest player to hit for the cycle, by Mike Huber
October 2, 2015: Astros set team record, score 21 runs to rout Diamondbacks, by Peter Seidel

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 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, will air this season at a new time. Listen in from 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET on Saturdays on MLB Network Radio.

This week’s guests are Bradford Doolittle of ESPN and Jake Mailhot of FanGraphs.

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 (SABR.org/directory).

Name	Hometown	Name	Hometown
Diya Buonincontro	Algonquin, IL	David Rennells	Bushnell, FL
Sean Church	Seattle, WA	Dale Rogers	Mesa, AZ
Jay Gullett	Willard, OH	Michael Rubadue	Beech Grove, IN
Rob Holl	Wekiva Springs, FL	David Sada	Houston, TX
Aaron Likavec	N. Ridgeville, OH	Tyler Smith	Huntington Station, NY
Chad Meisgeier	Omaha, NE	Travis Stephenson	Columbus, OH
Jack Myers	Milton, WI	Mike Zimmerman	Toronto, ON

Research Committee news

Here are the new research committee updates this week:

Business of Baseball: Seeking volunteers for MLB Team Employee Directory project
Deadball Era: September 2019 newsletter (click here for appendix)

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

Regional Chapter news

Here are the new regional chapter updates this week:

Baltimore Babe Ruth Chapter: September 2019 newsletter (Baltimore, MD)

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:

September 14: Hicks Hayhurst grave marker dedication ceremony (Philadelphia, PA)
September 14: Hank Gowdy Chapter book club meeting (Columbus, OH)
September 14: Emil Rothe Chicago Chapter meeting (Lisle, IL)
September 14: Hanlan’s Point Chapter meeting/ballgame (Beachville, ON)
September 14: Rogers Hornsby Chapter monthly lunch meeting (Austin, TX)
September 15: Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood Chapter ballgame/meet-up (New York, NY)
September 15: Bud Metheny/Virginia Eastern Shore Chapter meeting (Williamsburg, VA)
September 16: Larry Dierker Chapter monthly meeting (Houston, TX)
September 17: Bob Davids Chapter Maryland Hot Stove Dinner (Silver Spring, MD)
September 18: Baltimore Babe Ruth Chapter “Called Shot” monthly meeting (Baltimore, MD)
September 18: David Rapp: “Tinker to Evers to Chance: The Chicago Cubs and the Dawn of Modern America” (Arlington, VA)
September 19: Rocky Mountain Chapter monthly luncheon (Denver, CO)
September 19: Magnolia Chapter “Third Thursday” meeting (Sandy Springs, GA)
September 21: East Tennessee Chapter meeting (Knoxville, TN)
September 21: Bob Broeg Chapter: 2019 Jim Rygelski Research Conference (St. Louis, MO)
September 21: Babe ‘n’ Bob Chapter Breakfast (Edgewater, MD)
September 23: Rabbit Maranville Chapter fall meeting (Springfield, MA)
September 23: Banks-Bragan DFW Chapter meeting (Arlington, TX)
September 25: Magnolia Chapter “Fourth Wednesday” meeting (Tucker, GA)
September 27-29: SABR Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium (Chicago, IL)
September 28: Allan Roth Chapter meeting (Pasadena, CA)
September 28: 2019 Pacific Coast League player/family reunion (San Leandro, CA)
September 28: Goose Goslin Chapter meeting (Cherry Hill, NJ)
September 28: Connie Mack Chapter meeting (Philadelphia, PA)

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:

Call for papers: 2020 NINE Spring Training Conference
Eno Sarris: The game that nearly broke the space-time continuum (and your favorite data website) (The Athletic)
Jay Jaffe: Red Sox are headed toward a crossroads with Mookie Betts (FanGraphs)
David Laurila: The Red Sox and Dave Dombrowski have parted ways; now what? (FanGraphs)
Travis Sawchik: Do we even need Minor League Baseball? (FiveThirtyEight)
Derrick Goold: Shifts in approach aid historic turnaround for sure-handed Cardinals (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Sam Miller: The ‘Pedro Game’ turns 20 years old (ESPN.com)
Mike Petriello: Not a typo: Yu Darvish throws 10 different pitches (MLB.com)
Zachary Hayes: Stranded on a desert island: Justin Verlander shoots for another record (The Hardball Times)
Jayson Stark: Wilson Ramos and the record that was made to be unbroken (The Athletic)
Chris Wimmer: The Black Sox Scandal and ‘Eight Men Out’ (Infamous America podcast)
Rob Mains: Baseball attendance and short-term profits (Baseball Prospectus)
Corey Brock: How Jim Bouton and his Portland Maverick teammate invented Big League Chew (The Athletic)
Tom Phoebus, ‘Fireplug’ who helped Orioles win 1970 World Series, dies at 77 (Baltimore Sun)
Alfonso Tusa: The secret lives of two disappeared ballparks (The Hardball Times)
Frank Jackson: You should know Oyster Joe (The Hardball Times)
John Racanelli: Many Will Enter, Few Will Win (SABR Baseball Cards Blog)
Paul Ember: 1976 Topps #441 Gary Carter (SABR Baseball Cards Blog)
Jason Schwartz: This Mel Ott is hard to date (SABR Baseball Cards Blog)
Jeff Katz: A Garr-eat Cause (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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