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A SABR story

© Greg Spira

Late last month I spent four days attending the annual Society of American Baseball Research convention just outside San Francisco. This was the first time I ever fully attended this annual convention, though I had shown up to a few events when the convention was here in New York years ago. The experience was, for this baseball fan, a great privilege.

SABR, as the organization generally refers to itself, has been around for almost 30 years. It was founded in August 1971 by 16 individuals whose aim was to foster and further knowledge about the game. Since then, the organization has garnered a roster of almost 7000 members.

The heart of the organization is its research committees, which cover subjects such as ballparks, 19th-century baseball, women in baseball, statistics, oral history, and much more. These committees have contributed a great deal to our overall knowledge of baseball, and corrected and added to the historical record many times.

SABR publishes several books a year for its members. SABR's oldest annual publication is the Baseball Research Journal , which has been published every year since 1972. This is where SABR has published much of its members' research. For example, this year's Journal was headlined by a story showing that the oft-told tale of Bill Veeck trying to buy the St. Louis Browns to integrate baseball in the early 1940s was a total fiction. SABR also publishes other books annually, such as The National Pastime, and has published several collections of articles for the general public as well as such books as The Home Run Encyclopedia.

SABR members meet in a number of different ways, and a membership directory is regularly issued so that everyone finds everyone (who wants to be found). Besides the annual convention, there are get-togethers at varying intervals of the over 30 regional groups which exist; these get-togethers sometimes include guest speakers and presentations and always feature lots of baseball talk.

I had a blast at the SABR convention in the Bay Area. There were a number of fascinating research presentations on such topics as the Polo Grounds, platooning and the players union. There was a players panel led by former Giants star Orlando Cepeda. ESPN broadcaster Jon Miller gave a very entertaining presentation. Not surprisingly, there were ballgames at the stadiums of both the San Francisco Giants and the San Jose Giants (an A ball team), as well as a tour of the Oakland Coliseum. Also featured was a play on Christy Mathewson and a trivia contest. Open during most of the convention was a marketplace with many dealers selling lots of neat baseball stuff, especially books. And near the end there was a wonderful banquet at which members were honored and longtime baseball man Bill Rigney spoke about baseball both old and new.

The copyright of the article A SABR story in Baseball is owned by Greg Spira. Permission to republish A SABR story in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.