BASEBALL Research Primer

 

 

This primer is a supplement, produced by the Halsey Hall Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), to SABR’s Research Resources page. The latter is available only to SABR members.

 
Contents:
Useful Places to Surf

Historical Newspapers Online

Magazines and Periodicals

Scholarly Sources and Journals

Databases

Standard Texts

Ballparks

History

Graves/Necrology

No-Hitters
Scouts

Statistics

Photos

Umpires and Official Scoring

Using Your SABR Membership

Library Services

Miscellaneous

 

Useful Places to Surf

Research Resources from SABR
The main page for links to SABR research resources. (Must log in as SABR member.)

 

  

SABR Style Guide

Ball park or ballpark? Hyphen in pinch hit? Two RBI or RBIs? The SABR Style Guide is a must for anyone writing about baseball. It builds on style books such as The Associated Press Stylebook and The Chicago Manual of Style with terms specific to baseball.

 

SABR Research Journal Archive

Links to past issues of the SABR Baseball Research Journal and The National Pastime.

 

  

Baseball-Reference.com

An encyclopedia-style site managed by SABR member Sean Forman. Organized by player, team, year, etc.

 

Retrosheet

Managed by SABR member David Smith. A tremendous resource with a surprisingly diverse number of statistics and breakdowns. Game-by-game information, including downloadable play-by-play. Anyone can join, and they have a member listserv.

   

The Baseball Index

The Baseball Index (TBI) is a free catalog to baseball literature.It encompasses books, magazine articles, programs, pamphlets, films, recordings, songs, poems, cartoons, advertising, or anything else that may be of interest to the baseball fan or researcher. It is an ongoing project of the Bibliography Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) to catalog the entirety of baseball literature, from the earliest references to the present day. TBI is the creation of volunteers. Their hours of work and financial contributions have made your TBI research possible.

 

Remember, TBI is an index to baseball literature. It is a guide to what has been written about baseball subjects. It does not include the full-text of the sources referenced.

 

SABR Oral History Committee

The SABR Oral History Collection includes hundreds of interviews conducted with ballplayers, executives, scouts, authors, writers, broadcasters, and other figures of historical baseball significance. It also has special sessions from SABR events.


2014 Emerald Guide to Baseball
The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) offers the Emerald Guide to Baseball as a free PDF to the baseball community. The Emerald Guide contains statistics and other information that had been available in the annual Official Baseball Guide published by The Sporting News. In addition to the free PDF (past issues back to 2007 are also available), bound copies are available for purchase.


Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com offers a large collection of government historical information.Most notably they provide U.S. Federal Census records, Birth, Marriage & Death records, and a Social Security Death Index. Monthly and annual subscriptions are available.

 

GenealogyBank
A genealogical resources that includes modern obituaries and historical newspapers. Subscriptions available.

 

Google Books

Enter �baseball� into the search window (or a more specific term, such as the title of the book).

  

Baseball Almanac

Managed by SABR member Sean Holtz.Trivia style. Stories, jokes, lists, awards, etc.

 

Baseball Cards 1887-1914

This web site has a large image collection of old baseball cards.

 

Baseball Prospectus Cot�s Baseball Contracts

This site tracks Major League baseball contracts, signing bonuses, service time and franchise values. The information is unofficial and has been collected from various published reports.

  

Milkees Press
A research service by SABR member Stew Thornley, this site contains monographs, including an ongoing list of no-hitters broken up in the ninth inning since 1961, a list of Minnesota Twins uniform numbers, research on the demise of the reserve clause, and articles and information on Minnesota baseball history, including the Minneapolis Millers.

 

Cliff Blau: Original Baseball Research
Links to baseball research by SABR member Cliff Blau

 

Baseball History
This site, by SABR member David Trombley, has links to league and team histories.

 

University of Maryland Special Collections
Baseball Rule Books from 1871 to 1910

 

ARCHIVEGRID: Topics > Baseball
Evolution of Baseball

 

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Historical Newspapers Online

 

Proquest

Access: Hennepin County and St. Paul Libraries, which also offer remote access to those with a library card registered with them (does not have to be issued by the specific library, just registered with them).

 

Includes:

Historical New York Times

Minneapolis Tribune

Selected Minnesota Newspapers

 

St. Paul Public Library:

Atlanta Historic Newspaper Archives

Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online
The Brooklyn Eagle Newspaper digitized from 1841-1902.

New York Clipper
The New York Clipper was a weekly entertainment newspaper, with outstanding baseball coverage, from May 7, 1853 to July 12, 1924.

Toronto Star Pages of the Past
A subscription provides access to millions of pages from The Toronto Star - pages that previously could be viewed only on a microfilm viewer. Pages of the Past is searchable by the text on the page, or by the date of publication. You can easily seek out birth, death and marriage notices; follow stories of international importance or local significance; view fashion trends, or check on the price of goods over the years.

 

U. S. News Archives on the Web

A site that provides links to United States news archives available on the web.Some links may be slightly outdated.

 

NewspaperArchive

NewspaperARCHIVE.com is the single largest historical newspaper database online, containing more newspaper pages from 1759 to present than any other service.Subscription required.

 

XooxleAnswers Newspaper Archives

   

California Digital Newspaper Collection

Old Fulton New York
This site has New York Newspapers, including the Brooklyn Eagle up to 1955 as well as newspapers from Binghamton, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, Auburn, and Utica.
It has has the New York Clipper, the most-referenced source for pre-professional baseball.

 

Quebec Magazines and Newspapers

Scanned newspapers available for free. It downloads in searchable pdf form. The text can be copied and translated with Google Translate or another on-line program.

 

Mid-Continent Public Library
The Mid-Continent Public Library has a non-resident card available for a fee and provides access to historical newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, Atlanta Daily World, Los Angeles Sentinel, New York Amsterdam News, and Pittsburgh Courier.

 

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Magazines and Periodicals

 

The St. Paul and Hennepin County library databases (also listed above) include useful links to magazines and periodicals.

 

St. Paul Public Library:

 

Hennepin County Library (includes Minneapolis Libraries):

 

For remote access, will need a library card and PIN, which can be obtained when the card is registered with the library.

 

LA 84 Foundation

Includes:

Baseball Magazine 1909-1918 (not complete)

Sports in History 1993-2001

Journal of Sports History 1974-2002

Sport Management Review 1998-2004
The Sporting News Baseball Players Contract Cards Collection

Other magazine and journals

 

Library of Congress Spalding Base Ball Guides, 1889-1939

This web site has indoor base ball guides from 1903-1926 and Spalding base ball guides from 1889-1939. Not every year is there, but many of them are.

 

Google Books: The Reach Guide

 

HighBeam Research

Access:highbeam.com

HighBeam Research provides one place where you can access the free Web, online services to which you subscribe (both for-pay services and free services requiring registration) and a proprietary Library archive of 35 million articles from 3,000 respected publishers.

 

HighBeam Research Offers Basic and Full Membership Options. Full Membership includes unlimited viewing of full-text articles, full use of personalization tools, and the ability to export research to Microsoft Office.

 

Access my Library

 

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Scholarly Sources and Journals

 

JSTOR

Specializes in historical scholarly journals.Articles go back at least to 1869.

 

Includes journals in law, religion, business, feminist and women�s studies, African American studies, geography, history.

 

ABNER Library Catalog (Baseball Hall of Fame)

ABNER (American Baseball Network for Electronic Research) is the National Baseball Hall of Fame Online Library Catalog. Library material is not available for loan. However, such material may be used on site at the Hall of Fame�s A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center. Research services are available by contacting the Library.

 

EBSCO Academic Search Premier

Access: Check your public library web site for remote access.

 

Has a very strong search engine to filter out publication, age, full text or citations.

 

Includes:

American Journal of Sports Medicine 1/1/1992-Current (Citations)

Culture, Sport, Society 3/1/2000-12/31/2003 (Full Text)

International Sports Journal 1/1/2002-6/30/2004 (Full Text)

Journal of Sports Sciences 5/1/1996-Current (Citations)

Journal of Philosophy of Sport 5/1/2003-Current (Citations)

Newsweek 2/21/1983-Current (Citations)

Nine: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture 9/1/2005-Current (Citations)

 

WorldCat

Access: Check your public library web site for remote access.

Do a search of libraries all over the country for many things including books, Visuals, Articles, Maps, almost anything a library would have in their collection.There are only citations so the best way to use this database is for finding hard to get items and then using interlibrary loan.

 

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  Databases

SeanLahman.com Databases
Managed by SABR member Sean Lahman.An outstanding feature is a downloadable encyclopedia database.(Access, or comma-delimited).

 

Old-Time Data Inc.: The Professional Baseball Player Databases

The site contains information about ordering a database that contains the entire professional records of players between 1922 and 2004. The data is limited�batting average, home runs, runs batted in for position players, and won-lost record and earned-run average for pitchers, but it is invaluable for finding records of men who did not reach the major leagues.

 

Chadwick Baseball Bureau: Tidy Baseball Data
A master register of people who have been involved in baseball

 

Historical Baseball Writer Database
From the Society for American Baseball Research Baseball and the Media Committee

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Standard Texts

 

Encyclopedias

 

Biographical Sources

 

Teams Histories

 

Baseball History � General

 

Periodicals, Annuals

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Ballparks

   

Ballparks by Munsey & Suppes

 

Ballpark Digest


Seamheads.com Ballparks Database

 

Ballparks of Baseball

 

Retrosheet Park Directory

 

Clem’s Baseball: Our National Pastime & Its “Green Cathedrals”

 

Welcome to Borchert Field

 

Nicollet Park

 

Twin Cities Ballparks

 

Twin Cities Ballparks (booklet - PDF 3.2 MB/11 pages)

 

Washington Park, Brooklyn

 

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History

   

Northern League Organization and Team Histories

 

St. Paul Saints History 1920-39

 

Minneapolis Millers
Includes links to all games played by the Minneapolis Millers, 1884 to 1960

 

Spalding’s Minneapolis Amateur Base Ball Year Book for 1905
A 164-page guide with information and statistics on amateur and semi-professional teams in Minnesota in 1905

 

North Dakota Baseball History

This is a site maintained by SABR member Terry Bohn with links to research he has done on the early history of baseball in North Dakota.

 

Protoball: Pre-pro Baseball
The Protoball Chronologies cover the evolution of ballgames from ancient Times to 1870, just before the first professional baseball league began.

Protoball:Pre-pro Clubs and Games in Minnesota
Covers the spread of baseball in
Minnesota

 

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Graves/Necrology

 

The Deadball Era 

Baseball Hall of Fame Gravesites 

Baseball Necrology 

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No-Hitters

 

List of Major League Baseball No-hitters 

Lost in the Ninth: No-Hitters Broken Up in the Ninth Inning Since 1961 

No-Hitters and Official Scorers 

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Scouts

 

Scouts Research Committee by SABR

Diamond Minds - Information on Scouts from the Baseball Hall of Fame 

Baseball America: 2013 Big League Debuts and Their Signing Scouts

SABR Scouts eGroup
Moderated discussion group for members of the SABR Scouts Committee

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Statistics

   

MLB.com Statistics

 

Baseballrace.com

The baseballrace.com site is the creation Christopher J. Falvey. It is an online application that allows you to view any Major League Baseball season, split by league or division (even wild card races), as an animated, date-by-date race between the various teams you choose.

 

Tango - Lichtman - Dolphin

If Linear Weights, Run Expectancy, and Runs Created mean something to you, if you are a fan of Pete Palmer or Bill James, then you�ve come to the right place. This is just a dumping ground for research or reports that I�ve done, and people might find interesting. One day, I will post all my research here.

 

Statistical Studies of Baseball by John F. Jarvis

Access:http://knology.net/~johnfjarvis/baseball.html

In the world of professional team sports baseball is unique in several ways. The discrete nature of the game, enabling individual plays to be readily categorized with a modest number of possible outcomes, leads to a very complete statistical record. Likewise, the discrete nature of the game enables detailed simulations to be carried out. The game�s statistical record provides accurate parametrization of the simulator and insight into the game can be obtained from these simulations. A number of statistical studies based on simulator results and full season play-by-play descriptions are linked to this page.

 

Baseball Prospectus

If you�re not familiar with Baseball Prospectus, here�s what we�re all about: understanding the game better, and innovating in order to do it. Everyone at BP loves the game of baseball with a passion that most people just don�t understand. We feel that this greatest of games is so compelling that we want to know everything about it. We always want to improve our understanding of the game; each player, each play, each pitch, each throw, each hit--what does it really mean? Those arguments that take place in bars about the relative merits of different players? We really want to know the definitive answer to those questions. But we don�t want to kill the joy of the game while we�re looking.

 

Baseball Think Factory

Baseball Think Factory and its family of affiliated sites is dedicated to providing unique baseball content (information, blogs, links, news, forums, chat) to thinking baseball fans.

 

Baseball Analysts

An excellent overall baseball site run by Rich Lederer.

 

SB Nation: Beyond the Boxscore

An excellent site that includes research by Cy Morong.

 

Hardball Times

Another good statistical site.

 

Phil Birnbaum

Phil Birnbaum�s website contains a sabermetric research blog.

 

A Guide to Sabermetric Research

 

SABR Statistical Analysis Research Committee

Baseball Analyst Archives
A sabermetrics journal edited by Bill James from 1981 to 1989

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Photos

   

Prints & Photographs Online Catalogs from the Library of Congress

 

Photographs from the Chicago Daily News 1902-1933

Just about any player who played for the Cubs or the White Sox from 1902-1933 is pictured in this collection.  Many of the photos are also of visiting players from the same era.

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Umpires and Official Scoring

Retrosheet Directory of Umpires    

 

SABR Official Scoring Research Committee


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Using Your SABR Membership

 

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Library Services

 

Hennepin County Central Library - Minneapolis

Most of the books with Library of Congress classifications are now on the shelves on the main floor.The books in the tall shelves in the section closer to 3rd Street are circulating copies.Books in the shorter shelves closer to the atrium are reference copies or are books in the Popular Library.

 

Current periodicals and newspapers are on the third floor.All the microfilm reels for the Minneapolis newspapers are in cases in this area.All of the St. Paul papers back to 1967 are in these cases, as well.

����� Other newspapers�Washington Post, New York Times, are in the stacks area on the other side of the atrium on the third floor.

����� In this area are the periodicals A through O.P to Z are across the hall.

 

History and Social Services are on the fourth floor.The stacks contain reference books as well as circulation copies of annual books.Sports books are in the section GV 877 to GV 971.Books on the Olympics are at GV 721.5.Also, check out the oversized (folio) baseball books in the stacks at fGV 863 to fGV 878.

����� Other sports books with the Dewey Decimal System (797) are in the stacks, as well. ���������

 

James K. Hosmer Special Collections Library�Fourth floor.

����� Open by appointment only on Mondays and Wednesdays (10 to 1 and 2 to 4:30) and the first and third Saturday of each month from 11 to 2.

����� To schedule an appointment or to have certain materials available, call 612-630-6351.

 

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Miscellenous

 

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews

 

Baseball America Executive Database

 

Baseball: The National Pastime in the National Archives

 

BaseballGuru.com Baseball Research & Analysis

 

Baseball Resources at the Library of Congress

 

Beyond the Box Score: Baseball Records in the National Archives

 

Brooklyn Dodgers Archival Material - Guide

 

Effa Manley Collection of Negro Baseball Papers 1938-1976

 

Esteban Bellan Collection at Fordham (Cuban Baseball)

 

Fangraphs

Using the leaderboards and team section, all sorts of statistics are available, including the latest pitch type information. Examples:

 

The Hardball Times

 

Index of Online Baseball Guides

 

The Joyce Sports Research Collection: Baseball

 

National College Baseball Hall of Fame - Southwest Collection Archive

 

Norman Macht Baseball Research Collection Guide

 

Pitch Types

A great resource for pitch types. Example: Dallas Keuchel pitch location box from 2015

 

Retrosheet Research Papers

 

Roster Resource

 

Smithsonian Institution: Guide to the Ronald Gabriel Collection of Baseball Memorabilia

Content related to the Brooklyn Dodgers

 

Spalding’s Official Base Ball Record Books 1908-1922

 

Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center

The Society for American Baseball Research collection, housed in the Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center at the San Diego Library, is the largest baseball research collection outside of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

 

The Sporting News Baseball Players Contract Cards Collection at the LA 84 Foundation

 

Trade Rumors

 

Vintage Baseball Cards from the Collection of Senator Richard B. Russell

Yahoo Groups: Minnesota Baseball

An on-line discussion group centered on Minnesota, although any baseball topic is allowed.

 

 


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Note:This research primer is a product of the Research Committee of the Halsey Hall Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research.