Research Primer

 

What follows are a few tips that might help get you started on a research project. This brief outline is not intended to replace SABR’s own 2000 publication, How to Do Baseball Research, edited by Gerald Tomlinson. That fine work focuses on all aspects of baseball research, and goes into much more detail than we attempt here. This document is a start, something that might help you organize the task ahead.

 

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Mark Armour for providing the bulk of this primer. Cary Smith (with some assistance from Dan Levitt) contributed the majority the web based information. Stew Thornley provided the Minneapolis Library research direction. 


Contents:
Essential Web Resources
Other Useful Places to Surf
Historical Newspapers Online
Historical Magazines and Periodicals
Scholarly Sources and Journals
Databases
Standard Texts
Statistics
Using your SABR Membership
Library Services
Commercial Services
Book Dealers, etc.
Other Hints: What to Look For

 

Essential Web Resources

 

Baseball Reference

Access: www.baseball-reference.com

 

Managed by SABR member Sean Forman. The best encyclopedia-style site. Organized by player, team, year, etc. 

 

 

Retrosheet

Access: www.retrosheet.org

 

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.

 

 

Baseball Library

Access: Baseballlibrary.com (http://www.pubdim.net/baseballlibrary/)

 

Comment: Day-by-days, season rosters, on-line version of The Ballplayers, on-line version of the Baseball Chronology.

 

 

The Baseball Index

Access:  http://www.baseballindex.org/

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.

 

 

Ancestry.com

Access: http://www.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.

 

US Deluxe Annual Membership $12.95 month Billed in an annual payment of $155.40

US Deluxe Monthly Membership $29.95 month Billed in monthly payments

 

 

Other Useful Places to Surf

 

Google

Access: www.google.com. 

 

Try a web search for player’s name.  You might have to wade through some useless stuff, but it is often worthwhile.

 

 

Baseball Almanac

Access: www.baseball-almanac.com

 

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

 

 

Baseball Cards 1887-1914

Access: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/bbhtml/bbhome.html

 

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

 

 

The Baseball Card Project

Access: http://www.baseballcardproject.com/

 

This site includes pictures of baseball cards from 1960-Current ranging from all different kinds of brands.

 

 

Cot's Baseball Contracts

Access: http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/

 

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.

 

 

Historical Newspapers Online

 

Proquest

Access: SABR Members Area (Until January 1 2007).  Also Minneapolis or Hennepin County Library (see below).

 

SABR offering includes:

Historical Atlanta Constitution

Historical Boston Globe

Historical Chicago Defender

Historical Chicago Tribune

Historical Los Angeles Times

Historical New York Times

Historical Washington Post

 

Library Access: Most public libraries with remote access including, Minneapolis and Hennepin

 

Includes:

Historical New York Times

 

Proquest through Minneapolis Public Library: http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us

Click on Research Tools, then Online Databases.  Click on link for Alphabetical List of Databases, and then click on the P link for Proquest.  The direct link for this is at http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/datasubs.asp#P.  There are several choices for Proquest, including the New York Times from 1851 to 2001.  To access this from home, a library card registered with the Minneapolis Public Library (does not have to be issued by the Minneapolis Library, just registered with them) is necessary.

 

For Hennepin County Library:

http://www.hennepin.lib.mn.us

Click on Databases A-Z (http://www.hennepin.lib.mn.us/pub/search/SubjectGuides.cfm?Topic=Databases)

Go to Historical New York Times

 

ArchivesUSA

Access: Sabr Members Area

 

It looks like it helps find Archives that are scattered all over the country.  More information is needed about this database.

 

 

Brooklyn Eagle Archives

Access: http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/

 

The Brooklyn Eagle Newspaper digitized from 1841-1902

 

 

Toronto Star Archives

Access: http://thestar.pagesofthepast.ca/Default.asp

 

Benefits of a Subscription Pages of the Past gives you 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. The value of the content is limitless. From front pages to crosswords; from comics to editorials; from news of disasters to birth notices - they are all there. Cost of Subscriptions Subscription costs are for single users. 1 Hour Subscription is $3.95 CDN; 24 Hour Subscription is $6.95 CDN; 72 Hour Subscription is $9.95 CDN 7 Day Subscription is $18.95 CDN; 1 Month Subscription is $29.95 CDN.

 

US News Archives on the web

Access: http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/internet/archives.html

 

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

 

NewspaperARCHIVE.com

Access: http://newspaperarchive.com/

 

NewspaperARCHIVE.com, is the single largest historical newspaper database online, containing more newspaper pages from 1759 to present than any other service.  SABR members receive a 50% discount on the annual subscription rate (regularly $7.95/mo)

 

 

Historical Magazines and Periodicals

 

Paper of Record

Access:  Paperofrecord.com

 

The Sporting News. Normal rate is $99 a year with a discount from SABR it is $75 for two years. The Search engine is not very good for the years from 1886 to about 1930 because it can not recognize words due to the poor quality of newspaper scans.  They are looking for cleaner copies of the old sporting news editions that they can digitize.

 

Includes:

The Sporting News from 1886-2005

Afro-American

Many newspapers from Canada

Many other newspapers from around the world, old and new.

 

 

New Yorker Magazine Archives

Access: http://www.thenewyorkerstore.com/books_completenewyorker_middle.asp?affiliate=TNYS06_TNYCN

 

Order the complete text of all New Yorker magazines from February 1925 to April 2006.  The New Yorker had a number of baseball articles, in addition to many famous ones by Roger Angell.

 

DVD--$60; Portable hard disk--$300.

 

 

Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles

Access: http://www.aafla.org/5va/serials_frmst.htm

 

Includes:

Baseball Magazine 1909-1918 (not complete)

Sports in History 1993-2001

Journal of Sports History 1974-2002

Sport Management Review 1998-2004

And other Magazine and Journals

 

 

Spalding Base Ball Guides 1889-1939

Access: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/spaldinghtml/spaldinghome.html

 

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.

 

 

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.  Unlimited access to 35-plus million full-text articles is available to subscribers for $19.95 a month or $99.95 a year.

 

 

Scholarly Sources and Journals

 

JSTOR

Access: http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/database

 

Specializes in Historical Scholarly Journals.  Articles go back at least to 1869.

 

Includes journals in the subjects of:

Law

Religion

Business

Feminist and Women’s Studies

African American Studies

Geography

History

And More

 

Academic Search Premier (Ebscohost)

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.

 

Photographs from the Chicago Daily News 1902-1933

Access: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/ichihtml/cdnhome.html

 

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.

 

 

Databases

 

Baseball1

Access: www.baseball1.com

 

Managed by SABR member Sean Lahman.  Best feature is a downloadable encyclopedia database.  (Access, or comma-delimited).

 

 

Baseball Player Database

A CD available from Old-Time Data, Inc., Overland Park, KS

Access: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/minor-league/

 

The current version 6.0 contains the entire professional records of all men who played professional baseball between 1922 and 2004. The data is limited -- ba, hr and rbi for position players, and w-l and era for pitchers, but it is invaluable for finding records of men who did not reach the major leagues. With the CD you can search for teams by year, league, farm system, etc., as well as looking for individual players.

 

 

Standard Texts

 

Encyclopedias

  • Thorn, John, Palmer, Pete & Gershman, Michael. Total Baseball, Seventh Edition.  Total Sports, 2001.  The “Official Bible”.  The best organized for looking at players.  The new edition breaks down games played by outfield position!  Several great historical articles. 
  • Neft, David S., Cohen, Richard M. & Neft, Michael L.  The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball 2001.  St. Martins Griffin, 2001.  The best organized for looking at teams.
  • Stats, Inc All-Time Baseball Handbook.  Stats Publishing, 1998.  Only player and pitcher registers, no other material.  Better than TB for fielding stats, also includes pitchers hitting.
  • Stats, Inc All-Time Baseball Sourcebook.  Stats Publishing, 1998.  Everything else you might want other than the standard encylopedia register in the other book.  Year/team section like Neft & Cohen, only more and better.  Complete all-time leaders, better than TB.  Team records and leaders section.  Box scores of all post-season games and AllStar games.  Ballparks, amateur draft, etc.
  • Hoie, Bob & Bauer, Carlos.  The Historical Register.  Baseball Press Books, 1997.

 

Biographical Sources

  • Shatzkin, Mike [ed].  The Ballplayers.  Idea Logical Press, 1999.
  • Pietrusza, David et. al. [eds]. Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia.  Total Sports, 2000.
  • Riley, James A.  The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. It's a great place to start when looking for some obscure African-American players.

 

Teams Histories

  • Dewey, Donald & Acocella, Nicholas.  The Ball Clubs. HarperPerennial, 1996.
  • Bjarkman, Peter C. [ed.]. Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball—American League. Carroll and Graf, 1993.
  • Bjarkman, Peter C. [ed.]. Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball—National League. Carroll and Graf, 1993.
  • Total Baseball’s Team Histories

 

Baseball History-General

  • Koppett, Leonard.  Koppett's Concise History of Major League Baseball.  Temple, 1998.  The best single volume text, especially for off-the-field details.

 

Periodicals, Annuals

 

 

Statistics

 

baseballrace.com

Access:  http://www.baseballrace.com/

 

BaseballRace.com 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.

 

Jim Albert's home page

Access:  http://bayes.bgsu.edu/

 

Jim Albert is a SABR member who posts some of his sabermetric studies.

 

TangoTiger

Access:  http://www.tangotiger.net/

 

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.

 

John 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

Access:  http://www.baseballprospectus.com/

 

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

Access:  http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/

 

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

Access:  http://www.baseballanalysts.com/

 

An excellent overall baseball site run by Rich Lederer.

 

Beyond the Boxscore

Access:  http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/

 

An excellent site that includes research by Cy Morong

 

Hardball Times

Access:  http://www.hardballtimes.com/

 

Another good statistical site

 

SABR Statistical Analysis Committee

Access: http://www.philbirnbaum.com/

 

Phil Birnbaum's web site has all the past issues of "By The Numbers", the quarterly publication of SABR's statistical analysis committee.

 

 

Using Your SABR Membership

 

  • SABR web site (www.sabr.org) is currently being revamped, with promises of much more research content and dissemination.
  • SABR-L.  To subscribe, send this message “subscribe SABR-L firstname m lastname” to the address: LISTSERV@apple.ease.lsoft.com.  Tell other members what you are doing and ask for leads or information that could help you.
  • SABR Forums.  Available through web site.  More fan talk.
  • Halsey Hall chapter egroup.  http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/halseyhall/  The elist is maintained by Stew Thornley.  This list would be particularly useful for research on upper midwest  related items.
  • SABR membership directory.  Find other members.
  • SABR Bulletin – Research Needs.  Free.  Contact SABR office info@sabr.org.
  • Index to SABR publications.  Free email, $4 floppy disk.  Contact SABR office.
  • SABR Research Exchange.  (Len Levin).  Articles, papers, and presentations, written or submitted SABR members, or published material written by non-SABR members and submitted to Len.  $3 for entire list.
  • SABR Lending Library.  Includes Sporting News, Sporting Life, Baseball Magazine, etc. (all microfilm), plus old Guides, books, videos, etc.  See SABR membership directory.

 

 

Library Services

 

Minneapolis Public Library

 

      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, call or e-mail Heather Lawton, 612-630-6351, hblawton@mplib.org

      Can come in without appointment during their hours but must contact Heather ahead of time if certain materials are needed.

 

 

Commercial Services

 

 

 

Book Dealers, etc.

 

  • www.alibris.com.  The best used book portal that I am aware of.  You can often find books cheaper than the cost with a single dealer, especially if you are not concerned with condition.
  • R. Plapinger’s Baseball Books.  Ashland, OR.  (baseballbooks@opendoor.com)  (541-488-1220) catalog available.  Bobby is a NWSABR member.
  • Archer’s Book’s (Paul Bauer).  Kent, OH.  pbauer@core.com  catalog available
  • Wayne Greene Baseball Books.  New York, NY.  greensparks@worldnet.att.net catalog available
  • Georgetown Book Shop (Andy Moorsund).  Bethesda, MD. (301-907-6923)  No catalog!
  • Bob Koehler.  Guides, magazines, etc.  koehlerb@execpc.com.  (262-780-0047)
  • Robert Cresthohl.  Montreal, Quebec.  Guides, periodicals, etc.  (514-481-2830)
  • McFarland Books.  Publisher of new books.  www.mcfarlandbaseball.com
  • www.bookfinder.com is a great tool to research books -- in and out of print -- as it connects one with dealers, large and small, all over the country

 

 

Other Hints: What to look for

 

  • Biographies, autobiographies of player.  If you aren’t sure if such a book exists, email one of the book dealers below, especially Bob Plapinger.
  • Team histories

o       Putnam team histories.  Published 1945-55, fairly comprehensive.  Several have been reissued with indexes.

o       Golenbock’s team oral histories (Yanks, Dodgers, Cubs, Red Sox, Cardinals, Mets)

o       Post-1950 histories fairly sporadic but plentiful for the big market teams.

  • Bios of teammates of player.  If you are researching Vada Pinson, check out Frank Robinson’s biographies, Brosnan’s “Pennant Race”, Pete Rose’s books, Lou Brock’s, etc.
  • An obituary. If the person is deceased, the single most useful thing to locate is an obituary, preferably one local to where the person died.  If the subject died in New York city this might be less enlightening (though still worth finding), but for a person who died in a small town a local obituary could contain information not available elsewhere.  The person is often a local celebrity, and may have spent many years there.  It is worth noting that while an obituary might contain a lot of useful information about the player’s post baseball life, the facts about his baseball career and his youth are often less trustworthy.  Like all sources, the information needs to verified if possible
  • Oral history.  If the person is still alive, you might be able to speak with them directly.  If they are not, you might be able to interview friends or relatives.  One word of warning: all points of fact (dates, summaries of games, statistics, etc.) need to be verified with other sources.  You do not want to count on the memory of the subject as your main source.

 

            Note:  This research primer is a product of the Research Committee of the Halsey Hall chapter of SABR.