2003 Annual Report
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| By The SABR Office |
2003 Collegiate Baseball Committee Annual Report
In less than nine months, our committee has gone from being dormant to starting up again with renewed interest and some great accomplishments. Since being appointed as co-chairmen of the committee in early November, we have been able to make great strides toward accomplishing our first major goal: creating and making available to SABR members (via the Internet) a searchable database of all major league players who have played college baseball.
As many of you know, the original idea for determining college affiliations started with Tom Shea and was continued by Cappy Gagnon. Their original work was put on a computer file with listings by college of players who attended that school (but who were not necessarily players in the school’s baseball program). The original database file or printed hard copies were passed along by Cappy to a few SABR members. Over the last decade, several other SABR members (including co-chairman Rick Benner) were setting up their own databases.
Once this committee was re-established with us as co-chairmen, research efforts were increased to the point that it became possible to post all of Rick’s material on a website created by committee member Jeremy Mills. The website address is www.ncaa-baseball.com/sabr. The goal we established for 2003 was to post as many schools as possible, from NCAA Division I through NAIA schools and junior colleges. The work has been running ahead of schedule and, as of the end of May, all 327 Division I programs are now represented on the website with their own individual page. Thirty-seven of those schools have not yet produced a known major leaguer.
Each school’s page on our website features information on the years baseball has been played at the school; a chronological listing of past and present major leaguers (according to the date of their big league debut); the years played at the school; and an indication of players in that school’s athletic hall of fame. Players whose years in the program have not been confirmed are shown in italics in hopes that their participation will be confirmed at a later date. Assistance is also needed in determining exact years that some schools have had a baseball program.
Another initial major goal for the committee was to start up and send out a committee newsletter to members and interested parties. We have been pleased to see what other committees have done with their newsletters and hope to continue improving ours. Collegiate baseball newsletters have been sent out via e-mail and regular mail in November, February and May, with another newsletter due before the end of June. Through the efforts of committee member Bruce Brown, an e-mail network of all committee members was set up, allowing us to get newsletters to all members with e-mail. In addition, hard copies have been sent to those without e-mail.
The number of committee members has increased significantly since the original list of interested people was determined. The current number of names on the committee list is 58 and newsletters also are sent to other committee chairmen and SABR officials. It is hoped that, in coming months, more members will become involved in helping us “fine tune” the website listings.
Also discussed as future projects last fall were the creation of a history of the College World Series and an index of college players in the summer amateur draft. It turns out that Bill Madden, who is now on our committee roster, has already been at work on a CWS history book, to be published by McFarland in 2005. A history of college baseball is also a possibility for Bill after the CWS book is completed. Rick has had discussions with Baseball America about the possibility of tying some of our website information into a possible update book on the amateur draft in the future.
Both of us plan to be in Denver for the annual meeting and look forward to meeting members of our committee, the chairmen of other committees and SABR board members. At our committee meeting, we hope to establish some more goals for the future and find more SABR members interested in college baseball.
Rick Benner and Jay Langhammer, Co-Chairmen
June 2003
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| | Created On: 2003-08-22 |
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Page Link: http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,316,5,0
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