Featured Partner
 Authors & Contributors
We are grateful for the efforts of all our contributors, those who researched hundreds of biographies and those who provided us with just one article. Occasionally their work was used nearly word for word; more often the requirements of The Ballplayers necessitated considerable rewriting. However their efforts were utilized, they were indispensable to us. The initials at the end of each entry identify the main researcher or researchers of that article. In the following section, those initials appear after the contributor's personal sketch. Contributors are identified by more than one set of initials, and in a few instances authors share the same set of initials.
» Most of these biographies have not been updated since the Ballplayers was first published in 1990. If you see out-of-date information, please let us know at BOLcontent@idealog.com.
» Want to get on this list? Find out how you can contribute by clicking here.
| Art Ahrens |
| has co-authored four books about the Cubs and has written dozens of freelance articles on both the Cubs and other subjects of baseball history. He has been a Cub fan since age seven and has been doing original research since he was fifteen. (ARA, AA) |
| Back to top |
| Al Arthurs |
| lives in Hamilton, Ontario and publishes an annual book about the Ontario Replay League. This proud possessor of a magnificent handlebar mustache is researching the baseball events of 1894. (AJA) |
| Back to top |
| Alan Asnen |
| is a writer, SABR member, former editor, and reporter, and has had numerous biographical sketches published in the Biographical Dictionary of American Sport. (ASNEN, AAs, ASN, AA) |
| Back to top |
| Alice B. Belgray |
| is a children's book editor. She has had many articles published, mostly in the field of music (she holds a Ph.D. in musicology). Her love of baseball extends back to the days of the Brooklyn Dodgers. (AB) |
| Back to top |
| Phil Bergen |
| is the librarian at The Bostonian Society, the historical society for the city. He has compiled two indexes of SABR publications and has contributed to the Hall of Shame series. (PB) |
| Back to top |
| Richard E. Beverage |
| is the author of Hollywood Stars and The Angels: Los Angeles in the Pacific Coast League. (DBv, DBev, DB) |
| Back to top |
| Rev. Gerald E. Bierne |
| has been a Catholic priest since 1962 and is now the pastor of St. Rita's Church in Warwick, Rhode Island. He is the author of The New England Sports Trivia Book and of the article "The Team with the Most Members in the Hall of Fame" (Baseball History Magazine). He and several SABR cohorts run an annual charity Baseball Quiz Bowl in the New England area. (GEB, GB) |
| Back to top |
| Dennis Bingham |
| is currently editor of the Chicago Police Department's Publications Section and a freelance cartoonist, writer, and caricaturist. He served as associate editor of SABR's publication Baseball in Chicago. An umpire for semi-pro, youth, and high school leagues in the Chicago area, his particular passions are the study of rules and the White Sox. He served as a historical advisor for the movie Eight Men Out and had a bit part therein as umpire Billy Evans. (DB, DBing) |
| Back to top |
| Todd Bolton |
| is a ranger in Maryland whose interests are ballparks and Negro Leaguer Judy Johnson. (TB) |
| Back to top |
| William A. Borst |
| is known in St. Louis as the "Baseball Professor" for his course at Webster University. A SABR member, he does a weekly radio show on WGNU and is the author of several books and articles on baseball, including Last in the American League and The Brooklyn Dodgers: A Fan's Memoir. As first president and founder of the St. Louis Browns' Fan Club, he edited The Brown Stocking. (WAB, WB) |
| Back to top |
| Arnie Braunstein |
| is a long-time SABR member who has contributed to the work of Project Scoresheet and to the Tattersall/McConnell all-time home run log, an all-time list of game results. (ArB) |
| Back to top |
| Clarke Carmody |
| is a co-author of Baseball's Milestone Season, a day-by-day account of the record-breaking 1985 year. A former sports anchor and reporter for WLUC-TV in Marquette, Michigan, he is currently employed by Public Interest Communications in Pittsburgh. (CC) |
| Back to top |
| Bob Carroll |
| is a freelance writer and illustrator. The longtime SABR member is also the founder and executive director of the Professional Football Researchers Association and the author of The Hidden Game of Football (with Pete Palmer and John Thorn), several other books, and many articles. (BC) |
| Back to top |
| Jim Charlton |
| is a book packager and the author of more than a dozen books. The New York City resident collaborated with Mike Shatzkin on two editions of The Baseball Fan's Guide to Spring Training. The Baseball Chronology is another of his projects. (JC) |
| Back to top |
| Jane Charnin-Aker |
| began covering major league baseball for New York radio while she was still an English major at Brown University. Over the next nine years, as a broadcaster, writer, minor league media liaison, statistician, and fan she saw professional baseball played in 70 ballparks in North America and the Caribbean. Her baseball poetry has been published in Spitball. She dedicates her work on this project to the memory of her mother, Sylvia Bushnell Charnin. (JCA) |
| Back to top |
| Ellery Clark |
| has authored three books on the Red Sox and has contributed articles to Baseball Magazine, Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball, and the Boston Red Sox yearbook. The SABR member received a SABR Salute award in 1984. A retired line-officer Navy captain, U.S. Naval Academy professor of naval history, and Naval Academy A.A. coach of plebe and J.V. cross-country and track, he has also authored many articles on naval history and naval studies. (EC) |
| Back to top |
| Merritt Clifton |
| is a veteran Vermont town team pitcher and makes his living as a freelance writer on environmental subjects and baseball. He is also the editor and publisher, since 1973, of the Samisdat literary magazine and chapbook series. The oft-published author's baseball books include Relative Baseball, Relative Baseball II, and Japanese Baseball Makes the Big Leagues. (MC) |
| Back to top |
| Rory Costello |
| created the authoritative website on baseball in the Virgin Islands (members.aol.com/vibaseball/), where many of his profiles in BaseballLibrary.com were originally published. (RC) |
| Back to top |
| L. Robert "Bob" Davids |
| the founder and first president of SABR, has edited the SABR publications Baseball Research Journal, This Date in Baseball History, Great Hitting Pitchers, and Minor League Stars volumes I and II. He also edited Insider's Baseball (1983) and contributed articles to The Sporting News from 1951 to 1964. He currently publishes the newsletter Baseball Briefs. Mr. Davids served in the USAF in 1944-46 and was a U.S. government official from 1951 to 1981. (LRD) |
| Back to top |
| Morris A. Eckhouse |
| Executive Director of Cleveland
Sports Legends
Foundation, has continually focused on the preservation of sports history. An
avid collector of sports memorabilia, he worked in the Pittsburgh Pirates
publicity department in 1979 and 1980 and began his writing career by
co-authoring This Date in Pittsburgh Pirates History, and he has also
written day-by-day histories of the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Browns,
among other published works. He founded M&M Publications in 1985. (ME, MM,
MN) |
| Back to top |
| Steven Ehrenberg |
| is an accomplished writer and editor who has been known to help create a magazine or two. He currently works for Scholastic. (SE) |
| Back to top |
| John L. Evers |
| a former member of the U.S. Marine
Corps, served as a teacher,
coach, and administrator for 35 years. He is a member of SABR, PFRA, and CFRA
and has contributed to Detroit Tiger Trivia and the Biographical
Dictionary of American Sports. (JLE, JE) |
| Back to top |
| Tony Formo |
| is a leftover Hippie Idealist who helped the
SABR Computerization
Committee's electronic baseball data public domain libraries project. He ran
a guerrilla theater campaign for Commissioner of Baseball in the late 1980s.
As a draft dodger from Seattle he was happy to have been a Blue Jay fan from
the start of that franchise rather than suffering the long period of
ineptness before the Mariners finally achieved a winning season, but
abandoned the Blue Jays after they began playing under a publicly financed
dome. He has been published by The Great American Stat Book, Left
Field, Blue Jay Chatter, and Replay Magazine. (TF) |
| Back to top |
| Cappy Gagnon |
| joined SABR in 1977, has served on the
Board of Directors since
1983, and was SABR president in 1984-86. He has had articles in Baseball
Digest and Baseball Research Journal and is an authority on the Notre Dame
men who have played in the major leagues. He is the Director of Special
Programs for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. (CG, CAP) |
| Back to top |
| Mark Gallagher |
| born in 1953, was already a diehard
Yankee fan when he
entered kindergarten in New Jersey. A writer and SABR member, he still roots
for the Yankees from his Rockville, Maryland home and plays softball every
summer. Besides articles in SABR publications and in the Yankees' Program and
1987 Yearbook, he has written The Yankee Encyclopedia, Day by Day in New York
Yankees History, 50 Years of Yankee All-Stars, and Explosion! Mickey Mantle's
Legendary Home Runs. (MG) |
| Back to top |
| Tom Gallagher |
| is a member of SABR and the Southeastern
New England Brooklyn
Dodgers Fan Club. He is the director of the New England Equity Institute, a
policy center which studies economic issues from the point of view of poor
and working people. He is a former three-term member of the Massachusetts
House of Representatives. (TG) |
| Back to top |
| Ed Gefen |
| is a sports copy editor for The Times
Herald-Record of Middletown,
NY. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988 with a degree in
economics. He was sports editor of his college paper in 1986, when The
Daily Pennsylvanian was selected the top collegiate daily paper in the
nation. (EG) |
| Back to top |
| Steven Gietschier |
| is Director of Historical Records for The Sporting
News and wrote our Roy Campanella and Satchel Paige articles. (SG) |
| Back to top |
| Adam Green |
| is a freelance writer, internet editor, and actor, born, raised, and living in New York. His life will be complete when he's able to stand and salute Wally Backman's retired #6 hanging from the walls in Shea. (AG) |
| Back to top |
| Steven Greenfield |
| a lifetime Phillies fan, wrote and
edited sports articles
in the Collier's and Merit Students encyclopedias while
working for Macmillan Publishing. He is currently an editor at the Twentieth
Century Fund, a nonprofit policy-oriented foundation in New York City (where
he avidly roots against the Mets). (SG) |
| Back to top |
| Thomas Griesel |
| is a professional photographer and
baseball fan who, when not
occupied by being father of two children, makes fun of Steve Holtje for being
a Mets fan. (TJG) |
| Back to top |
| George W. Hilton |
| is Professor of Economics at UCLA. He
has written mainly on
rail transportation, but has published several articles on baseball history
and is working on an edition of the baseball stories of Ring Lardner. His
published articles include "The Cable Car in America" and "The Transportation
Act of 1958."
|
| Back to top |
| Steve Holtje |
| is a freelance editor, a published poet,
and a classical
composer whose works have been performed in New York City recitals. A former
senior editor at Creem, he has written about music for Newsday, The Wire, and many other magazines and has penned
liner notes for albums on the Black Saint and Soul Note labels. A feared
catcher (by opposing baserunners) and outfielder (by his own pitchers), he is
captain of the Mad Cows, a Brooklyn softball team. (SH) |
| Back to top |
| Fred Ivor-Campbell |
| is a baseball researcher and writer
specializing in the
early history of the game. He is a member of SABR, the North American Society
for Sport History, and the Rhode Island Historical Society. He has
contributed articles to many SABR publications and to the Biographical
Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball, Harvard Magazine, and Sports Collectors Digest. (FIC) |
| Back to top |
| Tom Jozwik |
| a former director of SABR, has contributed
to several SABR
publications, has written sports articles for many newspapers, and has
reported on the Milwaukee Brewers as a stringer for the Associated Press. He
works full-time as an insurance inspector. (TJ) |
| Back to top |
| Jack Kavanagh |
| is spending his retirement as a sports
historian and writer and
has contributed to SABR publications and Baseball History. (JK) |
| Back to top |
| Francis H. Kinlaw |
| has authored articles and poems that have appeared in yearbooks of professional baseball clubs, newspapers, and magazines. He also reviewed sports books for the Greensboro (N.C.) News and Record for six years. Many of his articles about college football and basketball have also been published. (FK) |
| Back to top |
| Merl F. Kleinknecht |
| has been a SABR member since 1971.
A past chairman of
SABR's Negro Leagues Committee, he remains a committee member. He has had
three articles published in SABR's Baseball Research Journal and
wrote 13 sketches for the Biographical Dictionary of American Sports.
He has been an employee of the U.S. Postal Service since 1962. (MFK) |
| Back to top |
| Joseph Lawler |
| lives in Kingston, Rhode Island, and is a
frequent contributor
to various publications. His article "Perfection in June" appears in The
Fireside Book of Baseball, 4th Edition. (JL, LAW) |
| Back to top |
| Allen Lewis |
| was a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Evening Ledger briefly before entering the service in mid-1941 as a private. Discharged as a
captain (Army Air Force) in 1945, in 1946 he became a sportswriter for the
Philadelphia Inquirer and remained until his retirement in 1979. He
was honored with the J.G. Taylor Spink Award in 1981. Lewis was the Phillies
correspondent for The Sporting News for 16 years and authored or
co-authored three books on the Phillies. (AL) |
| Back to top |
| Richard C. Lindberg |
| is a member of SABR and has
authored four books,
including "Who's on Third?" The Chicago White Sox Story, the White Sox Encyclopedia, and Chicago Ragtime: Another Look at
Chicago, 1880-1920. He has written for the Chicago Tribune
Magazine and Chicago History and is currently working on a
history of the Chicago Police Department. He also serves as a historical
consultant to the White Sox. (RL) |
| Back to top |
| Shepard C. Long |
| a former sports editor of the Columbia Daily
Spectator, is a lifelong Red Sox fan. He contributed to The Baseball
Fan's Guide to Spring Training, worked on This Week in Baseball for several years, and is currently Foster Higgins
|
| Back to top |
| Norman L. Macht |
| has been an assistant to broadcasters
Ernie Harwell and Jim
Woods, a statistician for Howe News Bureau, a general manager of minor league
clubs in the Braves and Orioles organizations, and is now a freelance writer
on sports history and finance. He is chairman of the SABR Oral History
Committee. Besides his numerous articles on baseball and other sports in The Sporting News, Baseball Digest, Sports Heritage, The Main Event, and several newspapers, he is the co-author, with
Dick Bartell, of "Rowdy Richard," A Firsthand Account of the National
League Baseball Wars of the 1930s and the Men Who Fought Them (1987).
(NLM, NM) |
| Back to top |
| Edward G. Maher |
| works in Human Services for the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
and is a self-described Brooklyn Dodger fanatic. (EGM, EM) |
| Back to top |
| Jerry Malloy |
| is interested in Negro Leagues history.
His articles on
baseball's color line have been published in The National Pastime. (JMa) |
| Back to top |
| Rich Marazzi |
| has authored four baseball books: The
Rules and Lore of
Baseball (1980), The Stein and Day Baseball Date Book (1981), Aaron to Zuverink: A Nostalgic Look at the Players of the Fifties (1982), and Aaron to Zipfel (1985). He is a columnist for Yankees
Magazine, The Baseball Bulletin, Referee Magazine, and Sports Collectors Digest. From 1983 to 1986 he was a research
consultant for ESPN's Inside Baseball. A high school History and
Economics teacher at O'Brien Tech in Ansonia, Connecticut, he is also the
school's athletic director and has umpired baseball for 23 years. (RTM, RM) |
| Back to top |
| Jim Murphy |
| a retired newspaperman (chiefly in
Pawtucket, Rhode Island) has
authored numerous articles and two books, The Gabby Hartnett Story: From
a Mill Town to Cooperstown and Napoleon "Larry" Lajoie: Modern
Baseball's First Superstar (the latter constituting the 1987 issue of
SABR's The National Pastime). (JM, JMM, JMu) |
| Back to top |
| Raymond Murphy |
| a SABR member since 1985, has written
for the NewPaper, the Warwick Beacon, Pawtucket Evening
Times, and the Providence Journal, and since 1987 has been a
sportswriter for the Kent County Daily Times in West Warwick, Rhode
Island. (RVM, RM, RMu) |
| Back to top |
| Sean O'Malley |
| is a Brooklyn resident born too late to
see the Dodgers in
their proper context but was raised on his mother's tales of their exploits.
He resolved a longtime division between her and his Yankee fan father in 1969
by converting the whole family to Mets fans, a task made easier by Gil
Hodges's presence as manager and Yogi Berra's as coach. (SOM) |
| Back to top |
| Francis J. "Frank" Olmstead |
| is a theology teacher and
cross country coach at
De Smet Jesuit H.S. in St. Louis, Missouri. A SABR member since 1978, he
contributed a dozen articles to the Biographical Dictionary of American
Sports: Baseball. (FJO, FO) |
| Back to top |
| Jim Olson |
| is a physical education specialist whose
interests as a SABR member
include socio-cultural aspects of baseball and Negro Leaguers. (JO) |
| Back to top |
| Joseph M. Overfield |
| is the author of 100 Seasons of
Buffalo Baseball and has
contributed to SABR publications, Total Baseball, Baseball
Digest, The Sporting News, and other magazines. (JO) |
| Back to top |
| Frank V. Phelps |
| has been the chairman of SABR's
Bibliographical Committee
since its inception and has also served SABR as its treasurer and then on its
Board of Directors. His articles have been featured in SABR publications, and
he is researching a history of tennis. (FVP) |
| Back to top |
| Bill Plott |
| is a SABR member whose specialty is the
ballplayers and baseball
history of Alabama. (BP) |
| Back to top |
| James A. Riley |
| is the author of Dandy, Day, and the
Devil and an
expert on the Negro Leagues. His articles have been featured in SABR
publications. (JR) |
| Back to top |
| James G. Robinson |
| is the Editor-in-Chief of the Idea Logical Company and BaseballLibrary.com. A proud native of Brooklyn, NY and a long-time fan of the New York Mets, he designed and produced the site you see here and now oversees the day-to-day maintenance, updating, and development of BaseballLibrary.com. (JGR) |
| Back to top |
| Mike Shatzkin |
| is the author of Baseball
Explained, the founder of The Idea Logical Company, and the Editorial Director of BaseballLibrary.com. He collaborated with Jim Charlton on two editions of The
Baseball Fan's Guide to Spring Training. He lives in New York City. (MS) |
| Back to top |
| Howard Sider |
| attended the Abraham Joshua Heschel High School, started at pitcher and 3rd base for his high school baseball team, and is a die hard Mets fan. (HS) |
| Back to top |
| Duane A. Smith |
| Professor of History at Fort Lewis
College, Durango,
Colorado, has published many books about mining and Colorado and articles
about baseball and urban history. (DAS, DS) |
| Back to top |
| Fred Stein |
| a retired Federal Civil Service official,
is an environmental and
dairy industry consultant. A SABR member since 1975, he has written Under
Coogan's Bluff: A Fan's Recollection of the New York Giants Under Terry and
Ott and Giants Diary: A Century of Giants Baseball in New York and
San Francisco. He has also authored several articles on baseball which
have appeared in Giants Yearbook and The National Pastime. (FS, FSt) |
| Back to top |
| Sheldon Fairchild Stewart |
| firmly believes that baseball
should be witnessed
in sunlight and jazz should be experienced in dimly lit nightspots, never the
reverse. (SFS) |
| Back to top |
| A.D. Suehsdorf |
| the former editorial director of The
Ridge Press, has
authored The Great American Baseball Scrapbook and a number of
articles in SABR publications and Baseball History. He also
contributed to the Biographical Dictionary of American Sports:
Baseball. (ADS) |
| Back to top |
| Ken Turetzky |
| has published features and essays, many
about sports, in various
newspapers and magazines. Although he seized opportunities to meet and
interview several heroes of his youth, he remained speechless in the presence
of Al Kaline. (KT) |
| Back to top |
| David Quentin Voigt |
| is the author of the scholarly and
respected history American Baseball, in three volumes. He is a baseball historian and
professor at Albright College (Pennsylvania) and a past president of SABR. (DQV, DV) |
| Back to top |
| Ed Walton |
| is Director of Administrative Services at the
University of
Bridgeport (Connecticut), a baseball historian, and a lifelong baseball fan.
The SABR member is a frequent contributor to the Boston media guide and
programs, the newsletter "Major League Monthly," and Diehard (where
his column "Ed Walton's Nostalgia Notebook" is a feature). He often appears
on radio and TV talking about baseball. His research resulted in the only
change ever sanctioned in a major batting category when he discovered Tris
Speaker had hit ten home runs in 1912, tying him with Frank "Home Run" Baker
for the AL leadership. Walton's books include Red Sox Triumphs and
Tragedies and The Rookies. (EW) |
| Back to top |
| Edith Williams |
| a SABR member, is a special education
teacher and a
specialist in the history of the Baltimore Black Sox. (ETW) |
| Back to top |
| George D. Wolf |
| is the ultimate authority on Yankee
uniform number history. He
published his first book, Yankees by the Number, in 1986. He is a New
York commercial banker by profession. (GW, GDW) |
| Back to top |
| Stewart Wolpin |
| is a former sportswriter with the
Newark Star-Ledger and is currently a freelance writer. He is the author of The Rules of
Neighborhood Poker According to Hoyle. (SEW) |
| Back to top |
|
