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 If you see out-of-date information, please let us know at BOLcontent@idealog.com.
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Michael B. Ackerman
is an entertainment lawyer working
in New York City and
Los Angeles and a published music critic. (MA)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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."
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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