The Baseball Index is a vast index to nearly 150,000 baseball-related books, book sections and articles, all indexed by named person and topic. This page is intended to answer any questions you may have about TBI.
The Baseball Index is exactly what its name says it is - an index to baseball literature. An index, of course, is something that helps you find where something located within a text or body of literature. Perhaps you use a computer product like InfoTrac[1] or ProQuest[2] to find magazine articles on a particular subject. Or, you may recall using the old Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature from college or high school. Whether paper-based or on computer, these are indexes to guide you
to the information you need.
The Baseball Index works much the same way, except that the focus is on baseball. The importance of such finding tools cannot be overstated: The difference is knowing where to find your information versus guessing where it might be. It is the difference between a few hours work versus a few days or even weeks. Finding tools like indexes can give you certainty instead of serendipity.
Nearly all baseball research is drawn in some way from the printed word. Whether you're researching a player profile, statistical analysis, fan memoir, manager’s biography, team history, or an economic study, you will almost inevitably end up referring to the written works of others; usually newspaper or magazine articles, and books.
Anyone who has undertaken baseball research knows the task of locating the information on his subject can be difficult and frustrating. The finding tools available to baseball researchers have been shallow and recent in their coverage. If you want something to help you navigate the ocean of baseball literature from before 1980, 85, or even 90, your options are limited, to say the least. The Baseball Index was created to address this deficiency.
The Baseball Index is the largest bibliographic baseball database available with over 142,000 records encompassing books, magazine articles, programs, pamphlets, films, recordings, songs, cartoons, or anything else that may be of interest to the baseball fan or researcher.
When we index books or articles for The Baseball Index, we gather a variety of information that not only helps researchers locate the information they need, but also to give the researcher an idea as to the content of each source:
Author
Title
Statistical Content Type
Photo or Illustration Content Type
Named Persons (significant content, not passing mentions)
Topics
Publication/Publisher Name
Publication Information (copyright date, issue date, volume number, issue number, size, indexes, bibliography, footnotes, and pagination)
Plus additional information for poems, songs, book reviews, etc.
You can look up information with The Baseball Index using any of these categories. For example:
I need a list of all the articles you have by Roger Kahn (you look this up under the "Author" category)
What is there on Jake Powell? (look him up under the "Named Persons" category)
I’m looking for anything on the Black Sox Scandal (look it up under the "Topics" category)
You can also look up information in The Baseball Index by combining categories.
The Baseball Index is available for purchase as a data file on CD-ROM. A free demo download is available at: http://www.sabr.org/merchandise/rbi.ssource.html
The CD-ROM includes The Baseball Index database, a subject term directory, an index to The Baseball Index's bibliographic coding system and a printed manual with searching tips. Please note:The Baseball Index does not run by itself, but must be used with one of the commercial software programs listed below:
Available formats:
MS Access 97+
Paradox 5.0+
MS Excel 97+
Lotus 1-2-3 (version 9+)
FileMakerPro 3.0+ (Macintosh)
Minimum Requirements:
Pentium 133, 16 mbs RAM or higher (PC)
68040, 8mbs RAM or higher (Mac)
50 mbs of hard disk space
Pricing and ordering information is available from the SABR web site:
http://www.sabr.org/mechandise/rbi.ssource.html
The Baseball Index is an entirely volunteer effort. Dozens of individuals have contributed to building this huge database, but still more needs to be done. There are
many opportunities for working on The Baseball Index.
You might index a new book you’ve just finished reading, or the latest issue of a magazine you subscribe to. Perhaps you have a small collection of baseball books,
or past issues of magazines. You may also have ready access to a local library’s baseball collection. Any and all of these may be good candidates for adding to The
Baseball Index. Indexing is not difficult or time-consuming and we require no long-term commitments from our volunteers. The Baseball Index has already helped
hundreds in their research. By helping to build The Baseball Index, you are working to facilitate and advance baseball research.
If you think you might like to work on The Baseball Index, please contact the project directors at either:
Dozens of individuals, publishers, and organizations have contributed to the building of the The Baseball Index database. The Baseball Index has always been a project completely dependant upon volunteers and material donations. For all of these we are most grateful.
The most significant contributions have come from our volunteer catalogers. Prinicipal among them are Brad Sullivan, Bernie Esser, Tim Cashion, Joe Murphy, Terry Sloope, Steve Milman, Robert Boynton, John McMurray, Bob Timmerman, Terry Smith, Ron Replogle, Ron Kaplan, and Ray Lisi.
Also contributing are: Jody Ackerman, Rich Arpi, Dick Beverage, Dick Clark, Virgil Diodato, Gerald Kirsch, David Marasco, Steve Roney, Lee Temenson, Dick Williams, Suzanne Wise, and Bruno Egloff.
We also wish to thank the many teams, league, and publishers for their generous donations of some of the many publications we have cataloged for The Baseball Index.
Our thanks to all who have contributed to The Baseball Index.
BALLPLAYERS | TEAMS | CHRONOLOGY | TODAY | BOOKS | NEWSLETTER | ERRATA | FAQ