Jonesing for Spring Training? Rattle Your SABR!
The Answer to Your Off-Season Baseball Fix Is Right Here in Cleveland

Baseball great Rogers Hornsby was quoted as saying that during the offseason he would "stare out the window and wait for spring." Cleveland resident John Zajc doesn't have to wait until spring training to indulge his love of baseball. As Executive Director of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), his job is to manage a nonprofit dedicated to fostering the study of baseball past and present and providing an outlet for educational, historical, and research information about the game.

Even among sports fans, however, SABR is still one of Cleveland's best-kept secrets.

The office is tucked away on the seventh floor of the historic Caxton Building, just a fungo hit away from Progressive Field. It can be challenging to head a nonprofit whose purpose may not be as straightforward as say, combating diabetes or planting trees. Zajc notes, "The elevator speech is tough for SABR because there are thousands of ways for people to enjoy membership, but my quickest explanation is that SABR's purpose is to help people do baseball research and to share it with others. You don't have to be a researcher or even like doing research to be a member -- if you like baseball history, it's the best organization you can belong to."

SABR’s 7,000 members range from casual fans, amateur baseball historians, and statisticians to well-published writers, former players, and front office brass. Members can choose to attend regional or local chapter meetings, which run the gamut from monthly meetings at a sports bar to talk baseball (as they do in Austin, Texas) to twice-yearly meetings with guest speakers (as they did in November in Pittsburgh, where the guest speakers were former Pirates Elroy Face and Steve Blass).

SABR also has 24 research committees for like-minded members to (virtually or face-to-face) work on baseball history projects in specific areas, such as ballparks, biographies, the Negro Leagues, women in baseball, baseball and the arts, and the minor leagues. In addition, members have plenty of reading material; there’s a twice-yearly, peer-reviewed journal, a convention journal, a quarterly bulletin, an online encyclopedia, plus any number of chapter and committee websites and newsletters.

It’s enough to satiate even the most die-hard fan in the dead zone between the end of the World Series and the beginning of spring training that the rest of the world calls “winter.”

Many baseball fans only know SABR through the person of Bill James, who coined the term “sabrmetrics” in homage to SABR, and think that sabrmetrics came first, instead of the other way around. That’s just one of several common misconceptions about SABR.

Zajc says another big misconception is, “That we’re a bunch of numbers geeks. I call that an incomplete perception of SABR. Sure, we have plenty of people who love doing sabrmetrics, but the majority of members just enjoy reading about baseball history and the personalities who have made the game so special. In second place would be that we have a room full of computers that contain all the answers to everything that ever happened in baseball.”

While Zajc and his staff of four do have a very small microfilm lending library for members, the office isn’t meant to be the source of the research—the members are. Zajc sees the office’s role as facilitating publications and communication and making sure that members can conduct their research and “have a good time doing so.”

Zajc and the SABR office are occasionally thrust into the spotlight, as in 2006 when Zajc appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC to discuss the vote that kept former Negro League player and scout Buck O’Neill out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Olbermann is a long-time SABR member, as were the majority of the voting members from the Hall of Fame. Zajc’s task was to reiterate SABR’s neutrality as a research organization, emphasizing that SABR’s mission is to facilitate and disseminate baseball research, not to promote a particular player or team.

SABR also does its part in promoting northeast Ohio as a great play to work, live, and play, with great working relationships with the Cleveland Indians, the Cleveland Public Library, and the Baseball Heritage Museum. In summer 2008, SABR’s annual convention brought more than 500 baseball fans to Cleveland, and each year, the Seymour Medal Conference brings a smaller number of baseball writers and fans to the city to celebrate the best book of baseball history or biography written the previous year.

This year’s conference will be the first in which SABR will partner with The Lit, Cleveland’s literary nonprofit, to present a reception and reading by the Seymour Medal winner on April 24, 2009.

Zajc started working at SABR in 1991 as an 18-hour-a-week assistant. He never thought he’d end up as Executive Director. “When I started, I was looking for a part-time job to get through graduate school,” he says.

“While my knowledge of the game has increased tenfold in the past 18 years, I still am awed by the knowledge of the membership. That said, what I’ve learned is that the organization needs someone who can effectively and efficiently run the organization while being able to understand the needs of all the constituencies. I think a big part of my legacy will be the work in taking SABR from very much a hobby group to a professional organization. I’ve stayed all these years because there is always another challenge, and working for SABR members has always been a special reward. Plus the office small-talk and jargon is immeasurably more enjoyable here than in most places.”

Indeed, in what other office would talking baseball be considered part of one’s job? And where else can one find a copy of a check written by Ted Williams (his membership dues), a T-shirt signed by Charlie Sheen and reportedly worn by him in Major League, or a uniform that belonged to one-time Indian Roy Hughes? But the biggest perk for Zajc is “being able to bring people together who can help each other and who love the game of baseball. Corny as it sounds, being a part of bringing joy to people really is special.”

If you currently find yourself staring out the window, waiting for spring, visit the SABR website at http://sabr.org.

From Cool Cleveland contributor (and faithful SABR employee and member) Susan Petrone susanATtheinkcasino.com

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