The Nineteenth Century Committee was founded in 1983 following a September 1982 letter from John Thorn and Mark Rucker "to whom it may concern", proposing a focus on "photographic and factual records of individuals and clubs from the New York Knickerbockers to the end of the century." Paul Wendt is Chair and Frederick Ivor-Campbell is Vice Chair.
The credo of the Committee today is to recover the record of and to interpret base ball through 1900, both for ourselves and for the baseball public generally. A few members work privately on bat and ball games before the Knickerbockers and "the New York game". A few others work on regional and local contemporaries such as "the Massachusetts game" that will be exhibited on Wednesday afternoon at SABR33 following 1858 Dedham rules.
One project foreseen twenty years ago is now the focus of the Pictorial History Committee. Having completed so much work on the 20th century, the Baseball Records, Biographical Research, and Minor League Committees now focus much of their attention on the last two or three decades of the 19th century, the era of professional leagues. We may foresee that other SABR research committees will turn more attention to the 19c during the next several years, as they complete 20c work --or simply complete the organization of 20c work so that it becomes routine and the focus of planning turns to the 19th century. The Spring Training, College Baseball, and Umpires & Rules Committees are likely candidates.
Meanwhile the 19th Century Committee has become two parts interest group, two parts email research exchange regarding private projects, and one part Research Committee pursuing community projects. We need to change the mix, but we will always be partly an interest group under a broad tent.
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The Committee now has more than 200 members. The number is greater than 300
including all 2002 and 2003 SABR members and all '19cBB' egroup members who
have expressed serious interest in 19th century baseball. During July, the
Chairman must complete the transition from one SABR membership year to
another and survey recent egroup subscribers who are not committee members.
On the Chair's desktop, the Committee now has a database covering about 1000 persons interested in 19c baseball (mainly SABR members), more than 200 moderately recent books on 19c baseball, numerous reviews of those books, and almost 300 articles on 19c baseball personages that were published by SABR in Nineteenth Century Stars (1989) and Baseball's First Stars (1996). I think this calls for two or three minor projects by committee members, not to mention maintenance of the data by the Chair. First, we should identify books about 19c baseball by brief notes on chronological scope (Scope Notes). Second, we should locate published reviews of 19c baseball books (gather data for the Reviews Record). Third, we should identify the books published in the preceding five years whose importance suggests or demands a review published by the Committee, and generate reviews for those which demand one (catch up Reviews).
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We did not produce a newsletter this year. Two reviews of new books
are now in hand, with two others about two years old. A few others have
been discussed with potential reviewers. Together with the book reviews, we
have enough administrative, illustrative, and "catching up" content to fill
two newsletters, at least, before we solicit feature articles. Those two
issues, at least, should be my editorial responsibility, but I may need help
producing the newsletter and selecting material of some types such as that
which illustrates the 19cBB egroup for non-subscribers.
[The complete
run of past newsletters will soon be available on paper at cost,
perhaps as early as July.]
Most Committee-sponsored activity in 2001-2002 was 19cBB activity. 19cBB is a mutual distribution email list with some extra features available to its subscribers on the web, mainly an archive of past "Messages". It was founded in June 2001, by invitation, and opened to all interested subscribers in conjunction with the Annual Convention one month later. We now have more than 180 subscribers.
19cBB traffic also includes occasional announcements and some discussion of committee business such as what books to review and what projects to undertake. Expect more of that next year. Most traffic concerns baseball, and that will continue, from matters of narrow fact to matters of broad historical interpretation. Intermediate themes are particular ballclubs and particular locales, both before and beside the major professional leagues. -- Thus 19cBB is the principal medium for research exchange regarding private projects and in that respect it is the feather in our cap.
There are two official 19th Century Committee projects, Early Rules and Practices directed by Chip Atkison ("Early Rules", for short) and American Association History directed by Jon Dunkle ("AA History", for short).
Email exchange on lowercase early baseball rules and practices is common on 19cBB. Unfortunately, little of that has reached the working archive of "Early Rules". That uppercase Project was founded in 2000 with co-directors; it foundered upon the death of one and on Chip's appointment as co-host of SABR33. Chip and I have begun private discussion of what might be and what should be done. Restarting "Early Rules" is a high priority of for the 19c Cmtee this Summer, and the public process will begin at the Convention.
"AA History" was founded in 1993, directed by Bob McConnell, with the goal of writing a narrative history of the league by 1998. According to the 1998 and 2003 reports, the number of team-seasons covered by the microfilm phase of the project increased from 46 (54%) to 68 (80%), including a gain of three team-seasons this year. On the dark side, 80% is a long way from 100 and the history of phase one in recent years is three steps forward, one step back. On the bright side, three of the ten outstanding Philadelphia seasons have been covered this year, and there are several ways that the completed research might bear hybrid fruit if the original project cannot be completed. This Summer and Fall, the Cmtee must begin to assess the quality and potential integration of the basic research that has been completed, and to think about hybrid fruit such as a database of leagues and ballclubs that covers their establishment, disbanding, and personnel.
The 19th Century Committee now has an official website,
19th Century Resources (http://world.std.com/~pgw/19c/)
It is an outlet for some baseball research by Cmtee members, this year most
notably "Trades: early transactions between ballclubs," by David Ball (Dec
2002). Yet its most important purpose is to advance Committee business,
especially by making some reports and documents available to everyone with a
webbrowser.
Consolidation of Committee archives is nearly complete. I have received files from John Husman and Frederick Ivor-Campbell this Spring and will receive some from Robert Tiemann at the Annual Convention next week. The complete run of newsletters will soon be available on paper at cost of copying and mailing. The archival material is educational in some ways and surprising in some of the same ways. Select committee members have been enthusiastic and others have at least been encouraging since I began email and phone correspondence as a better educated and surprised Chair. Let me end on that hopeful note.
Paul Wendt, Chairman