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1983 Welcome (first newsletter)

 
The Nineteenth Century Committee, SABR, was established early in 1983, about six months after the founding co-chairmen John Thorn and Mark Rucker distributed the invitation, or call to arms. In effect, this welcome was the first newsletter. This edition mimics the original, character by character.


            SOCIETY OF AMERICAN BASEBALL RESEARCH
            NINETEENTH CENTURY RESEARCH COMMITTEE

John Thorn, co-chairman                    Mark Rucker, co-chairman
18 Virginia Ave.                           137 Circular St.
Saugerties, N.Y.  12477                    Saratoga Springs, N.Y.12866


Dear Member,

       Welcome to the SABR committe for Nineteenth Century research.
We regret the delay in mailing this leter, but we have been waiting
for the membership list to stabilize.

       The committee was formed to perform an important historical
function.  Research into the 19th C. game has been much neglected.
In many cases we will be acting as archeologists, bringing new
facts to light and organizing information which can only be reached
now in fragmented form.  We have outlined some areas of research
and goals to shoot for:

* Photographic identification of all major teams and players,
  1850's to 1900.
* Compilation of pre-National Association team rosters yearly,
  and records for those teams.
* Statistics and records for individuals, amateur and professional.
* Hall of Fame candidate profiles. (Start, van Haltren, Ryan, et al.)
* Black baseball. (Seminal research.)
* Ballparks. (To connect with Ballparks Committee.)
* Clearing house activities: to bring those of similar interests
  together; to prevent re-research and research overlap.
* Bibliographic and archival services.

       Each of the above, eliciting sufficient interest, is a 
possible sub-committee.  Concerning the last topic, bibliographic-
archival, we request information from each of you.  Do you know of
historical societies, photo archives, individual collections,
libraries, etc. which have pre-1900 regional or national holdings,
factual, photographic, or otherwise?  We are compiling extensive
files, and must tap new sources to keep growing.

       The second page we ask you to fill out and return to either
of us.  We will collate the information, and in our next mailing
will list members involvements to faciliatate communication.  We
hope intra-committee collaboration will be a synergistic process.


                                    Sincerely,
                                          John Thorn
                                          Mark Rucker


1983; reprinted on the web, 2003-09-17
Last modified: 2003-09-25 (link to 1982 Call)
Paul Wendt
© Society for American Baseball Research, 2003