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