Seamheads.com Beefs Up Its Roster For 2010

Recently I put out a call for new writers and was floored by the response.  In just a week, we’ve added 36 new writers, a lot of whom are professionals or have had the pleasure of covering baseball during their lives, including Sean Lahman, Gabriel Schechter, and former ESPN senior writer Jon Pessah, who helped launch ESPN The Magazine .  Here’s the impressive list of writers we have going into the 2010 season.  And what a great season it should be.

I’ll start first with management, then will proceed alphabetically.  Those in italics are the new writers.  And yes, I’m going to gush as much as I can, and yes, I’m going to go third person, only for the sake of uniformity.  Besides, it’s my web site and if Mike Lynch wants to go third person, who’s going to tell Mike Lynch otherwise.

Management

Mike Lynch(Founder/Managing Editor/Head Writer): Lynch has been a baseball fan since he was old enough to hold a bat and ball. He was born in the heart of Red Sox Nation in the year of Yastrzemski and has been a die hard Red Sox fan ever since. He lives in Portland, Oregon and has been writing for web sites since 1999, has been published by The Oregonian newspaper and by sportingnews.com, and has been a member of SABR since 2004. His first book, Harry Frazee, Ban Johnson and the Feud That Nearly Destroyed the American League , was published by McFarland Publishing in 2008 and was named a finalist for the 2009 Larry Ritter Award in addition to being nominated for the Seymour Medal. His second book, It Ain’t So: A Might-Have-Been History of the White Sox in 1919 and Beyond , was released by McFarland in December 2009.  As of this writing, he’s anxiously awaiting results from those judging the SABR/McFarland Research Award and the Chadwick Award, hoping he’ll win at least one of them.

Kevin Johnson(Co-founder/Statistical Analyst/Writer): Another SABR member, Johnson lives in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma with his wife and two daughters, but grew up in St. Louis as an avid Cardinal fan. He works for a travel technology company. He maintains a database on major league ballparks, has been a contributor to Total Baseball and The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia , is helping coordinate the SABR Minor League Committee Minor League Encyclopedia project, and his article, “St. Louis’ Forgotten Champions of 1928? was published in SABR’s Mound City Memories in 2007.  Johnson has also been nominated for a Chadwick Award.

Joe “The Hammer” Hamrahi(Founder/President of Baseball Daily Digest ; CFO of Baseball Prospectus ): Hamrahi is a licensed CPA with an MBA in accounting. He’s currently employed as the CFO for a public relations firm and BDD’s parent company, Baseball Prospectus .

In 2004, Joe came up with the idea of starting a web site that focused on all facets of baseball, from news to statistics to analysis and player development. He partnered up with a long time friend and colleague, Matt Gabriel , and together they developed what we now know as Baseball Daily Digest . Over the past few years, Joe has become well known within the media circles of major and minor league baseball. He represented Baseball Digest Daily at the 2005 All-Star Game in Detroit and has interviewed countless professional players and executives including Mike Piazza, Jeff Francoeur, Mariano Rivera, Rickie Weeks, Josh Beckett, John Schuerholz, Doug Melvin, Dayton Moore, and the legendary Johnny Podres.

Daniel Shoptaw(Founder of C70 At the Bat and the Baseball Bloggers Alliance ): Shoptaw is a long-time Cardinal fan who has spent just over a decade online with the handle Cardinal70, starting as a poster and moving up to administration at CardsClubhouse.com before branching out into his own blog.  His blog, C70 At The Bat , has been around for three years and has been the jumping off point for his organization of other like-minded writers into the United Cardinal Bloggers group (out of which came the UCB Radio Hour, a podcast that has had such luminaries as Ozzie Smith and Lou Brock and current Cardinals such as Kyle McClellan as guests) and then, last year, the Baseball Bloggers Alliance .  The BBA has now grown to compass over 130 blogs across baseball and handed out their own awards after the 2009 season (which brought them to the notice of the Baseball Writers of America, and as such will be renaming their awards next season!).  In real life, Shoptaw is a married CPA in Arkansas with a son and a daughter.

Writers

Matt Aber: Matt has been a member of SABR and the Connie Mack Chapter since 2009. The most accurate description of his level of interest in the game was given by a friend who referred to him as a “baseball degenerate.” Along with his fascination with the history of baseball Matt, gets most enjoyment from attending minor league games because of the “grass roots feel of the game” he gets from the smaller ballparks.

Matt has been a writer since May 2009 focusing on current happenings in the majors, minor league ball in the Philadelphia region and the hometown Phillies.

Bobby Aguilera : Aguilera is a diehard Cubs fan from Chicago, presently residing in New York.  He writes about baseball at his web site, Baseball Reality Tour , and worked for the Portland Beavers from 2005-2006.

Derek Bain: Derek has been contributing to Seamheads since May 2009 and has written about the California Angels from 1980-1986.

Gary Bedingfield : Born in England, Bedingfield lives in Glasgow, Scotland and is recognized as a leading expert in baseball during WWII. He is employed as a Program Development Manager for a training organization in Glasgow. Bedingfield founded the Baseball in Wartime website in 2001 and is the author of Baseball in WWII Europe and Baseball’s Dead of WWII: A Roster of Professional Players Who Died , and a contributing author of When Baseball Went to War .

Brad Berreman: Berreman is a sportswriter based in Minnesota, who specializes in fantasy baseball.  He’s founder of the web site BBSportswriting and has been contributing to Seamheads since July 2009 having written about Dan Plesac, the 1971 All-Star game, Bill Buckner, and J.J. Hardy.

Brian Cafferelli : Brian is a lifelong baseball fan and a die hard White Sox fan…he still gets the chills thinking about the White Sox’s 2005 World Series run. As a failed athlete, he thinks he has a special appreciation for the skill, the dedication, and the commitment it takes for baseball players to make it to the major leagues and perform at the highest level in their sport. He’s just coming off of a two-year stint trying to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago.

John Cappello : John is the author of Stealing Greatness , a book on baseball’s Steroid Era and its impact on the game’s statistics—stay tuned for its publishing date. A member of SABR since 2007, John has made several popular presentations at SABR gatherings. He has been fascinated by baseball statistics since he began collecting baseball cards and playing Strat-O-Matic in the 1970s. Following his love of numbers and the sciences, he became a computer hardware engineer after graduating with his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Drexel University in Philadelphia, and now runs his own consulting firm, Optimal Design, Inc.

John is a lifelong Phillies fan and proud to have started out following the team during those basement-dwelling days of the early ’70s, with players like Deron Johnson, Denny Doyle, and Roger Freed leading the way—it made their championship season in 1980 that much sweeter. To see more of John’s baseball research and postings, go to www.baseballengineer.com .

Arne Christensen:  Christensen lives in Seattle and runs Misc. Baseball , a blog assembling eclectic items about baseball’s history, and 1995 Mariners . Christensen has been writing for Seamheads since December 2009.

Todd Civin: Civin is a life long resident of Massachusetts except for a four year hiatus to upstate New York, where he earned his degree in newspaper journalism at Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. After getting lost in the world of retail and logistics management for the next two decades, Civ aborted his quest for the almighty dollar and began writing again last fall. Civin is trying to prove that writing sports is like riding a bicycle as he has quickly become a recognized name in the world of baseball journalism despite his middle age statistics. Two Red Sox tattoos adorn his physique and point heavily to the fact that he is born and bred Red Sox red.

Civin is the Red Sox Feature Correspondent at Bleacher Report.com .  His work has been picked up by FoxSports.com and CBS.com, he’s a Publicist for the award winning children’s book A Glove of Their Own , and he’s interviewed Jason Grilli, Dick Drago, and Jim “Mudcat” Grant, among many others.

Jon Daly : Daly is a life-long resident of the Greater Hartford area. His father introduced him to baseball and the Red Sox during the 1975 season. Because he was a young lad at the time, he expected the Red Sox to play in the World Series every year. Boy, was he wrong! In his free time, he works in the financial service industry.

Jon has been a SABR member since 2001.  He has written several biographies for SABR that have appeared online or in books, including ones on Billy Southworth and Jim Willoughby . His writing has also appeared online at websites such as Baseball Think Factory and The Hardball Times .

Josh Deitch: When, as a young child, Josh Deitch donned a plastic “Cookie Monster” mask and apron, knelt down in a catcher’s stance, and started giving signs to an imaginary pitcher, needless to say, his parents were concerned. Luckily for them, Josh somehow grew into a mildly well-adjusted young man, despite his obsession with the game of baseball and the New York Yankees. Josh attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied Education and American Culture and, until he injured his left arm, pitched for the WUSTL Bears.

Currently, Josh pursues a Masters of Education from Fordham University and teaches American History and Latin at the Rippowam Cisqua School. There, he cultivates young minds; coaches young athletes in soccer, basketball, and baseball; and pushes his students as they grow into sarcastic adolescents that watch too much TV.

Jim Elfers: Elfers wrote the book The Tour To End All Tours: the Story of Major League Baseball’s 1913 -1914 World Tour .  It won the 2003 Larry Ritter Award and was a finalist for both the Seymour Medal and the Casey Award. In addition to that he has written chapters in Deadball Stars of the American League (Jimmy Callahan) and When Boston Still Had the Babe: the 1918 World Series Champion Red Sox .

He’s also contributed book reviews and articles to the “Inside Game,” the Deadball era committee’s news letter; had a review published in World War II History Magazine .(“Playing for their Nation: Baseball and the American Military during World War II” in the January/February 2005 issue. He’s published two articles about the tour in the Diamond Angle online magazine.

Ronnie Foreman : Ron has been a baseball fan since early childhood and grew up in West Virginia watching the Cubs on WGN. His favorite player was Ryne Sandberg, so much so that Ron’s son’s middle name is Ryne. He’s written for numerous sites, covering some Ohio State football for Bleacher Reports.com, and has done some video segments for newspaper websites on WVU football.

Ron has played sports most of his life including little league, high school and 3 years of amateur baseball in West Virginia. Mainly as a second basemen but also first base and right field. Ron also has coached little league and adult Women’s softball and officiated little league baseball games.

Mike Fratto : Mike has been a sports junkie since birth, so much so that his parents like to joke that while other kids were watching Sesame Street, Mike was watching SportsCenter. A 2008 graduate of the esteemed Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, Mike covered Navy football and women’s basketball for The Washington Times for the past two years, as well as provided game-day coverage of the Washington Redskins, Washington Wizards, Baltimore Ravens and Georgetown men’s basketball before the paper eliminated its sports section in December. But more importantly, he’s been in love with baseball since the first time he had a catch with his brothers in their yard. The chance to be a voice in the national baseball discussion is the reason he became a sportswriter.

You can follow Mike on Twitter @MikeFratto

Bill Gilbert: Bill grew up in Denver and graduated from the University of Colorado. After 2 years as a Naval Officer and a 33-year career with ExxonMobil, he has spent a good part of his retirement years indulging his lifelong interest in baseball. He was active in Little League Baseball as a coach and administrator for 14 years and played in Senior Softball tournaments for many years. A SABR member since 1984, Bill has attended 15 SABR Conventions and has given presentations at 13 of them. He has also written articles for The National Pastime , The Baseball Research Journal and other publications and web sites.

He was the leader of SABR’s Larry Dierker Chapter in Houston for over 10 years and, after relocating to Austin, founded the Rogers Hornsby Chapter in Central Texas. For the past 16 years, he has worked for Tal Smith Enterprises on salary arbitration and has attended many arbitration hearings. He lives in Lakeway, Texas, a suburb of Austin with his wife of 47 years. They have 4 children and 9 grandchildren.

Eddie Gilley : Gilley is the area director for the Baptist Collegiate Ministries in Gainesville, Florida. He has worked with College Students (Collegiates for the sake of distinguishing college and high school students) since 1980 in some capacity. First as a minister of youth and students, then as the director of a ministry to collegiates only in a local church, and as the BCM director at the University of South Florida and now at the University of Florida. He currently works with the Gator baseball and softball teams as their chaplain. He has taught numerous seminars on the subject of college students in the church and how to work with them and written many articles for various publications.

He published the book Collegiate Ministry in the Local Church: Implementing The Impossible Mission . He completed a Doctor of Ministry degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 2003.  Gilley’s work can be found at Suite101.com.

Paul Gotham: Gotham is a beat reporter for the Webster Yankees of the New York Collegiate Baseball League. You can check out more of Paul’s work as Casey on www.pickinsplinters.com .

Pat Graham : Graham is a sports writer for the Lowell Sun and an on-air reporter for WGAM Sports Radio out of Nashua, NH.  Graham’s grandfather (Arthur ‘Skinny’ Graham) played for the Red Sox back in the early 30’s. Two of his uncles were all-Americans at Boston College, with his uncle Art Graham going on to play football for the Boston Patriots.  Pat has played the great game of baseball for the past 37 years and is still playing at a competitive level, on a team with former Red Sox players Oil Can Boyd and Ken Ryan.

Chip Greene : When not reading and writing about baseball, Chip is a management consultant. A lifelong resident of the Washington, DC, metro area, in the summer of 2008 he moved to Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, still close enough to retain his lifelong enthusiasm for the Baltimore Orioles. Chip is a member of SABR and writes for the BioProject website, as well as contributing to several upcoming SABR book projects. He also writes for Yankees Annual magazine. Chip’s interest in baseball history is fed by a continuous fascination with the career of his grandfather, Nelson Greene, who briefly pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Sean Grybos: Sean is a 31-year-old sports writer who was born and raised in the Anthracite Coal Region of Pennsylvania. He has interviewed and profiled collegiate and professional athletes from several sports including Von Hayes and John Sickels here at Seamheads.com. A University of Pittsburgh graduate, he moved to New Hampshire in 2008 with his wife, Kim, and their four dogs.

Dave Heller: Heller, an Orioles fan, is the author of As Good As It Got: The 1944 St. Louis Browns and has been contributing to Seamheads since June 2009, writing mostly about the Browns.  He’s had numerous newspaper jobs, working as a writer, editor, or web producer for the Cincinnati Post , Bengal Report Magazine , Cincinnati Enquirer , Sportsline.com , and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel .  His work has also appeared in the Washington Post , Philadelphia Daily News , and Detroit Free-Press .

Dr. Mike Hoban: Michael Hoban, Ph.D. retired in 2005 after a 48-year career in education. The last 35 years were spent teaching at the university level (after obtaining his doctorate in mathematics from Columbia University in 1970). Mike is Professor Emeritus at the City University of N.Y. Professor Hoban has been an avid baseball fan for over 60 years. He grew up in NYC in the shadow of the old Polo Grounds. During the late ‘40s and the 50’s, Hoban saw all the greats of the game play at Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds.

Among his best baseball memories is when, at the age of 15, he saw Willie Mays play his first game in the Polo Grounds in 1951. He still considers Mays to be the best all-around player to ever play the game. The professor has been a serious baseball analyst for the past 14 years (and a member of SABR since 1998). Mike has written three books devoted to the task of ranking players – BASEBALL’S BEST: The True Hall of Famers – A Mathematician Examines the Numbers , Baseball’s Complete Players: Ratings of Total-Season Performance for the Greatest Players of the 20th Century , and Fielder’s Choice: Baseball’s Best Shortstops .

Bryan Holt: Holt is a journalism major in his senior year at the University of Florida. Born and raised in Tampa, Florida, Bryan became hooked on baseball from attending Cardinals spring training games at Al Lang Field and watching the 1991 World Series as a young child. Being entranced by The Game before ever falling in love with a team, he always cherished the humble majesty of the Grapefruit League. When the expansion Devil Rays moved in across the Bay in 1998, he naturally became a fan despite the team’s dreary warehouse of a stadium and knack for never playing a meaningful game past May. However, it all paid off in 2008 during the Rays’ historic turn-around season when he was able to experience the best baseball fanhood-related moments of his life.

Bryan is also a Tampa Bay Buccaneers season ticket holder and a loyal fan of the USF Bulls and Florida Gators. His goal is to become a sports writer upon graduating from college.

Bob Hookway : Bob started in newspapers in 1969 as a messenger and general gofer at the Boston Globe when it was starting that great sports department with Peter Gammons, Leigh Montville and Bob Ryan. Ray Fitzgerald and Will McDonough were already established there. At the same time, Bob was at Emerson College where he and Jay Leno were classmates in the Mass Communications department.

Bob continued to work at newspapers, and also hustled free-lance stories, writing as much baseball as he could, and looking for every chance to nab field passes and clubhouse passes for Fenway Park, writing stories for various publications about New England guys coming into town with visiting clubs, or guys from northern New England in the Red Sox system. Bob met John Buik, the old Cardinals scout who signed Steve Carlton, and did a 1996 story on him for Baseball Digest .

Although he was sports editor at the Caledonian-Record in St. Johnsbury, Vt., for a couple of years around 1980, Bob worked mostly in news, primarily at the Valley News , a small, 20,000 circulation daily, but a pretty high-quality effort despite its small staff (vnews.com). He was also editor of a Vt.-based trade magazine, Turf , for a couple of years in the mid-90s for the lawn care and landscaping industry.

He’s been a lifelong Red Sox fan since about 1958, and has a passion for the game, particularly its rich history and colorful characters. He became hooked permanently in 1959 at age 9 when he watched the Dodgers go on to a six-game World Series win over the Fox-Aparicio White Sox.

The one and only post-season baseball game Bob has ever attended was Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. There had been several days of rain leading up to that game, the Series had been delayed, and the anticipation around the ballpark that evening was electric. Then things got good. These days, he lives with his wife in Woodsville, N.H., the kids are grown and mostly gone, and he’s looking forward to writing some baseball.

Chris Jensen : Growing up a tape-measure shot from Cooperstown helped Chris develop a lifelong passion for the game, and for the Yankees. He spent much of his childhood staring at baseball cards, and made sure his mother didn’t throw them away. He now lives in Carmel, Ind., and is a member of SABR. A past contributor to Elysian Fields Quarterly , he is rounding second and headed to third base on a baseball book that’s been in the works for three years. When he’s not traveling around the country visiting and writing about hardware stores, Chris helps coach his son’s travel baseball team.

Jeff Katz : Born in Brooklyn, Jeff Katz now writes about music, baseball and whatever else he’s obsessing on from his new home base in Cooperstown, New York. His story about Sandy Koufax was included in the anthology  Play It Again , and his latest book, The Kansas City A’s & The Wrong Half of the Yankees was published in 2007. Jeff’s “what if” history of rock and roll, Maybe Baby (or, You Know That It Would Be Untrue) , has garnered worldwide readership, with a new story posted on backbeat Fridays (the 2nd and 4th of every month).

Sean Lahman : Sean has broken new ground in the field of sports statistics, creating historical databases for use in both print and digital projects. His Baseball Archive web site was one of the early sources for baseball information on the Internet, and he headed the first significant effort to make a database of baseball statistics freely available to the general public. Lahman also contributed to pioneering efforts at web sites like Baseball-Reference.com , Pro-Football-Reference.com , and Basketball-Reference.com .

He has written for or edited a number of books, including the ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia , Total Baseball and Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia . His writing experience ranges from regular work in big city newspapers to major magazines to books and encyclopedias. He is a frequent guest on sports radio programs across North America. He provided content that is used in interactive kiosks at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. He helped to develop supplementary material for the DVD version of the nine-part Ken Burns’ documentary “Baseball.”

Tony Lastoria : Tony was born and raised in Northeast Ohio and have lived here all 35+ years of his life.  Growing up he was always a Cleveland sports fan and he still love the Browns, Cavaliers and Buckeyes, but he grew up with a passion for baseball and has been following the Cleveland Indians since he was 5-years old. Over the past 10+ years that passion for Major League Baseball has permeated the minor league baseball scene. With the numerous affiliates and future players of the Indians to follow, minor league baseball now rivals his love for the Indians and major league baseball.

About seven years ago (2003) he started to write about the Indians minor league system, which is where his main column Minor Happeningscame about. Minor Happenings is a weekly column posted on IndiansProspectInsider.com and on TheClevelandFan.com and SportsTimeOhio.com that follows the news and developments in the Cleveland Indians minor league system.  Tony visits the affiliates to talk to players and various Indians personnel and uses that information for various features, articles on the players, transactions, news, and many other things that occur over the course of the year.  He also has many contacts inside and outside the organization with the players themselves, agents, coaches, managers, front office executives, and coordinators and so on.

Bob Lazzari : Bob is an award-winning sports columnist for both Connecticut’s Valley Times and NY Sports Day , where his “Sports Roundup” column is featured weekly. He is a member of the Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance and host of “ Monday Night Sports Talk ,” a cable television show on CTV/Channel 14 in Connecticut. A Fordham grad, Bob is a regular contributor to ESPN Radio’s “Inside Yankee Baseball”; he can also be heard weekly every Tuesday morning on WXLM/104.7 FM in New London, CT. He has a popular blog where many of his past columns have been archived.

Ted Leavengood: Ted is a Nationals fan and a baseball writer who works for Uncle Sam to pay the bills. He and his wife live in Chevy Chase, MD with their dog. He has two books published with McFarland and Company, Publishers – The 2005 Washington Nationals: Major League Baseball Returns to the Capital and Ted Williams and the 1969 Washington Senators: The Last Winning Season – and when he gets to this point in the conversation, his two grown daughters shoot one another glances and steer the conversation away from baseball.

Steve Lenox :
Steve has written for Boston Baseball Magazine and was a contract host for MLB Home Plate (XM 175) and XM Sports Nation (XM 144) at XM Satellite Radio. He also served as a play-by-play broadcaster for the Aberdeen IronBirds before moving on to Lexy.com, where he serves as a Lexycaster.

Paul Lowenberg : Up until the beginning of last season Paul had covered major league baseball for nearly 30 years. For 12 years (1978-1989) he was the stringer covering San Diego Padres home games for the Associated Press.  After moving to Seattle he was the contributing writer for SportsTicker, covering all home games of the Seattle Mariners.

He began following major league baseball when the Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958 and was in the right field bleachers at Seals Stadium for the second game ever played on the West Coast (first night game). He was at the All Star game in the LA Coliseum in 1959 (second one that year) and the ASG at Candlestick in 1961 (when Stu Miller was blown off the mound.) He was in the stands for the final two games of the 1962 World Series (McCovey’s liner to Richardson to end the series). And he was also in the stands in 1959 when Willie Mac made his ML debut going 4-4 with two triples off Robin Roberts of the Phillies at Seals Stadium. He was there when Willie Mays collected his 3,000th hit (and also when Rafael Palmeiro got his 3000th). He covered the Padres in the playoffs and World Series in 1984 and covered Orel Hershiser’s 58-inning SHO streak. He has seen the Mets play in the Polo Grounds, the Senators play in DC Stadium, the Phils in Connie Mack and the Twins in Metropolitan. He also covered the Mariners great stretch run and playoffs in 1995, Chris Bosio’s no-hitter, and the feats of Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez and Junior when they were with the M’s.

Kevin McCall : Kevin is currently a sophomore journalism major at Ithaca College who hopes to become a sports journalist. In addition to his media courses at the Park School he’s a staff writer for the sports section of the weekly online and print newspaper The Ithacan . He’s also the sports editor for Imprint Magazine , an online publication about college life. Kevin is looking to get his foot in the door and would like to learn more about online sports journalism in the form of blogs.

Tim McCoy : Tim is a life-long Pirates fan who aspired to be the next Bob Prince. Of course, the Gunner was replaced before Tim was out of high school and Lanny Frattare got the job but that didn’t stop him from making his way into the press box. Following college, Tim began covering the Pirates, as well as the other pro and college teams in Pittsburgh, for WBZZ-FM and WMBA-AM.

After some time away from the media end of the diamond sport, Tim is looking forward to offering some coverage of baseball of all levels from Western PA. That means some info about the Bucs plus minor league clubs like the Altoona Curve, the Erie Seawolves, the Mahonning Valley Scrappers (alright they’re in Ohio but it’s only about a 75 minute drive), and Washington Wild Things. Not to mention the Slippery Rock Sliders and Butler Blue Sox of the Prospect League (college wooden bat).

Tim’s notable experiences on the diamond include stroking a single off famed flame-throwing fast-pitch softballer Eddie Feigner only to be promptly picked off before the next pitch was thrown and playing centerfield simultaneously with former Major League pitcher Curt Leskanic (a pitcher who’s not played outfield since little league is great fun!) during a fundraising game when he played in the Federation League in Pittsburgh.

Brendan Macgranachan: Brendan was born and currently resides in Brandon, Manitoba and is a diehard and lifelong Toronto Blue Jay fan. He has covered hockey for both HockeyFuture and CanucksCorner as a beat writer for the Vancouver Canucks. He is an avid baseball fan with interests that spread from current events, fantasy baseball and the history of the game, and follows both the Major Leagues and the college game.

Tom Maurino : Tom is a SABR member, most notably with the Allan Roth and Ted Williams chapters, and is a member of several committees, including Ballparks, Baseball Records, Bibliography, Biographical Research, Business of Baseball, Latino Baseball, Minor Leagues, Baseball and the Arts, Nineteenth Century, Oral History, Umpires and Rules, and Spring Training.  He’s currently working on a novel.

Dan McCloskey:Dan grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, the son of a father who knew enough about Chet Laabs to thoroughly impress their neighbors. Needless to say, he’s been an avid baseball fan for as long as he can remember. He was an advocate of the Moneyball philosophy long before it became in vogue, emphasizing players with high walk and home run rates when strategizing for his various Strat-O-Matic baseball teams in the 80s.

He considers baseball to be the ultimate form of healthy escapism, although some would still call it an obsession. To that point, he has attended 21 of the last 22 Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. His interest in baseball extends beyond that of player and fan as well. He is a 1994 graduate of the Brinkman/Froemming Umpire School, although his umpiring dream never went further than Division III college baseball and a brief stint with an unsuccessful independent minor league.

He currently resides in Somerville, MA, a Yankee fan in enemy territory, and is the Systems Librarian at a small college in Boston. He also writes his own blog, the music and baseball oriented Left Field , under the pseudonym of Charles Simone.

Justin Murphy: Murphy is pursuing an M.A. in journalism at the S.I. Newhouse School of Syracuse University. He got his B.A. from the University of Chicago, and is a former professor of linguistics at Vilnius University in Lithuania. A SABR member since 2007, he received a Yoseloff grant for his research on 19th century pitcher John Flynn, and contributed to the book Go-Go to Glory , about the 1959 Chicago White Sox. Murphy also writes about the Minnesota Twins at www.baseballdigest.com .

Dennis Pajot: Dennis Pajot is a life long resident of Milwaukee, who enjoys as a hobby researching Milwaukee baseball. He is an active member of SABR, both the local Ken Keltner chapter and the national group. His baseball publications include “ The Rise of Milwaukee Baseball: The Cream City From Midwestern Outpost to the Major Leagues, 1859-1901 ” (McFarland & Company, 2009) and “The Greatest Baseball Game Ever Played Anywhere” ( Wisconsin Magazine of History , Spring 2009) detailing an 1899 baseball game in Milwaukee between City of Milwaukee officials and State of Wisconsin officials to help the sufferers of a tornado in New Richmond, Wisconsin.

Jack Perconte: Jack spent 12 years playing professional baseball from 1976-1987, including seven in the major leagues, most notably with the Seattle Mariners, before retiring from the game. He’s been teaching baseball and softball ever since, is the author of The Making of a Hitter: A Proven and Practical Step-by-Step Baseball Guide and Raising an Athlete: How to Instill Confidence, Build Skills and Inspire a Love of Sport , and blogs about the right way to play baseball at: http://baseballhittinglessons.com/baseball/ .

Jack currently serves as the Director of Baseball Operations at Velocity Sports Performance in Naperville, Illinois.

Jon Pessah : Jon has been a sports journalist for most of his 36 years in this profession. He’s been a writer and an editor, most notably with ESPN . He’s covered little league games and Super Bowls, worked on a tiny paper in Manassas, Va. and helped start ESPN the Magazine . Now he’s writing for True/Slant , freelancing, writing a book, and teaching journalism at Stony Brook University.

Jeff Polman: Jeff is a Strat-O-Matic fanatic and multi-tasking writer since 1965.  A devout Red Sox fan, he is the founder of the fantastic web site, 1924 and You Are There!!: YOUR DAILY BASEBALL TIME MACHINE: A Fictional Replay of a Classic Season , and Play That Funky Baseball , dedicated to a Strat-O-Matic replay of the 1977 season.   Some of Jeff’s baseball milestones include being at Fenway the day Billy Martin fought Reggie Jackson in the Yankee dugout; having a beer with Bill Lee after a game in Montreal and interviewing him for a Vermont newspaper story; being at Olympic Stadium for Rick Monday’s pennant-winning homer for Dodgers in 1981 and in the clubhouse during the champagne spray; and being at Anaheim Stadium to watch Don Sutton’s 300th win.  Jeff has also written two screenplays, one of which starred Donald Sutherland and Amy Irving.

George Rekela : A SABR member and current vice president of the Halsey Hall Chapter, Rekela is author of more than a dozen sports and construction industry books.  Rekela and Stew Thornley operate southsidejournal.org .

Shelly Riley: Shelly grew up in Northern Michigan listening to the sounds of Ernie Harwell as he updated Tigers radio fans about the 6-4-3 double play that her boys Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker just turned. Born a Tigers fan, she quickly dropped baseball in her semi-rebellious youth to follow other, more socially acceptable mischief. After graduating from Michigan State University in 2003 with a BA in English, She moved down to the Greater Detroit area and quickly rediscovered her childhood love of baseball.

Shelly spends her days as a regional buyer (aka: desk jockey) for a nationwide landscaping supply company, but her nights are dedicated to some form of baseball. If she is not spending her paycheck at the CoPa in downtown Detroit, she is at home watching the game with her very vocal cat, Pumpkin, who is accepting of her mom’s obsession and often opts to join her in baseball viewing. Shelly also has a strange obsession with ballpark hotdogs and can easily be bought with a bag of peanuts and a cold beer.

Most recently, she volunteered her time in the effort to help save Tiger Stadium at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull by updating out of town fans with photos and articles of the demolition at http://www.myspace.com/friendssavingtigerstadium.

Jim Sandoval : Sandoval is a history teacher and freelance baseball writer who collects ballparks and baseball scout sightings. He has contributed to SABR’s NL and AL Deadball Stars books, the Fenway Project and SABR’s Bio Project. A former small college baseball player he realized he was more of a prospect writing baseball than playing it. He currently is an Associate scout for the Minnesota Twins and is Co-Chairman of SABR’s Scouts committee. On an average summer evening he can be seen behind the plate at Huntsville Stars games.

Gabriel Schechter :Gabriel Schechter grew up within ten miles of the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium, is a lifelong Reds fan, and once attended games in Los Angeles and San Diego on the same day. Since 2002 he has been a Research Associate at the library of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and is the author of Victory Faust: The Rube Who Saved McGraw’s Giants ; Unhittable: Baseball’s Greatest Pitching Seasons ; and This BAD Day in Yankees History , as well as the blog Never Too Much Baseball .

Samantha Schipman : Samantha became a Braves fan because of her grandpa’s love for them. Her first crush was Dale Murphy. Papa would call her and her cousin into the room every time he was at bat. They would then kiss and hug the TV. Samantha rededicated herself to the Braves in 1996 and has had a healthy love affair with them ever since. She was “educated” (and still is) by listening to Skip Caray, Don Sutton, Pete Van Wieren, Ernie Johnson Sr., Jon Sciambi, Joe Simpson & Chip Caray. She follows different players (moslty former Braves) and pulls for the Red Sox because the Braves came from Boston.She is an avid reader of ChopTalk and MLB Insiders and is also a MLB.com fan panelist. Samantha has been collecting baseball cards on and off since 1996 and has over 550 in her collection. She has also been playing fantasy baseball for several years. She plays in a Yahoo league and an ESPN league. Samantha attends Atlanta Braves, South Carolina Gamecocks and Charlotte Knights baseball games as often as she can. She one days hopes to visit Cooperstown and be present when Chipper Jones (and hopefully Murph!) is inducted into the Hall of Fame. Her favorite baseball memory is standing on the couch, screaming and yelling because a 19 year old Andruw Jones hit two home runs in his first two World Series at bats against the New York Yankees in 1996.

In real life, Samantha is a senior at Wingate University and plans to graduate with a B.A. in Journalism in December. She also goes by Sam, even though it is her dad’s name (family calls her Samantha, everyone else calls her Sam). She was born and raised in Charlotte, NC and still lives there with her mom, sister, three dogs, a cat, a parakeet and a Glofish. She writes for the school newspaper and also wrote for a local music magazine for six months in 2008. She also proudly won a writing contest in the seventh grade and received a savings bond. However, she missed a picture with the mayor of Mint Hill (town outside of Charlotte and the topic of the contest) because she was absent from school that day. Samantha has worked as a receptionist in the vet field since August 2001. She is also enjoying her second internship with Howard Rosen Promotion in the College Radio department. Her love of music matches her love of baseball.

Joe Shrode : Joe works as a Field Representative for the Indiana Youth Institute and is the author of the wonderful book, Between the Lines: A Father, A Son, and America’s Pastime , as well as a blog of the same name .  Joe is hoping to have his book published soon.

Lyle Spatz: Lyle is the chairman of SABR’s Records Committee, the co-author of the recently released 1921: The Yankees, The Giants, and The Battle For Baseball Supremacy In New York , and author of Bad Bill Dahlen: The Rollicking Life and Times of an Early Baseball Star , and Yankees Coming, Yankees Going: New York Yankee Player Transactions, 1903 through 1999 .

David Stalker:David, a SABR member since 1998, began erecting monuments in tribute to Deadball Era players in 2005 when his monument of Fred Merkle went up in Merkle’s hometown of Watertown, WI. This is a non-profit series. The monument company and Stalker donate their time and funding comes from those that share his interest, often from the player’s families. His goal is to make this a National series, telling the story about these players throughout the country. With the continued help of player family members, fans, historians, authors and businesses, this can grow to be a series that the country can take much pride in.

Players that have followed Fred Merkle thus far include Davy Jones, Billy Sullivan , Red Kleinow, Addie Joss , Charley Faust, Bob Groom, Bert Husting, Bill Killefer and Red Killefer, and the first team monument honoring the 1901 Milwaukee Brewers.  David’s monuments can be seen at Davy Jones bats , a company founded by the grandson of Deadball player and Stalker monument recipient Davy Jones.  Because of Stalker’s beautiful work and association with Seamheads.com, his monuments have been featured in Chris Epting’s Roadside Baseball: The Locations of America’s Baseball Landmarks .  Just recently, Stalker fulfilled his childhood dream of seeing a baseball game in every MLB park.

Tom Stone:Tom Stone grew up near Rochester, NY, and still lives in that area with his wife Susan and their two cats Pepsi and Sprite. He has worked for Element K since 1999 as an Instructional Designer, ID Manager, and now Product Design Architect. He is a frequent speaker at eLearning industry conferences, and is also the company’s primary blogger . Tom has a BA degree in Philosophy from the University of Rochester, and in 1997 he combined this background with his growing web development skills by creating EpistemeLinks.com – a large and popular philosophy resource directory site (it receives about 7,000 visitors per day). Tom also published (as editor) a unique and interesting book: Frontier Experience , or Epistolary Sesquipedalian Lexiphanicism from the Occident , by J.E.L. Seneker (available from Lulu.com and from Amazon.com ).

As for baseball, as a child Tom was a fan of the Pirates, though today he considers himself to be more a fan of the game as a whole than any particular team. He plays in multiple roto/fantasy leagues each year (and has been playing roto since the late 1980s when it was done by mail and phone!). He has been a SABR member for many years, and his baseball writings interests are mostly in history and statistics, especially topics such as all-time teams and rankings, hall-of-fame arguments, and related topics. He is also working on a baseball book on baseball’s all-time teams, and plans to post his draft chapters to Seamheads for feedback and comments. For more info about him, Tom has a slowly growing personal website at www.thomasryanstone.com .

Matthew Tarini : A resident of Phoenix, Matthew has collected baseball memorabilia for years and has an appreciation for all ages of the game going back to the 19th century. He’s working on getting an “RBI program” in Phoenix and has worked with the Arizona Fall League.

Alan Tieuli : Alan is President of AAT & Sons Public Relations and has 20+ years experience there and his own successful consultancy. He came to the PR business via a daily newspaper, where he served as an Assistant Sports Editor. As a side gig, he publishes IrishEyes Magazine , a monthly that covers Notre Dame athletics.

Alfonso Tusa: Alfonso is a writer and chemical technician from Cumaná, Venezuela who was born in Roger Maris’ record-setting year of 1961.  His work has been featured in Venezuela’s daily newspaper, El Nacional —he won an award in 2004 for a letter he sent to the paper called “Un mandado en Bebedero” (“An errand in Bebedero”)—and in the magazine Gente en Ambiente, and he’s collaborated on several articles for newspapers, including “El Año del Pitcher” (“The Year of the Pitcher”) for the daily paper Tal Cual and “Jim Abbott sigue inspirando a los discapacitados” (“One handed wonder Abbott still an inspiration”) for El Nacional .

He’s also written three books.  In 2004 his novel, Esperanzas entre Leones y Navegantes , (Expectations between Lions and Navigators) , received a special mention in the First Contest on Baseball and Literature supported by the Venezuelan Winter Baseball League. In 2006 his book, Una Temporada Mágica ( A Magical Season ), won the Second Contest on Baseball and Literature supported by the Venezuelan Winter Baseball League. And in 2007 he published his third book, El Látigo del Béisbol. Una Biografía de Isaías Chávez ( The Baseball’s Whip. An Isaías Chávez biography ).  He’s written biographies for SABR’s BioProject (Isaías Látigo Chávez and Cito Gaston) and currently provides bilingual articles (Spanish-English) for Seamheads.com.

Alain Usereau: Alain Usereau has been a member of SABR since 1991. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics (University of Sherbrooke, 1986) and a Certificate’s degree in Journalism (Laval University, Quebec City, 1987). He’s been a broadcaster since 1989, mainly in sports. He is the author of a book about the heydays of the Montreal Expos, “L’époque glorieuse des Expos” ( The golden years of the Expos ), which depicts how they became not only a force in the late 1970s and early 1980s but became also the toast of a whole country. Alain is passionate about baseball and rock music.

Nick Waddell : Nick is currently a 3rd year law student in Chicago, and a student member of the Sports Lawyers Association.  He’s been a baseball fan since age three, and avidly follows his Detroit Tigers no matter where he is.  Nick’s hoping to work his way into baseball after law school. He wrote a biography on Al Kaline for the SABR book Sock It To ‘Em Tigers and has been a member of SABR since 2006.

John Wellman : Wellman is a passionate baseball fan from Chicago who follows his local teams and, according to his Facebook page, “is usually frustrated by said teams.”

Kevin Wheeler: Wheeler is a sports talk show host, baseball instructor and baseball writer based in St. Louis. His “real job” is at the legendary KMOX where he hosts the Ford Sports Open Line (6-8 PM CT Monday thru Friday – available at www.kmox.com ). SOL is the longest running sports talk show in America and was hosted in years past by the likes of Jack Buck and Bob Costas.

Kevin also works as a baseball instructor for All-Star Performance in Kirkwood, MO ( www.all-starperformance.net ) alongside former Major Leaguers Matt Whiteside, Scott Cooper and Scott Terry. He works primarily with hitters and catchers and also assists Cooper and Whiteside with their “Gamers” travel program ( www.stlgamers.net ) for players between the ages of 12-18. He played college ball for the Miami Hurricanes in the early 90’s.

Kevin was the Sporting News’ minor league baseball analyst as well as a fantasy baseball contributor for the Sporting News Fantasy Source from 2001-2005. He also wrote Major League and minor league player reports for John Benson’s Diamond Library publications from 1999-2007.

Tyler Whitlock : Despite living in Southern California since he was about 6 months old, Tyler is a Red Sox fan. He’s been fascinated with the club because of the history and stories associated with it. From Carton Fisk waving the ball fair to win Game 6 of the ‘75 World Series to the amazing careers of players like Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski. Though he hasn’t done so yet, a dream of his is to see a game at Fenway.  This summer he plans to start film school in Los Angeles. He also will be participating in some endurance races with his girlfriend Maureen and probably attending a few Dodgers games with his Dad.

Brandon Williams : Brandon learned pretty early that his athletic prowess wouldn’t result in fame and accolades like childhood heroes Chuck Foreman and Jim Rice. Instead, he took up writing, and — thanks to some influential teachers — began considering it a career.

Since 1990, Brandon has been in sports media in a variety of roles, including sports editor of The Galveston County (TX) Daily News and general assignments/sports for the Houston Chronicle . His work has also appeared on foxsports.com, sportingnews.com and footballoutsiders.com. He co-authored the 2004 edition of the Pro Football Forecast along with Sean Lehman and Todd Grenier. He also worked as a transmissions administrator for Fox Sports Net.

An avid Colorado Rockies fan, Williams is passionate about baseball in the 1980s and holds a special place in his heart for the 1986 Houston Astros. He is single and resides in Houston, TX.  You can follow Brandon on Facebook and Twitter (BCWilliams71).

Joe Williams:Joe’s interest in baseball began in the early 1970s in his hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York when his uncle gave him a bunch old baseball books and cards. Among the items was a 1952 edition of Ken Smith’s Baseball Hall of Fame . Through this book he began to learn about the history of the game and about baseball’s all-time greats.

Joe’s area of expertise is the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and he has attended the annual induction ceremony in Cooperstown each year since 1987.After graduating as a history major from the University at Albany, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut in 1989.

Joe has been a SABR member since 1990 and is very active in the Connecticut Smoky Joe Wood SABR Chapter. He was officially named the chapter’s treasurer in 2006 and is currently working with other SABR members to write a BioProject book on significant Connecticut baseball players, managers, umpires and executives. Joe also chairs the Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legends Project, a sub-committee of SABR’s 19th Century Committee. A life-long New York Mets fan, Joe lives in East Hampton, Connecticut with his wife, son and daughter, and is a law librarian for a large regional law firm.

Bob Wirz: Bob is a life-long professional in the world of sports, with heavy concentration on baseball. One of Wirz’s more intriguing tasks was running Major League Baseball’s media office as chief spokesman for Commissioners Bowie Kuhn and Peter Ueberroth for more than a decade (1974-85). He started Wirz & Associates, Inc., a sports public relations and consulting company he still runs in Stratford, CT, later in 1985. It handled publicity for the prestigious Rolaids Relief Man awards for more than two decades, developed Little League Baseball’s first national sponsorship program and utilized sports celebrities and venues to establish broad awareness campaigns for the industry haircoloring giant Just For Men.

Since 2003, he has been writing a weekly column, the Independent Baseball Insider. It is unique in that it details news from every Independent league in a very upbeat manner. He also has a blog about Independent Baseball, www.IndyBaseballChatter.com , and a web site on University of Connecticut basketball and football, www.HuskyPedia.com .

Bob’s experience includes six years as publicity director for the Kansas City Royals, and a background in newspaper, radio and television work. His first professional baseball position was as Public Relations Director of the Denver Bears (Pacific Coast League) in 1967-68. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska. Bob and his wife Maybeth reside in Stratford. They have four children and five grandchildren.

Bill Young : Bill has been a SABR member since 20001 and was a founder of the SABR-Quebec Chapter in 2005. He served as a Dean in the Quebec community college (CEGEP) system until retirement; and then was named founding Executive Director of the Greenwood Centre for Living History in his home town of Hudson, Quebec (CANADA). Born in Quebec City, Bill has nurtured a life-long interest in baseball, especially baseball in this province, and has written extensively on the topic. He collaborated with Danny Gallagher on the best-selling Remembering the Montreal Expos, and has published a number of articles about minor league ball in Quebec, particularly with respect to the Provincial League. He is married to Sandra Butler and has two grown children and two grandchildren. And, lordy, how he misses his beloved Expos!