Society for American Baseball Research
Collegiate Baseball Committee Newsletter
January 2005 (Volume 4, Issue 1)

© 2005 Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the position or official policy of SABR or its Collegiate Baseball Committee

Year in Review

In 2004, the Collegiate Committee focused on increasing the visibility of the Major League Player collegiate database and improving the accuracy of the information.

We are pleased to announce that the database is now integrated with Baseball-Reference.com. Special thanks to Sean Forman and Rod Nelson for their assistance in setting up this partnership. Check out the schools section at http://www.baseball-reference.com/schools/", including their great hitting and pitching statistics by school feature.

Committee co-chair Rick Benner has been working on updating the information for the Division I schools in the database. To date, 25 states in the northeastern and southeastern US have been updated to include MLB players who attended a school but did not play baseball there. We expect the remainder of Division I to be updated in the next few months, with the lower divisions to be completed later this year. Also, be sure to check out the new organization of the database (by state) at http://www.ncaa-baseball.com/sabr/database.

Collegiate Committee 2005

The main goal of the Committee in 2005 is to increase member participation. So, if you have any ideas on projects that the Committee should undertake, please let us know.

Finally, the Collegiate Baseball Committee is seeking articles relating to college baseball for a potential publication. The articles can deal with individual games, seasons, players or colleges, or they can be general in nature. There is no maximum or minimum length, and scanned pictures are also acceptable. Please submit your ideas to Jeremy Mills (jwmills@alumni.rice.edu).

High Fives: Member Contributions

Special thanks go out to Al DelRossi and Mike Gustafson for their contributions to the committee in the last few months.

Al contributed a great deal of information concerning the history of baseball at Penn State.

Mike was able to track down the correct college for Steve Christmas. The Committee's records initially indicated that he attended Southwestern Oklahoma State. He actually attended Oklahoma City Southwestern College, which has since changed names to Mid-America Christian University.

Collegiate Committee E-List

The committee has created a new E-List to discuss research requests and other collegiate issues. To sign up for the discussion group, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SABRcollegiate/ or send an e-mail to SABRcollegiate-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

You will need a free Yahoo! ID to access the content and update your settings. We look forward to seeing you there!!

UTA's Pence Named SABR Hall-Ruggles Chapter 2004 Metroplex Baseball Player of Year
Jay Langhammer

The Dallas-Fort Worth Hall-Ruggles SABR chapter named outfielder Hunter Pence from the University of Texas-Arlington as its 2004 Metroplex College Baseball Player of the Year. He is the first player from UTA to receive the award since the SABR chapter started making the award in 1993. Hunter was 2004 Southland Conference Player of the Year, after hitting .395 with eight homers and 35 runs batted in. The 64th player chosen in the summer free agent draft's second round, he signed with the Houston Astros and spent the summer with the Tri-City Valley Cats of the New York-Pennsylvania League.

Hunter received his plaque at the Texas Collegiate League awards dinner on November 10th. The event, celebrating the successful first season of the summer wood-bat league, had around 400 attendees, including Nolan Ryan, Jack Clark, Danny Darwin and Mike Henneman.

2005 College Baseball - Coming Soon to a Diamond Near You
Jeremy Mills

With the new year upon us, the start of another college baseball season is just around the corner. While major league players don't report to Spring Training until mid-February, college baseball season begins in late January. For the first time in several years, Hawaii-Hilo isn't hosting the first series of the season -- the honor this time falls to the San Diego Toreros, who host the Cal Poly Mustangs from January 21st-23rd. In Division I, the west coast teams typically start in late January, the rest of the Sun Belt starts in mid-February, and everyone is playing by the time March rolls around.

That doesn't mean you'll be able to catch an early start to baseball where you are -- several of the teams in the northeast don't play at home until late March or early April. There are a number of early season tournaments of note, some of which I've listed below. While the quality of competition might not be as high up north in March, early season tournaments in Idaho and Minnesota can help with a baseball fix while the snow is still melting.

For a complete list of Division I schedules, including tournaments and other key early season non-conference match-ups, be sure to check out http://www.ncaa-baseball.com -- and once the season starts, you can check for daily updates to the scoreboards and standings.

On the Bookshelf

It's a little late for Christmas, but if you're looking for some college baseball reading material, consider the following (all available from Amazon.com and other booksellers):

The College World Series: A Baseball History, 1947-2003
Arcadia Publishing "Images of America"
Baseball at Ball State
Baseball at the University of Michigan
Grand Junction's JUCO World Series
Hoosier Hitmen: Indiana University Baseball
Notre Dame Baseball Greats: Anson to Yaz

2004 Major League Debuts
Jeremy Mills

In 2004, the rich kept getting richer -- at least when considering colleges with major league alumni. The SEC (13), Big XII (9) and C-USA (8) were the leading conferences, while Oklahoma (5) and Long Beach State (4) were the schools that saw the most players reach the majors in 2004.

Four universities saw their first player reach the majors in 2004. Illinois-Chicago (Curtis Granderson), MIT (Jason Szuminski) and Texas A&M-Kingsville (Mike Adams) join the list for the first time. And while Richard Ward might have played baseball at St. Martin's in the 30s, Justin Leone is the first Saint confirmed by the Committee to reach the majors.

A complete list of collegians who made their major league debuts in 2004 follows: