Seymour Medal
From BR Bullpen
The Seymour Medal has been awarded by the Society for American Baseball Research to the best book of baseball history or biography published in the preceding year, since 1996. It is named in honor of Harold Seymour and Dorothy Seymour Mills, who were baseball historians.
[edit] Medal Winners
- 1996: Fleet Walker's Divided Heart by David Zang; "Life of baseball's first black major-leaguer."
- 1997: Honus Wagner, The Life of Baseball's "Flying Dutchman" by Arthur D. Hittner; "Biography of a superstar and his remarkable career as a batter and shortstop with the Pittsburgh Pirates."
- 1998: The Detroit Tigers: Club and Community, 1945-95 by Patrick Harrigan; "Shows how the club evolved as an integral part of the city."
- 1999: Baseball's Last Dynasty: Charlie Finley's Oakland A's by Bruce Markusen; "Focuses on the emergence of a championship club despite its internal turmoil."
- 2000: Baseball's Pivotal Era, 1945-1951 by Bill Marshall; "Focuses on the events and colorful characters of the transformative postwar era."
- 2001: Past Time: Baseball as History by Jules Tygiel; "A collection of essays exploring baseball's role in American cultural and social history."
- 2002: Early Baseball and the Rise of the National League by Tom Melville; "An original assessment of the forces that developed early baseball into an organized national sport."
- 2003: Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era by Charles C. Alexander; "During the Dark Thirties, baseball brightened the days for participants as well as spectators."
- 2004: Baseball Fever: Early Baseball in Michigan by Peter Morris; "A well-researched study of Michigan baseball from the 1830s to the 1870s."
- 2005: Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution by Neil Lanctot; "The rise of black baseball with focus placed on the economics rather than the feats of the players."
- 2006: Baseball Before We Knew It by David Block; "An amazing journey through time to discover the true evolution of our modern pastime."
- 2007: Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball by Peter Morris
- 2008: Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman by Lee Lowenfish
- 2009: Chief Bender's Burden by Tom Swift; on the silent struggles of a Native American baseball star of the 1900s.
- 2010: Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye; "an exhaustively well-researched look at one of the most intriguing personalities of the 20th century."
- 2011: 1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York by Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg
- 2012: Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway's Remarkable First Year by Glenn Stout, "celebrates the 100th anniversary of the opening of Fenway Park, and contains a detailed account of the 1912 World Series."
