Richard Malatzky

Richard Malatzky (1956-2018) was a major contributor to SABR's Biographical Research Committee for over 40 years, looking up the vital statistics of obscure and misidentified ballplayers. He was described by historian John Thorn as a "supersleuth in genealogical research". He was particularly adept at ferreting out old-time players who had been wrongly identified in the early days of baseball research. He rarely published anything under his own name, but contributed to thousands of books and articles by doing research and checking facts on behalf of their authors. The first book he did publish, Base Ball Pioneers, 1850-1870: The Clubs and Players Who Spread the Sport Nationwide, won a SABR research award in 2013.

He was posthumously honored in 2025 with the Chadwick Award recognizing lifetime achievement in baseball research.

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