Seymour Medal
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The Dr. Harold and Dorothy Seymour Medal, often simply referred to as the Seymour Medal, is an annual literary award given by the
Society for American Baseball Research The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is a membership organization dedicated to fostering the research and dissemination of the history and statistical record of baseball. The organization was founded in Cooperstown, New York, on Au ...
(SABR) to the best baseball historical or biographical book. The award was named in honor of baseball historians
Harold Seymour Harold Seymour (June 10, 1910 – September 26, 1992) was an American baseball historian and academic who is best known as the co-author of the baseball history trilogy: ''Baseball: The Early Years'', ''Baseball: The Golden Age'', ''Baseball: Th ...
and Dorothy Seymour Mills, co-authors of the ''Baseball'' trilogy, a highly acclaimed baseball history series. First award in 1996, it was initially given to the winner at the annual SABR Conference but is now award at the banquet of the annual NINE Spring Training conference in
Tempe, Arizona Tempe ( ; ''Oidbaḍ'' in O'odham language, O'odham) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, with the Census Bureau reporting a 2020 population of 180,587. The city is named after the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Tempe is located in t ...
. The winner is given a bronze medal 3 1/2 inches in circumference. The obverse side shows the profiles of the Seymours, along with their names and background sketch of a baseball diamond. On the reverse side is SABR's name and logo, with crossed bats and a glove holding a baseball etched onto the background, an open book.


List of winners and finalists


1996

* David Zang, ''Fleet Walker's Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball's First Black Major Leaguer'' ** Charles Alexander, ''Rogers Hornsby: A Biography'' ** David Falkner, ''Great Time Coming: The Life of Jackie Robinson from Baseball to Birmingham'' ** William Humber, ''Diamonds of the North: A Concise History of Baseball in Canada'' **
David Nemec David Nemec (born December 10, 1938) is an American baseball historian and novelist. Early life and education Nemec was born in Cleveland, Ohio and spent most of his adolescence in Bay Village, Ohio. During his senior year at Bay High School, ...
, ''The Beer and Whisky League: An Illustrated History of the American Association-Baseball's Renegade Major League'' ** Henry W. Thomas, ''Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train''


1997

* Arthur D. Hittner, ''Honus Wagner, The Life of Baseball's "Flying Dutchman" McFarland'' **
Marty Appel Martin E. Appel (born August 7, 1948) is an American public relations and sports management executive, television executive producer, baseball historian and author. Appel served as Public Relations Director for the New York Yankees from 1973 to ...
, ''Slide, Kelly, Slide: The Wild Life and Times of Mike "King" Kelly, Baseball's First Superstar'' ** Dennis DeValeria and Jeanne Burke DeValeria, ''Honus Wagner: A Biography'' ** Carl E. Prince, ''Brooklyn's Dodgers: The Bums, The Borough, and the Best of Baseball for 1947-1957'' ** G. Edward White, ''Creating the National Pastime: Baseball Transforms Itself 1903-1953''


1998

* Patrick Harrigan, ''The Detroit Tigers: Club and Community, 1945-95'' ** Greg Rhodes and John Erardi, ''Big Red Dynasty: How Bob Howsam & Sparky Anderson Built the Big Red Machine'' ** Alan M. Klein, ''Baseball on the Border: A Tale of Two Laredos'' **
Arnold Rampersad Arnold Rampersad (born 13 November 1941) is a biographer, literary critic, and academic, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and moved to the US in 1965. The second volume (1989) of his ''Life of Langston Hughes'' was a finalist for the Pulitze ...
, ''Jackie Robinson: A Biography'' ** Lyle Spatz, ''New York Yankee Openers: An Opening Day History of Baseball's Most Famous Team, 1903-2017''


1999

* Bruce Markusen, ''Baseball's Last Dynasty: Charlie Finley's Oakland A's'' **
Leonard Koppett Leonard J. Koppett (born Leonid Kopeliovitch; September 15, 1923 – June 22, 2003) was a Soviet-born American sportswriter and author who wrote 17 books on sports, mainly baseball. Born in Moscow as Leonid Kopeliovitch, Koppett moved with his f ...
, ''Koppett’s Concise History of Major League Baseball'' **
David Pietrusza David Pietrusza is an American author and historian, and is considered an expert on US Politics in the 1920s. He has written a number of books, including ''Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR's 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal,'' w ...
, ''Judge and Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis'' ** William J. Ryczek, ''When Johnny Came Sliding Home: The Post-Civil War Baseball Boom, 1865-1870'' ** David Stevens, ''Baseball's Radical for All Seasons: A Biography of John Montgomery Ward'' ** David Q. Voigt, ''The League That Failed''


2000

* Bill Marshall, ''Baseball's Pivotal Era, 1945-1951'' ** R. G. Utley and Scott Verner, ''The Independent Carolina Baseball League, 1936-1938: Baseball Outlaws'' ** Bruce Adelson, ''Brushing Back Jim Crow: The Integration of Minor League Baseball in the American South'' ** J. Thomas Hetrick, ''Chris Von der Ahe and the Saint Louis Browns'' ** Bryan DiSalvatore, ''A Clever Base-Ballist: The Life and Times of John Montgomery Ward'' **
Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria Roberto is an Italian, Portuguese and Spanish variation of the male given name Robert. Notable people named Roberto include: * Roberto (footballer, born 1912) * Roberto (footballer, born 1977) * Roberto (footballer, born 1978) * Roberto (football ...
, ''The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball'' ** Mark Rucker and Peter Bjarkman, ''Smoke: The Romance and Lore of Cuban Baseball''


2001

* Jules Tygiel, ''Past Time: Baseball as History'' **
Reed Browning Reed Browning (born 1938) is an American retired professor of history. Browning gained his B.A. from Dartmouth College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. He also studied at the University of Vienna. He taught at Amherst College from 1 ...
, ''Cy Young: A Baseball Life'' ** David W. Anderson, ''More than Merkle: A History of the Best and Most Exciting Baseball Season in Human History'' **
Richard Ben Cramer Richard Ben Cramer (June 12, 1950 – January 7, 2013) was an American journalist, author, and screenwriter. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1979 for his coverage of the Middle East. Biography Cramer was born and r ...
, '' Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life'' ** Jim Kaplan, ''Lefty Grove: American Original'' ** Wendy Knickerbocker, ''Sunday at the Ballpark: Billy Sunday's Professional Baseball Career, 1883-1890'' ** Gabriel Schechter, ''Victory Faust: The Rube Who Saved McGraw's Giants'' ** Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson, ''Red Sox Century: One Hundred Years of Red Sox Baseball''


2002

* Tom Melville, ''Early Baseball and the Rise of the National League'' ** Robert F. Burk, ''Much More than a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball Since 1921'' ** James F. Giglio, ''Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man'' ** Martin Donell Kohout, ''Hal Chase: The Defiant Life and Turbulent Times of Baseball's Biggest Crook''


2003

* Charles Alexander, ''Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era'' ** Charles P. Korr, ''The End of Baseball as We Knew It: The Players Union, 1960-81'' **
Howard Bryant Howard "Howie" Bryant (born November 25, 1968) is a sports journalist, and radio and television personality. He writes weekly columns for ESPN.com and ''ESPN The Magazine'', ESPN, and appears regularly on ESPN Radio. He is a frequent panelist o ...
, ''Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston'' ** Jon David Cash, ''Before They Were Cardinals: Major League Baseball in Nineteenth Century'' ** David L. Fleitz, ''Louis Sockalexis: The First Cleveland Indian'' ** Leslie A. Heaphy, ''The Negro Leagues 1869-1960'' **
Jane Leavy Jane Leavy ( ; born December 26, 1951) is an American sportswriter, biographer, and author who previously worked as a reporter for ''The Washington Post''. Leavy primarily writes about baseball and is best known for her biographies on baseball ...
, '' Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy'' ** Joseph A. Reaves, ''Taking in a Game: A History of Baseball in Asia''


2004

* Peter Morris, ''Baseball Fever: Early Baseball in Michigan'' **
Reed Browning Reed Browning (born 1938) is an American retired professor of history. Browning gained his B.A. from Dartmouth College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. He also studied at the University of Vienna. He taught at Amherst College from 1 ...
, ''1924: Baseball's Greatest Season'' ** James E. Elfers, ''The Tour to End All Tours: The Story of Major League Baseball's 1913-1914 World Tour'' ** Daniel Nathan, ''Saying It's So: A Cultural History of the Black Sox Scandal'' ** Brad Snyder, ''Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball''


2005

*
Neil Lanctot Neil Lanctot (born 1966) is an American historian and author. Two of his books, ''Negro League Baseball'' and ''Campy'', were finalists for the Casey Award while the former won the Seymour Medal. Early life Lanctot was born in Woonsocket, Rhode ...
, ''Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution'' ** Kevin Nelson and Hank Greenwald, ''The Golden Game: The Story of California Baseball'' **
Alan Schwarz Alan Schwarz (born July 3, 1968) is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and author, formerly at ''The New York Times'', best known for writing more than 100 articles that exposed the National Football League's cover-up of concussions and brought the ...
, ''The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination with Statistics''


2006

* David Block, ''Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game'' ** Jean Ardell, ''Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime'' **
Jonathan Eig Jonathan Eig (; born April 26, 1964) is an American journalist and biographer. He is the author of six books, the most recent being '' King: A Life'' (2023), a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr. Biography Eig was born in ...
, ''Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig'' ** Timothy M. Gay, ''Tris Speaker: The Rough and Tumble Life of a Baseball Legend''


2007

* Peter Morris, ''Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball'' ** Brad Snyder, ''A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency'' **
Mark Lamster Mark Lamster (born in New York City) is an American architecture writer and critic. He writes in the ''Dallas Morning News''. In 2018 he wrote a biography, ''The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century'', showing th ...
, ''Spalding's World Tour: The Epic Adventure that Took Baseball Around the Globe – And Made It America's Game'' ** Merrie Fidler, ''The Origins and History of The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League'' ** Brian Carroll, ''When to Stop The Cheering?: The Black Press, the Black Community, and the Integration of Professional Baseball''


2008

* Lee Lowenfish, ''Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman'' ** Norman Macht, ''Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball'' ** Adrian Burgos Jr., ''Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line''


2009

* Tom Swift, ''Chief Bender's Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star'' ** Andy J. Schiff, ''The Father of Baseball: A Biography of Henry Chadwick'' ** Daniel R. Levitt, ''Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees' First Dynasty''


2010

*
Larry Tye Larry Tye is an American non-fiction author and journalist known for his biographies of notable Americans including Edward Bernays (1999) Satchel Paige (2009), Robert F. Kennedy (2016) and Joseph McCarthy (2020). From 1986 to 2001, Tye was a rep ...
, ''Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend'' ** Robert E. Murphy, ''After Many a Summer: The Passing of the Giants and Dodgers and a Golden Age in New York Baseball'' **
Allen Barra Allen Barra is an American journalist and author of sports books. He is a contributing editor of '' American Heritage'' magazine, and regularly writes about sports for ''The Wall Street Journal'' and ''The Atlantic''. He has also written for ' ...
, ''Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee''


2011

* Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg, ''1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York'' ** Mark Armour, ''Joe Cronin: A Life in Baseball'' ** Edward Achorn, ''Fifty-Nine in '84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had'' **
Jane Leavy Jane Leavy ( ; born December 26, 1951) is an American sportswriter, biographer, and author who previously worked as a reporter for ''The Washington Post''. Leavy primarily writes about baseball and is best known for her biographies on baseball ...
, '' The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood''


2012

* Glenn Stout, ''Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway's Remarkable First Year'' **
Neil Lanctot Neil Lanctot (born 1966) is an American historian and author. Two of his books, ''Negro League Baseball'' and ''Campy'', were finalists for the Casey Award while the former won the Seymour Medal. Early life Lanctot was born in Woonsocket, Rhode ...
, ''Campy: The Two Lives of Roy Campanella'' **
John Thorn John Abraham Thorn (born April 17, 1947) is a German-born American sports historian, author, and publisher. Since 2011, he has served as the Official Baseball Historian for Major League Baseball. Early life Thorn was born in Stuttgart, Germany ...
, ''Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game''


2013

* Robert K. Fitts, ''Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan'' **
Tony La Russa Anthony La Russa Jr. (; born October 4, 1944) is an American former professional baseball player, coach, and manager (baseball), manager. His MLB career has spanned from 1963 to 2022, in several roles. He is the former manager of the St. Louis C ...
and
Rick Hummel Richard Lowell Hummel (February 25, 1946 – May 20, 2023) was an American author and sports columnist best known for his work for the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''. Hummel was honored in 2007 with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for baseball writin ...
, ''One Last Strike: Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season'' ** Norman Macht, ''Connie Mack: The Turbulent and Triumphant Years, 1915-1931''


2014

* Gerald C. Wood, ''Smoky Joe Wood: The Biography of a Baseball Legend'' **
Stuart Banner Stuart Alan Banner (born November 20, 1963) is an American legal historian and the Norman Abrams Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law. Banner also directs UCLA's Supreme Court Clinic, which offers students the opportunity to work on real cas ...
, ''The Baseball Trust: A History of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption'' ** Doug Wilson, '' The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych'' ** Tom Dunkel, ''Color Blind: The Forgotten Team That Broke Baseball's Color Line''


2015

* Andy McCue, ''Mover & Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, and Baseball's Westward Expansion'' ** Nathaniel Grow, ''Baseball on Trial: The Origin of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption'' ** Rick Huhn, ''The Chalmers Race: Ty Cobb, Napoleon Lajoie, and the Controversial 1910 Batting Title That Became a National Obsession'' ** Dennis Snelling, ''Johnny Evers: A Baseball Life''


2016

*
Bill Pennington William Mark Pennington (born December 12, 1956) is an American journalist, sportswriter and author. A reporter for ''The New York Times'' since 1997, Pennington has become best known for his sports journalism on golf, skiing, baseball, football, ...
, ''Billy Martin: Baseball's Flawed Genius'' ** Mark Armour and Daniel R. Levitt, ''In Pursuit of Pennants: Baseball Operations from Deadball to Moneyball'' ** Jennifer Ring, ''A Game of Their Own: Voices of Contemporary Women in Baseball'' ** Steve Steinberg and Lyle Spatz, ''The Colonel and Hug: The Partnership that Transformed the New York Yankees''


2017

* Robert C. Trumpbour and
Kenneth Womack Kenneth Womack (born January 24, 1966) is an American writer, literary critic, public speaker, and music historian, particularly focusing on the cultural influence of the Beatles. He is the author of the bestselling ''Solid State: The Story of ...
, ''The Eighth Wonder of the World: The Life of Houston's Iconic Astrodome'' ** Mitchell Nathanson, ''God Almighty Hisself: The Life and Legacy of Dick Allen'' **
Tom Stanton Thomas Stanton may refer to: *Thomas Stanton (settler) (1616–1667), English settler, trader and negotiator in the Connecticut Colony * Thomas Stanton (priest) (1806–1875), English archdeacon * Thomas Ernest Stanton (1865–1931), English mechan ...
, ''Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, Baseball, and the Secret Society that Shocked Depression-Era Detroit'' ** Glenn Stout, ''The Selling of the Babe: The Deal that Changed Baseball and Created a Legend''


2018

* Jerald Podair, ''City of Dreams: Dodger Stadium and the Birth of Modern Los Angeles'' **
Marty Appel Martin E. Appel (born August 7, 1948) is an American public relations and sports management executive, television executive producer, baseball historian and author. Appel served as Public Relations Director for the New York Yankees from 1973 to ...
, ''Casey Stengel: Baseball's Greatest Character'' ** John Eisenberg, ''The Streak: Lou Gehrig, Cal Ripken Jr., and Baseball's Most Historic Record'' ** Robert Garratt, ''Home Team: The Turbulent History of the San Francisco Giants'' ** Debra Shattuck, ''Bloomer Girls: Women Baseball Pioneers''


2019

*
Jane Leavy Jane Leavy ( ; born December 26, 1951) is an American sportswriter, biographer, and author who previously worked as a reporter for ''The Washington Post''. Leavy primarily writes about baseball and is best known for her biographies on baseball ...
, '' The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created'' ** Tony Castro, ''Gehrig and the Babe: The Friendship and the Feud'' ** Anne Keene, ''The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II'' ** Bill Nowlin, ''Tom Yawkey: Patriarch of the Boston Red Sox'' ** Emily Ruth Rutter, ''Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line'' **
Curt Smith Curt Smith (born 24 June 1961) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is best known as the co-lead vocalist, bassist, and co-founding member of the pop rock band Tears for Fears along with childhood friend Roland ...
, ''The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball and the White House''


2020

* Jeremy Beer, ''Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball's Greatest Forgotten Player'' ** David Block, ''Pastime Lost: The Humble, Original, and Now Completely Forgotten Game of English Baseball'' ** William H. Brewster, ''The Workingman's Game: Waverly, New York, the Twin Tiers and the Making of Modern Baseball, 1887–1898'' ** Christopher J. Phillips, ''Scouting and Scoring: How We Know What We Know about Baseball''


2021

* Eric Nusbaum, ''Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between'' ** Thomas W. Gilbert, ''How Baseball Happened: Outrageous Lies Exposed! The True Story Revealed'' ** Mitchell Nathanson, ''Bouton: The Life of a Baseball Original'' ** Thomas Wolf, ''The Called Shot: Babe Ruth, the Chicago Cubs, and the Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932''


2022

* Steven Treder, ''Forty Years a Giant: The Life of Horace Stoneham'' ** Jim Leeke, ''The Best Team Over There: The Untold Story of Grover Cleveland Alexander and the Great War'' ** Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg, ''Comeback Pitchers: The Remarkable Careers of Howard Ehmke & Jack Quinn''


2023

* Daniel R. Levitt and Mark Armour, ''Intentional Balk: Baseball's Thin Line between Innovation and Cheating'' ** Peter Dreier and Robert A. Elias, ''Baseball Rebels: The Players, People and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America'' ** Judith R. Hiltner and James R. Walker, ''Red Barber: The Life and Legacy of a Broadcasting Legend''


2024

* Steven P. Gietschier, ''Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years'' ** Erik Sherman, ''Daybreak at Chavez Ravine: Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers''


2025

* Larry R. Gerlach, ''Lion of the League: Bob Emslie and the Evolution of the Baseball Umpire'' ** Lee C. Kluck, ''Leave While the Party’s Good: The Life and Legacy of Baseball Executive Harry Dalton'' ** Keith O'Brien, ''Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball''


See also

*
CASEY Award The Casey Award (stylized as CASEY) is an annual literary award that has been given to the best baseball book of the year since 1983. The award was created by Mike Shannon and W. J. Harrison, editors and co-founders of '' Spitball: The Literary B ...
*
List of literary awards This list of literary awards from around the world is an index to articles about notable literary awards. International awards All nationalities and multiple languages eligible * Nobel Prize in Literature – since 1901 * Hugo Award – sinc ...


References

{{Reflist American history awards American literary awards Awards established in 1996 * Baseball trophies and awards in the United States Lists of books Society for American Baseball Research Sports writing awards