{"id":236745,"date":"2014-02-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/for-the-love-of-baseball\/"},"modified":"2014-02-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T08:00:00","slug":"for-the-love-of-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/for-the-love-of-baseball\/","title":{"rendered":"For the love of baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local chapter of Society of American Baseball Research gets big donation<\/p>\n

Johnny McDonald |\u00a0Downtown News<\/p>\n

\"Weiss<\/a>
Weiss Collection items, which include many different baseball magazines and literature items that date back to the 1870s. (Courtesy San Diego Public Library Foundation)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Baseball\u2019s biggest collection of historic memorabilia this side of Cooperstown has found a permanent home on the eighth floor of San Diego\u2019s Central Library.\u00a0And, officials say, it will grow even larger.<\/p>\n

Technically, it will be called the Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center, where books, score sheets, publications and photos are housed.<\/p>\n

Speaking to a library auditorium audience on Feb. 15, Andy Strasberg, founder and vice president of the San Diego Chapter of the Society for Baseball Research, urged the public to contribute some of their treasures.<\/p>\n

The William J. Weiss Collection of baseball history has been donated jointly to the library and San Diego Ted Williams Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research.<\/p>\n

The collection, cultivated by Weiss, a well-respected baseball historian who worked with many minor league baseball teams, provides comprehensive player information equal to that available in the Cooperstown (N.Y.) National Baseball Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

As a baseball writer and official scorer for the minor league Padres in the days of Westgate Park, we furnished considerable amours of game reports to the untiring Weiss. What comes to mind were no hit, no run games pitched by Al Worthington and Sammy Ellis and catcher Jesse Gonder being selected by the Sporting News as national minor league player of the year.<\/p>\n

\"Andy<\/a>
Andy Strasberg with U-T San Diego sports reporter John Maffei (Courtesy San Diego Public LIbrary)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The vast donation enhances San Diego\u2019s position as holding the most comprehensive assemblage of baseball research materials.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s many to credit for this display where visitors can become engrossed in these archives of a sport that emerged in the 1870s. The records here will show that from those roots of the pioneering 1870s, the sport has blossomed into America\u2019s summer pastime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s because it\u2019s America\u2019s summer sport,\u201d Strasberg said, explaining why the public has embraced baseball. \u201cI\u2019ve been a baseball fan all my life and developed the research center in 2000. I\u2019ve donated a lot of my stuff already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strasberg was also a member of the Padres organization for 22 years.<\/p>\n

A rare treat for baseball buffs is a compilation of thousands of individual questionnaires that were filled out by high school ballplayers of past generations who would later play in the major leagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some things Cooperstown doesn\u2019t have,\u201d Strasberg said.<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>
William J. Weiss in his home office, 1955 (Courtesy San Diego Public Library Foundation)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe are proud and honored to be the recipient of this remarkable collection,\u201d said Dan Boyle, president of the San Diego Ted Williams Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Weiss collection adds so much depth and richness to our already outstanding baseball research collection,\u201d said Deborah L. Barrow, the San Diego Public Library director. \u201cWe are grateful to the Weiss\u2019 for sharing this treasure trove of information that adds to the breadth of our collection. The Weiss contribution helps the Library connect to the community and provides a valuable resource that belongs to society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional items within the Weiss Collection are books and related literature, thousands of major league media guides, yearbooks and souvenir programs, editions of The Sporting News and baseball magazines, major and minor league score sheets and record books and newspaper and magazine clippings of memorable events, photos and stories.<\/p>\n

Weiss, a longtime resident of Northern California, died in 2011 at age 86.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found box scores with my name in them,\u201d said attendee Tom Rinks.<\/p>\n

Rinks played three seasons as a minor leaguer in the Pittsburgh Pirates\u2019 system after being a member of San Diego State\u2019s NAIA National Championship team in 1958, and later became baseball coach at Madison High.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, that\u2019s amazing that those kinds of things survived for more than 50 years,\u201d Rinks said.<\/p>\n

For more information about the local chapter of the Sullivan Family Baseball Research Center, visit sandiego.sabr.org<\/a> or visit the new Downtown Central Library.<\/p>\n

\u2014After an award winning, 38-year sports-writing career with the San Diego Union and authoring three books, Johnny McDonald now considers writing a hobby. He enjoys covering aspects of the port district, convention center, Balboa Park, zoo, and stories with a historical bent. You can reach him at <\/i><a href=”mailto:\u00a0johnny23@cox.net<\/i>“>\u00a0johnny23@cox.net<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Local chapter of Society of American Baseball Research gets big donation Johnny McDonald |\u00a0Downtown News Baseball\u2019s biggest collection of historic memorabilia this side of Cooperstown has found a permanent home on the eighth floor of San Diego\u2019s Central Library.\u00a0And, officials say, it will grow even larger. Technically, it will be called the Sullivan Family Baseball […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":236746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"For the love of baseball","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11600,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-sdnews","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}