Sometimes the most rewarding aspects of being a writer aren’t found in the things you publish, but in the things that you can help others produce. Most people that are familiar with my work know that I got my first big-break as a baseball historian for Baseball-Almanac. (Some may even think I should have stuck with that instead.) Over the years I wrote hundreds of studies for BA on our national pastime, as well as an e-Book on the history of the Yankees in the World Series. Civil War Historian magazine asked me to write a feature on the subject a couple years ago and that opened the door for other CW/baseball related pieces.

Most notably Eric Wittenberg and I have a large baseball book coming out in the not-so-distant future (publishing details to come) and I always seem to find myself with “one foot firmly planted on the pitcher’s mound” so to speak. Whether it’s organizing a period-baseball tourney for an 1859-themed county fair, or doing a radio show on the game during the war years, baseball always remains close to me no matter how much the Civil War dominates my focus.

A month ago I was contacted by a gentleman from MIT, who is also a member of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. He was interested in obtaining some new primary and secondary source material on baseball during the Civil War. As I have become somewhat known as an authority on this subject, the folks at SABR felt I could assist them in expanding their library. I was able to provide them with close to 40 additional primary sources, which they gladly accepted and are using to produce an updated, definitive study on the spread of the game during the war years from 1861-1865.

Until now, it appears that much of their reference material was taken from already published sources including George Kirsch’s excellent book Baseball in the Blue and Gray and Patricia Millen’s From Pastime to Passion. They also cited some of my previous work. I was able to help them more than double their CW collection with copies of my own unpublished transcripts that I have accumulated over the years from various archives and historical societies. SABR is in a much better position than I am to produce something that is truly definitive on a large-scale and I can’t wait to see what comes of it. I am scheduled to have a phone call with them this afternoon to discuss their vision in detail. Stay tuned.

On a side-note, I have a conference call this week with the film producers from our documentary project, which is slated to be partially shot on location here in July. I have also been asked to contribute to a new magazine put out by the former editor of Civil War Historian called Patriots of the American Revolution. Of course I am still plugging away at the Confederate camp book, working with the museum foundation, and I will be shooting Episode 8 of The Naked Historian this week (if the weather permits). This is on top of a full-time job, 4 kids, church, and a home improvement to-do list. There simply are not enough hours in the day to accomplish what I need to do. I either need to get an assistant, or the ability to say ‘no.’