The annual convention of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) begins tomorrow in Texas and will last through the weekend.

Open to all baseball fans, the meeting includes featured speakers from around the baseball world, innovative panel discussions, groundbreaking research presentations, and more.

UNP will be in the Exhibitors Room at the Westin DFW Airport. Our baseball books will be available for 40% off plus free shipping. Stop by and say hello to Senior Acquisitions Editor Rob Taylor and Publicity Assistant Sarah Kee!

See below for our authors’ events in the program.

Author Events

Thursday, June 26, 11:00 a.m.-11:25 a.m.

“Baysball: the Giants, the A’s, and the 1989 Earthquake Series” with Robert F. Garratt

The prospect of the 1989 World Series as a dramatic matchup seemed certain: the Oakland A’s, a seasoned postseason team and winners of back-to-back American League pennants, against their regional rival, the upstart San Francisco Giants, who hadn’t won the National League pennant in 27 years. Playing only 9 miles apart by water, this was a West Coast version of New York’s many “subway series.” The Series was expected to be a battle between the A’s Bash Brothers Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, and Giants sluggers Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell. Instead, the power surge came from the massive Loma Prieta earthquake that struck shortly before Game Three started. Garratt explores how owners and officials of the team, MLB, and the respective cities worked through the crisis and finally restarted the World Series 10 days later.

Garratt is author of Jazz Age Giant: Charles A. Stoneham and New York City Baseball in the Roaring Twenties (Nebraska, 2023), which brings to life Stoneham’s defining years leading the Giants in the Roaring Twenties. With its layers of mystery and notoriety, Stoneham’s life epitomizes the high life and the changing mores of American culture during the 1920s, and the importance of sport, especially baseball, during the pivotal decade.

Friday, June 27, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Author signing with Larry Gerlach with UNP in the Exhibitor’s Room

Gerlach is author of Lion of the League: Bob Emslie and the Evolution of the Baseball Umpire, a biography of Robert Dean Emslie 1859–1943) who spent fifty-six of his eighty-four years in professional baseball—eight as a player and forty-nine as an umpire. His longevity is all the more remarkable considering he toiled during the three most contentious and difficult decades umpires ever faced: the years from 1890 to 1920, when baseball transitioned from amateur to professional sport and from regional business to commercial entertainment industry.