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TONY SALIN MEMORIAL AWARD
Established in
2002 by the Baseball Reliquary to recognize
individuals for their commitment to the
preservation of baseball history, the Tony Salin
Memorial Award is named in honor of the baseball
historian and researcher who passed away in 2001
at the all-too-young age of 49. From the time he
was eight years old, Tony was referred to as
"Mr. Baseball" by family and friends, whom he
regularly astounded with his exhaustive
knowledge of facts and trivia related to
old-time ballplayers. Over the years, this
preoccupation blossomed into a passion for the
study and research of unsung players and
forgotten aspects of baseball history, which he
felt were important to document and keep alive
for future generations. The Tony Salin Memorial
Award is an antiquated baseball encased and
mounted in a Plexiglas box bearing an engraved
inscription, and it is presented annually at the
Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals
Induction Day. The recipients are as follows:
2002:
PETER GOLENBOCK
A renowned baseball author and historian, Peter
Golenbock (whose books include Dynasty: The
New York Yankees 1949-1964, Bums: An Oral
History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and
Wild, High and Tight: The Life and Death of
Billy Martin), has mentored many young
baseball authors, including Tony Salin, sharing
information and offering advice.
2003:
DAVID NEMEC
A resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, David
Nemec is an award-winning novelist and baseball
writer. He has authored nine novels and over
twenty books on baseball history and
memorabilia, including the definitive work on
the early years of our national pastime, The
Great Encyclopedia of 19th Century Major League
Baseball.
2004: BILL
WEISS
A statistician of legendary proportions, Bill
Weiss of San Mateo, California produced
sketchbooks for numerous Minor Leagues
containing biographical information and career
records for all players in the league. He
produced some 200 of these sketchbooks over four
decades, providing a wealth of biographical and
statistical data which has been of inestimable
value to researchers and historians. Weiss also
served as the official historian of the Pacific
Coast League, edited a weekly newsletter for the
California League for over thirty years, and
maintained a close affinity with baseball
scouts, whom Weiss has called "the unsung heroes
of the game."
2005:
RICHARD BEVERAGE
One of the foremost authorities on the Pacific
Coast League, Dick Beverage is founder and
president of the Pacific Coast League Historical
Society, editor and publisher of its bimonthly
newsletter, and the author of seminal books on
two of the PCL’s great franchises, the Los
Angeles Angels and Hollywood Stars.
2006:
KERRY YO NAKAGAWA
Kerry Yo Nakagawa is founder and director of the
Nisei Baseball Research Project, a Fresno,
California-based nonprofit organization
dedicated to preserving the legacy of Japanese
Americans in baseball. He also curated
Diamonds in the Rough, an exhibition on the
history of Japanese-American baseball which has
traveled throughout the United States and Japan;
served as a consultant to Baseball as America,
the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s touring
exhibition; authored the book Through a
Diamond, which chronicles one hundred years
of Japanese-American baseball history; and
served as associate producer and baseball
consultant for American Pastime, a movie
about baseball in the Japanese-American
internment camps during World War II.
2007:
MARK RUCKER
A prominent baseball photo archivist, Mark
Rucker is founder and president of
Transcendental Graphics, an historical photo
agency that has provided baseball images of all
kinds to countless books, films, and other
assorted projects, including Ken Burns’
multi-part film series Baseball and ESPN
documentaries.
2008:
DAVID W. SMITH
A Biology professor at the University of
Delaware since 1975, David W. Smith has always
been attracted to baseball history, both
numerical and literary, and began keeping
detailed records from his homemade scorecards at
the age of eleven. In 1989 he founded
Retrosheet, a nonprofit, all-volunteer
historical organization dedicated to the
collection, computerization, and free
distribution of play-by-play accounts of Major
League games. With well over 100,000 game
accounts available free of charge at
www.retrosheet.org, this play-by-play
information and its public accessibility have
been of extraordinary value to both fans and
researchers.
2009: MIKE SHANNON
Mike Shannon, Cincinnati, Ohio, is founder and
editor of
Spitball: The Literary Magazine since 1981.
While
Spitball originally debuted as a baseball
poetry journal, it quickly evolved into a
broader literary magazine that included baseball
short fiction, prose, art, and book reviews. He
has authored 15 baseball books, including
Diamond Classics: Essays on 100 of the Best Baseball Books Ever
Published;
Everything
Happens in Chillicothe: A Summer in the Frontier
League with Max McLeary, the One-Eyed Umpire;
and Tales
from the Dugout: The Greatest True Baseball
Stories Ever Told. Shannon has written a
monthly column on baseball collectibles for
Reds
Report since 1993, and curated a traveling
art show devoted to Willie Mays in celebration
of his 75th birthday (“24 at 75”).
2010: STEW THORNLEY
A
nearly lifelong resident of the Twin Cities,
Stew Thornley is a freelance author who has
written several highly-acclaimed books on
baseball history, including
On to
Nicollet: The Glory and Fame of the Minneapolis
Millers, about the minor-league baseball
team that played in Minneapolis prior to the
arrival of the Twins, and
Holy Cow!
The Life and Times of Halsey Hall, a
biography of the Minnesota sportscasting legend
and the first man to use the term “Holy Cow!” on
a baseball broadcast.
An official scorer for Minnesota Twins
games since 2007, he has, since the mid-1990s,
visited and documented the known graves of over
200 luminaries enshrined in the National
Baseball Hall of Fame, a fascinating hobby which
has earned him the nickname the “Sultan of
Cemeteries.”
2011: PAUL DICKSON
Paul Dickson has authored nearly 60 nonfiction
books and hundreds of magazine articles, and his
baseball titles include
The Hidden
Language of Baseball: How Signs and Sign
Stealing Have Influenced the Course of Our
National Pastime;
The Joy of
Keeping Score: How Scoring the Game Has
Influenced and Enhanced the History of Baseball;
The
Unwritten Rules of Baseball: The Eitiquette,
Conventional Wisdom, and Axiomatic Codes of Our
National Pastime; and
Bill
Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick.
Originally published in 1989,
The
Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the most
authoritative and comprehensive guide to
baseball terminology ever compiled, ranks as the
author’s most popular book.
2012: DAVE KELLY
The
“go-to” sports expert at the Library of Congress
for thirty years, Dave Kelly began working there
in 1971 as a book page, retrieving and
re-shelving books for researchers. He was
appointed to a reference librarian position at
the Library of Congress in 1975, later becoming
the reference specialist and recommending
officer for sports and recreation between 1981
and 2011.
In the latter position, he assisted
countless baseball authors in their research for
books and articles, and his importance in
preserving, protecting, and promoting the
history of sports in America is unequaled.
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