February 16, 2015

BP Announcements

Deadline Extended for Greg Spira Award Nominations

by Baseball Prospectus

The Greg Spira Baseball Research Award Committee has announced the rules and procedures for nominations for the third annual Greg Spira Baseball Research Award. The winner of the 2015 Greg Spira Award will receive a cash prize of $1,000. The committee will also recognize two additional writers with awards of $200 for second place and $100 for third place. Winning entries must display innovative analysis or reasoning by an author who was 30 years old or younger at the time of the entry’s publication.

Last year’s Spira Award went to Ben Lindbergh, a member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America who now writes for Grantland. College students James Santelli (University of Southern California) and Noah Woodward (Davidson College) took second and third place, respectively. The inaugural Spira Award in 2013 was presented to Trent McCotter of Washington, D.C. Dan Farnsworth received second place and Caleb Hardwick third that year.

The Nomination Period will remain open through 11:59 p.m. EST on February 22, 2014. Nominations received after the Nomination Period will not be considered.

The Nomination Form for the Greg Spira Award can be found at www.SpiraAward.org. Anyone can nominate a qualifying piece for the Award, and self-nominations by authors are welcome. Note, however, that only one entry per author will be considered for the Greg Spira Award.

In order to be eligible for nomination, a piece or book must be about baseball and must contain original analysis or research. Nominated pieces or books must have been published between January 16, 2014, and January 15, 2015. Articles, papers, and books eligible for consideration include those published in print or in e-books, those published or posted on the World Wide Web, academic papers or dissertations, and papers presented at professional or public conferences.

In the event of multiple nominations, a self-nomination by the author takes priority over any piece nominated by a third party. If multiple pieces by one author are nominated by third parties, the judges will attempt to contact the author to ascertain which piece he/she wants to be considered. If the author fails to respond, the judges will evaluate the first piece submitted.

The Publication Period dates have been chosen so that pieces published about the annual January Hall of Fame election are eligible for consideration without having to wait a full year. This also ensures that pieces about Spink Award, Frick Award, and Hall of Fame inductees who will be honored in Cooperstown on the same July weekend will not be split between two Greg Spira Awards. (The Spink, Frick, and Veterans Committee selections are announced in December, while the Baseball Writers’ Association of America selections are announced in early January.)

The Greg Spira Baseball Research Award winners will be announced on April 27, 2015, the 48th anniversary of Greg’s birth.

A panel of judges—including Greg’s brother Jonathan Spira, the creators of the Award, and several close friends of Greg—will determine the winners of this innovative competition. The selections of the judges are final and not appealable.