SABR and the Emerald Guide to Baseball

Well, I'm not the first person to mention this, but I figured that, in keeping with my mission to highlight resources available free on the internet, it would still be good to mention this here: SABR, the Society of American Baseball Research, is offering a PDF version of The Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009 online for free. You can see what the New York Times has to say about the Emerald Guide here.

Here is what SABR has to say:

"The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is pleased to to offer the Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009 as a free PDF to the world baseball community.

Edited by accomplished and acclaimed baseball historians Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer and published by SABR, The Emerald Guide distills the 2008 season down to 586 fact-filled pages that contain the pitching, fielding, and hitting statistics for every player active in the major and minor leagues in 2008. A bound version is available via print on demand at Lulu.com for $23.94. .Every page in the bound edition is in the PDF."

For non-SABR members to download the PDF, all you need to do is provide your email address. From there, they will send you an email with a link to the 2007, 2008, and 2009 guides. It's a fantastic opportunity, and I hope as many people as possible take SABR up on the deal.

I also want to take this opportunity to promote SABR itself. It's an organization that has interested me for years, and I finally took the plunge today and signed up for a membership. With a membership, you gain access to an active and interested baseball community, the full slate of SABR publications, SABR's detailed baseball encylcopedia, and, most importantly, SABR-L, the SABR mailing list, which contains some of the best baseball discussion you can find. You also get access to the full SABR membership directory, which is nice. I've only been a member for a day now, and I already love what I've found.

If you're interested in baseball or baseball history (and SABR really is about more than just statistics), then you owe it to yourself to take a look at SABR. And what better time than today, when they're giving you the Emerald Guide to Baseball 2009 for free? Go take a look!