THE DR. HAROLD AND DOROTHY SEYMOUR MEDAL

The Idea for the Award
In the last year of Dr. Harold Seymour's life, two important men realized that he deserved national recognition for his achievements. They were Thomas R. Heitz, director of the National Baseball Library in Cooperstown, and Lloyd Johnson, director of the Society for American Baseball Research. "Dr. Seymour," said Tom Heitz in July of 1992, "is without question the prototype and ultimate role model for baseball history practitioners."

Formal Proposal
The award (said the proposal) was to be named in honor of Dr. Harold and Dorothy Seymour, "whose lifetime contributions to baseball's historical scholarship are unparalleled." A bronze medallion would be struck, with a suitable baseball design, to be awarded annually "in order to encourage baseball historians, both professional and amateur, to attain the highest standards of historical scholarship, as exemplified by the published works of Dr. Harold Seymour, and to honor those whose works reflect these standards." Recipients of the medal would be honored at annual SABR meetings and invited to make a special presentation of their work.

The proposal established rules for a book's consideration. Recipients should demonstrate exceptional scholarship, superior writing skills, and the full range of conceptual, theoretical, investigative, and analytical skills employed by accomplished historians. Those who had broken new research ground would be preferred. Recipients need not be trained historians, but their work must reflect "baseball historical scholarship and analysis."

SABR accepted this proposal.

Preparation of the Medallion
As Tom Heitz had predicted, it took a year for the proposal to move into the phase of preparing the medallion itself. Morris Eckhouse, President of SABR in 1993, enlisted the talents of Cleveland illustrator Jeff Suntala, who was also a SABR member, to design the medal. I was asked to send photos of both of us in profile, answer questions about Seymour's life and participation in the game, and comment on the artist's initial sketches. After I approved the final design, Morris Eckhouse assigned the preparation of the medal to the Emblem & Badge Company of Providence, Rhode Island.

To read the complete articles, see:
The Seymour Medal (http://sabr.org/about/seymour-medal)
SABR and The Seymour Medal: How Did it Happen? (www.drharoldseymour.com/index.php/winners)

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