Tom Heitz

Thomas Heitz

• School University of Washington
• Born 1940 in Kansas City, MO USA

Biographical Information

Tom Heitz was the librarian at the Hall of Fame for 12 years, from 1983 to 1995. He oversaw the enlargement of the building that made it a modern facility, grew the collections and services, provided for the conservation of materials and expanded access to researchers. As Hall of Fame Librarian, he first proposed and then helped establish SABR's Seymour Medal, first awarded in 1996, to honor the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year.

Heitz joined the United States Marine Corps in 1966, then went to college at the University of Washington, where he studied library science. He worked as an assistant law librarian at the University of Puget Sound, and then for the attorney general of the state of New York. From there he applied for the job in Cooperstown, renewing with his childhood passion for baseball. He was considered an expert on the history of baseball rules and helped write that section in the original edition of Total Baseball. He was also very involved in the movement to resuscitate vintage baseball, helping to organize the Leatherstocking Club of Cooperstown, NY that played games of town ball every week-end in the village, weather permitting. He also organized the first symposium on Baseball and American Culture, which became an annual event in Cooperstown.

His program of modernization and renovation at the Hall of Fame library was a boon to countless researchers, but also opened the library's vast holdings, once restricted to a privileged few, to all interested visitors.

He was named a recipient of the Chadwick Award in 2012.

Further Reading

• Steve Gietschier: "Tom Heitz", in The Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Volume 41, Number 2 (Fall 2012), p. 100.

Related Sites

• SABR tribute page