British Baseball Federation

Project COBB (the Project for the Chronicling of British Baseball) is an online collaboration that was founded by Joe Gray in 2008. It received recognition as a Chartered Community of the Society for American Baseball Research (better known as SABR) in 2010.

The initiative has three overarching aims: [1] to support efforts to research and publish historical details of British baseball; [2] to help make digitized copies of British baseball artefacts available online; and [3] to promote the preservation of British baseball history today, through scoring and photography.

Joe Gray acts as coordinator for Project COBB, but its success depends largely on the work of its valued collaborators, mostly members of the British baseball community.

This is the first in a series of four articles in which Joe outlines ways in which members of the community can help to enhance the work of Project Cobb. 

This initiative relates to Point Two of Project COBB’s three-point mission:
“To help make digitized copies of British baseball artefacts available online.”

So much of Britain’s rich baseball history lies in a box, under other boxes, in the attics of the nation. In these boxes there might be programmes, posters, league handbooks, scorebooks, photos, or clippings — or possibly a mixture of all of these. A sizeable chunk of the surviving artefacts will have been passed down to family members who have never been involved in the game and thus are lacking either the desire or the awareness to share them. Another chunk will be held by ex-participants who do not use the internet or take a keen interest in British baseball today, and thus are not aware of efforts to digitize such items in order to preserve them indefinitely in the public domain.

These items are not just worth preserving for the sake of it. Old photographs can tell us things we do not know about the quality of grounds, uniforms, and equipment throughout British baseball history. Programmes often contain priceless biographical snippets. Handbooks can yield previously unknown details of competition structures. And scoresheets could tell us who the stand-out players were in British baseball’s most significant contests over time.

Such is the sparseness of British baseball’s historical record that items do not need to be particularly old in order to be of value. Even items from the last decade may restore parts of our baseball history that are already in danger of being forgotten.

Where Project COBB fits in:
One of the three overarching aims of Project COBB is to help make digitized copies of British baseball artefacts available online. As part of this goal, Project COBB will gratefully publish online any materials that you or a contact might hold and would be willing to share with others (with name credits, of course).

Even if you don't hold anything yourself, this doesn't mean that you can't help. Ask around the “old timers” at your club or other clubs you know, and be sure to follow up on any leads you may gain.