In Memoriam: Doug Pappas

[Toy Cannon]

Doug Pappas, attorney and writer, died Thursday while
hiking in Big Bend National Park, apparently due to
heat prostration.

Doug died while taking part in one of his passions,
traveling the country and taking pictures of it for
his Roadside Photos web site.

It was through another of his passions, baseball,
that Doug made his name. Doug's determination to get
at the truth about the baseball's business issues made
him one of the game's most influential writers.

He was an active, and popular, member of the Society
for American Baseball Research, and a good friend to
all of us at Baseball Prospectus.

We'll miss our colleague, we'll miss a great writer,
but mostly, we'll miss our friend.

To Doug's family, especially his mother Carolyn, and
to Doug's many friends throughout baseball, we offer
our deepest condolences.
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Anyone hear about this? If you're into stats, you know who Passas is. I've been to Big Bend a multitude of times and absolutely love the place, but it can be brutal if you're not prepared.

[PissedPrincess]

Jeez. Sorry Toy. :crying2:

[Toy Cannon]

http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,767,40

Doug Pappas, SABR Researcher, Passes Away
By John Zajc

Doug Pappas, 43, the chairman of SABR’s Business of Baseball Committee since its inception in 1994, passed away while vacationing at Big Bend National Park in Texas.

A nationally recognized authority on the business of baseball, with over fifty published articles on the subject, Doug joined SABR in 1983 and served as the Society’s pro bono legal counsel and as parliamentarian at many Annual Business Meetings. He also chaired the committee whose work produced the current SABR by-laws.

Among his many research interests was ejections, and he compiled and updated a database of ejections. He edited “Outside the Lines” the SABR’s Business of Baseball Committee newsletter, and also wrote for Baseball Prospectus. His article, "White Sox Suspended from the American League," will be published in the forthcoming issue of The National Pastime #24.

He maintained his own web site and web log, where many of his baseball writings can be read. At his web site he also wrote of his many road trips and posted photos from the many places he traveled.

Doug was an attorney at Mintz & Gold, where his practice concentrated on general civil and commercial litigation. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Doug graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1985, where he was Executive Note Editor of the Law Review.

He started writing about sports at Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York, where he wrote under editor Keith Olbermann, who recalls Doug as "a good kid and a better man, always generous, inquisitive, and creative."

He is survived by his mother, Carolyn Pappas of Eastchester, New York

[RockieBill]

Wow - as much as I despise lawyers as a rule, this is one guy that I would have liked to party with. We had two things in common - a very strong distrust (to put it mildly) of Bud Selig, and a complete feeling of disgust towards Pete Rose.

I don't know how long his website might be kept up, but if you have time check out his weblog - http://roadsidephotos.com/baseball/bbblog.htm - some of the best reading on the web. www.baseballprospectus.com (a pay site) also has his articles posted for free.

R.I.P. Doug - you will be missed.

[PopTop]

I've only read a few of his articles over the years, but knew his name from seeing it all over different websites as someone who supplied valuable research. So weird to read how he apparently died, just hard to believe that can happen to anyone these days who isn't stranded somewhere for 72+ hours.