​Mark Armour

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Mark Armour is a writer, film lover, music enthusiast, baseball nut and dog companion living in Corvallis, Oregon.  After 40+ years as a student or professional in computer science, Mark retired in April 2021 and now has more time to spend on his passion for baseball research and writing.


Mark has written extensively about baseball, and is particularly expert on labor relations, baseball integration, baseball cards, and biography. Joining SABR in 1983, Mark has made extensive contributions to the organization over the past four decades.

  • Author or co-author of seven books.  Details.
  • For Love of the Game Auctions, wrote capsule histories of each of the 44 World Series games played by the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers between 1941 and 1956.

  • Advisor to the Baseball Hall of Fame on what became their Shoebox Treasures permanent exhibit, which opened in 2019.

  • Wrote (with Dan Levitt) a history of the Major League Player's Association, published on the Association's website and in their 50-year anniversary publication (2016). I wrote two additional articles for this publication, one on their Group Licensing Program, and one on their history with baseball cards.
  • Chaired SABR's Negro Leagues Task Force, which recommended that SABR recognize the seven great Negro Leagues as major leagues.
  • Proposed and managed the popular SABR 50 at 50 web series to celebrate the society's 50th anniversary.
  • Founder and longtime chairman (2002-2016) of the Baseball Biography Project which today contains over 5000 baseball biographical articles.
  • Co-founder and co-chair (2016-19) of SABR's Baseball Cards committee, and its extremely popular blog.
  • Winner of the Bob Davids Award, the Henry Chadwick Award, the Seymour Medal, the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, and the SABR Research Award, and twice a runner-up for the Seymour Medal.
  • Have attended 27 SABR national conventions, and have been a speaker or panelist at 12 of them. Presentation topics have included Joe Morgan, artificial turf, platooning, the 1969 centennial, and Al Campanis.
  • Besides SABR meetings, have spoken at the baseball Hall of Fame, bookstores in Denver, Minneapolis, Boston, Seattle and San Francisco.

New Book: Intentional Balk

In 2022 Dan Levitt and I produced our third collaboration, Intentional Balk, published by Clyde Hill Publishing.  To learn more, click on the book image to the left. 

See especially our Op-Ed in the Seattle Timeson May 28.


**NEW**:  On February 2, 2023, we learned that we had won SABR's Seymour Medal for the best book of baseball history or biography published in 2022.