Geographic Analysis of Professional Baseball's First-year Player Signings, 1965-1977

Abstract

This project was initiated in December, 1977 when Dr. John F. Rooney handed me a carton of papers dealing with contemporary professional baseball player signings. My original plan was to analyze only a portion of the data for a paper to be presented the following April at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. I became so engrossed with the subject that I soon decided to thoroughly examine the entire data set for a masters thesis. A two-month tour of many of the major league ballparks during the summer of 1978 further aroused my curiosity for the subject. The intertwining of baseball and geography has since become a personal labor of love. It is hoped that others might find this thesis interesting and informative.