Sad, shocking news: Dick Thompson, baseball historian and researcher, passed away unexpectedly on January 2.

Along with many articles, Dick wrote The Ferrell Brothers of Baseball (McFarland, 2005).  He was a winner of SABR’s highest honor, the Bob Davids Award. His most recent project was on New England black baseball, especially the great pitcher Cannonball Bill Jackman, who labored mostly outside the organized Negro Leagues.  On December 13 Dick wrote:

Still plugging away on Jackman.  I now have about 230 wins in the database.  The goal for 2008 is to get over 300.  I also am just about at 3,000 recorded strikeouts.  I was originally thinking he may have had 8,000 career but now think 10,000 is possible.  No way I will be able to document that though, but I do think it feasible.

On December 27 he sent me some clippings on Jackman to post here; I’ll be putting them up over the weekend.  In the meantime here is a link to the biographies he wrote for SABR’s Baseball Biography Project; and here’s a thread devoted to Dick at Baseball Fever.