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Fred Ivor-Campbell, former SABR Director and Vice Presicent and recipient of the Bob Davids Award, was killed in a car crash in Massachusetts on July 24. His wife Alma, also a SABR member, was in the car and suffered serious injuries.

Ivor-Campbell joined SABR in 1982 and wrote his first SABR article for the 1985 National Pastime. Later, he contributed to Baseball Research Journal, SABR Review of Books, Nineteenth Century Stars, and Baseball’s First Stars (which won the Sporting News/SABR Award in 1996) . He also contributed to non-SABR publications Total Baseball and the Biographical Dictionary of American Sports. He chaired the 19th Century Committee from 1992-98 and edited the committee’s newsletter, 19th Century Notes, from 1991 until the early 2000s. He was awarded the Bob Davids Award 2003.

Fred served as Vice President of SABR from 1998-2002. During this time, he did much to coordinate and energize regional chapters of the organization. Previously, he had been a Director from 1992 through 1996 and was always regarded as a calming voice on the board.

In a profile conducted with SABR in late 2007, Ivor-Campbell shared some thoughts on baseball memories, his research, and what he loved about SABR. In his words:

“Two great memories come to mind: the time when, in a playground game of scrub in the 1940s, I was one of the fielders to help pull off a triple play. (It remains the only triple play I've ever seen, except on TV.) But even more memorable was the time in the fall of 1948 when my mother took me out of school to watch my beloved Braves on TV in the opening game of the World Series. We didn't own a TV, so my mother arranged with an appliance store in the next town to let me watch on a set in their store. They were very nice, and gave me a stool to sit on. It was a great game, and I sat rooted there for a couple of hours in fan heaven. The man who lived next door to us went to the game, and later gave me his ticket stubs, one of which--decades later--I got autographed by the opposing pitchers, John Sain and Bob Feller.”

Ivor-Campbell also stated that, “a large part of SABR's appeal is the opportunity it gives its members to know and interact with fellow researchers and other serious fans of the game. At least, that's what continues most to appeal to me. … I'm excited by SABR's newly strengthened focus on disseminating the sources and results of baseball research and the opportunities that are opening for using the Internet in a major way to achieve these goals. My hope is that SABR will both: (1) continue (and strengthen) its leadership role in print publication (not only through SABR's own publications, but also through enabling members' research that finds publication elsewhere) and (2) become a major player in compiling and disseminating baseball research on the Web.”

He will be greatly missed by the entire SABR community.