McFarland & Company, Inc., is an American independentbook publisher based inJefferson, North Carolina, that specializes inacademic and reference works, as well as general-interest adult nonfiction.
Its president is Rhonda Herman. Its currentEditor-in-Chief is Steve Wilson. Its former president and currentPresident Emeritus is Robert Franklin, who founded the company in 1979.[2][3]
McFarland employs a staff of about 50, and as of 2019[update] had published 7,800 titles.[3][4] McFarland's initial print runs average 600 copies per book.[5]
McFarland & Company focuses mainly on selling tolibraries. It also utilizes direct mailing to connect with enthusiasts in niche categories.[6] The company is known for itssports literature, especiallybaseball history, as well as books about chess, military history, and film.[7][8] In 2007, theMountain Times wrote that McFarland publishes about 275 scholarlymonographs and reference book titles a year;[4][9] Robert Lee Brewer reported in 2015 that the number is about 350.[10]
The followingacademic journals are published by McFarland & Company:
Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game – focuses on "baseball's early history, from its protoball roots to 1920"[13]
Black Ball: A Journal of the Negro Leagues – focuses on "all subjects related to black baseball, including theNegro major and minor leagues, and pre–Negro league play"[13]
Clues: A Journal of Detection – focuses on "all aspects ofmystery and detective material in print, television and movies"[13]
TheSociety for American Baseball Research (SABR) presents the annual McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, presented to authors of the best articles on baseball history or biography completed during the preceding calendar year (published or unpublished).[15] The award was formerly known as the Macmillan-SABR Baseball Research Award from 1987 to 2000.
Mark Armour, “Satchel’s Wild Ride: How Satchel Paige Finally Made the Hall of Fame,”SABR Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2024
Richard J. Puerzer, “The 1939 Negro National League Championship Series,”The 1939 Baltimore Elite Giants (SABR, 2024)
2024
Gary Belleville, “The Trailblazing Canadian Trio That Powered the Rockford Peaches Dynasty of 1948-50,”Journal of Canadian Baseball / Revue du Baseball Canadien, November 1, 2023
2023
Charlie Bevis, “Four Girls in Spring 1974: The First Foot-Soldiers of Female Inclusion in Little League Baseball,”SABR Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2022
Yoichi Nagata, Robert K. Fitts, and Mark Brunke, “The 1921 Native American Tours of Japan,” Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan, Volume 1: 1907-1958 (SABR, 2022)
John Racanelli, “Death and Taxes and Baseball Card Litigation,” SABR Baseball Cards Blog, January 8-December 14, 2022
2022
Bruce Allardice, “Runs, Runs, and More Runs: Pre-Professional Baseball, By the Numbers,”SABR Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2021
2021
Steve Gietschier, “Before We Forget: The Birth, Life, and Death of The Sporting News Research Center,”SABR Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2020
Robert H. Schaefer, “The Fair-Foul Hitting Era: 1864-1876,” scheduled for publication inBase Ball 13:New Research on the Early Game, Fall 2021 (McFarland & Co.)
2020
Emma Baccellieri, “A Brief History of the Many Times Baseball Has Died,”Sports Illustrated, August 29, 2019.
Bill Staples Jr., “Early Baseball Encounters in the West: The Yeddo Royal Japanese Troupe Play Ball in America, 1872,” International Pastime, July 18, 2019.
Dan VanDeMortel, “White Circles Drawn in Crayon,” inThe Polo Grounds: Essays and Memories of New York City’s Historic Ballpark, 1880-1963; ed. Stew Thornley (McFarland & Co.)
2019
Richard Bak, “The Rise and Fatal Fall of Tenny Blount,” unpublished work.
Robert Fitts, “Baseball and the Yellow Peril,”Base Ball: New Research on the Early Game, Vol. 10 (McFarland & Co.)
John McMurray, “Addie Joss and the Benefit Game,”Base Ball: New Research on the Early Game, Vol. 10 (McFarland & Co.)
2018
Warren Corbett, “The ‘Strike’ Against Jackie Robinson: Truth or Myth?”,Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2017 (SABR)
Doron Goldman, “1933-1962: The Business Meetings of Negro League Baseball,” inBaseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings, 1958-2016 (SABR)
2017
Jack Bales, “The Show Girl and the Shortstop: The Strange Saga of Violet Popovich and Her Shooting of Cub Billy Jurges,”Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2016 (SABR)
Dan Barry, “The Big League Prospect Who Became a Mob Hit Man,”New York Times, October 30, 2016
2016
Richard Bak, “Digging Up Bob Troy,” unpublished (subsequently published inMichigan Historical Review #44, No. 1, Spring 2018)
Doron Goldman, “The Double Victory Campaign and the Campaign to Integrate Baseball,” fromWho’s on First: Replacement Players in World War II, eds. Marc Z. Aaron and Bill Nowlin, 2015 (SABR)
William Lamb, “Jury Nullification and the Not Guilty Verdicts in the Black Sox Case,”Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2015 (SABR)
2015
David Ball with David Nemec, “The Sam Barkley Case,”Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Vol. 7 (McFarland & Co.)
James Overmyer, “Black Baseball at Yankee Stadium,”Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Vol. 7 (McFarland & Co.)
Christopher W. Schmidt, “Explaining the Baseball Revolution,”Arizona State Law Journal, Vol. 45, 2013
Tom Shieber, “The Pride of the Seeknay,” Baseball Researcher
2013
Bruce Allardice, “The Inauguration of This Noble and Manly Game Among Us: The Spread of Baseball in the South Prior to 1870,”Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Fall 2012 (McFarland & Co.)
Ken Fenster, “Earl Mann Beats the Klan: Jackie Robinson and the First Integrated Games in Atlanta,”NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Spring 2013
Mitchell Nathanson, “Who Exempted Baseball Anyway? The Curious Development of the Antitrust Exemption That Never Was,”Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law, Spring 2013
2012
Thomas L. Altherr, “Basepaths and Baselines: The Agricultural and Surveying Contexts of the Emergence of Baseball”,Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Fall 2011
William Lamb, “John B. Day”, SABR Baseball Biography Project
Geri Strecker, “Dave Wyatt: The First Great Black Sportswriter”,Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal, Spring 2011
2011
Ron Cobb, “The Georgia Peach: Stumped by the Storyteller”,The National Pastime: Baseball in the Peach State, 2010 (SABR)
Jeff Obermeyer, “Disposable Heroes: Returning World War II Veteran Al Niemiec Takes on Organized Baseball”,Baseball Research Journal, Summer 2010 (SABR)
Geri Strecker, “And the Public Has Been Left to Guess the Secret: Questioning the Authorship of ‘The Great Match, and Other Matches’ (1877)”,NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Spring 2010
2010
Mark Armour, “A Tale of Two Umpires,”Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2009 (SABR)
William F. Lamb, “A Fearsome Collaboration: The Alliance of Andrew Freedman and John T. Brush,”Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Fall 2009
Geri Strecker, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field: Biography of a Ballpark,”Black Ball: A Journal of the Negro League, Fall 2009
2009
David J. Laliberte, “Myth, History and Indian Baseball: An Unexpected Story of the Game in Minnesota”
William J. McGill, “The Greatest College Pitcher: George Sisler at Michigan”
David Vaught, “Our Players Are Mostly Farmers: Baseball in Rural California, 1850-1890”
2008
Henry D. Fetter, “Revising the Revisionists: Walter O’Malley, Robert Moses, and the Death of the Brooklyn Dodgers”. (Revised text published under title “Revising the Revisionists: Walter O’Malley, Robert Moses and the End of the Brooklyn Dodgers,” inNew York History, Vol. 89, No. 1, Winter 2008)
Frederick Ivor-Campbell, “Knickerbocker Base Ball: The Birth and Infancy of the Modern Game”Base Ball: A Journal of the Negro League, Fall 2007 (McFarland & Co.)
Dick Thompson, “Cannonball Bill Jackman,”The National Pastime #27, 2007 (SABR)
2007
Brian Carroll, “Early Twentieth Century Heroes: Coverage of Negro League Baseball in the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender,”Journalism History, Spring 2006
Mitchell Nathanson, “The Irrelevance of Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption: A Historical Review,”Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 58, Issue 1, 2005
Steve Steinberg, “Matty and the Browns: A Window Onto the AL-NL War,”NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Spring 2006
2006
Charlie Bevis, “Rocky Point: A Lone Outpost of Sunday Baseball in Sabbatarian New England,”NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Fall 2005
Gregory Bond, “Too Much Dirty Work: Race, Manliness And Baseball in Gilded Age Nebraska,”Nebraska History
James Forr, “Pie Traynor,” SABR Baseball Biography Project
2005
Richard Bak, “Bat Out of Hell,” included in the author’s bookPeach: Ty Cobb in His Time and Ours, Sports Media Group, 2005
Ken Fenster, “Earl Mann, Nat Peeples and the Failed Attempt of Integration in the Southern Association,”NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Spring 2004
2004
Charlie Bevis, “Evolution of the Sunday Doubleheader and Its Role in Elevating the Popularity of Baseball.”The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2003-04 (McFarland & Co.)
Bob Gorman and David Weeks, “Foul Play, Fan Fatalities in Twentieth-Century Organized Baseball,”NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Fall 2003
Robert H. Schaefer, “The Great Baseball Match of 1858, Base Ball’s First All-Star Game,” published inNINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Fall 2005
2003
Frank Ardolino, “Missionaries, Cartwright and Spalding,”NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Fall 2002
Ron Briley, “In the Tradition of Jackie Robinson: Ozzie Virgil and the Integration of the Detroit Tigers,”The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2002 (McFarland & Co.)
Jim McConnell, “Dahlgren, You’re in There”
2002
Bruce Markusen, “Thirty Years Ago … The First All-Black Lineup”, MLBlogs.com
Robert H. Schaefer, “Legend of the Lively Ball,”Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game (McFarland & Co.)
Dick Thompson, “Baseball’s Greatest Hero: Joe Pinder,”Baseball Research Journal #30, 2001 (SABR)
2001
Tom Altherr, “A Place Leavel Enough To Play Ball: Baseball and Baseball-type Games in the Colonial Era, Revolutionary War, and Early American Republic”,NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives
Robert H. Schaefer, “The Lost Art of Fair-Foul Hitting,”The National Pastime #20, 2000 (SABR)
Dick Thompson, “The Wes Ferrell Story,”The National Pastime #21, 2001 (SABR)
2000
Ron Briley, “As American as Cherry Pie: Baseball and Reflections of Violence in the 1960s and 1970s,”The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 1999
Chris Lamb, “L’Affaire Jake Powell: The Minority Press Goes to Bat Against Segregated Baseball,”Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 1, Spring 1999
Stephen Norwood and Harold Brackman, “Going to Bat for Jackie Robinson: The Jewish Role in Breaking Baseball’s Color Line,”Journal of Sport History, Vol. 26, No. 1, Spring 1999
1999
David M. Jordan, Larry Gerlach and John Rossi, “A Baseball Myth Exploded,”The National Pastime #18, SABR, 1998
Jim McConnell, “Baseball’s Dark Past,”Grandstand Baseball Annual
Andrew O’Toole, “Clemente’s First Spring,”Elysian Fields Quarterly
1998
Clifford Blau, “The History of Major League Tie Games”
John McReynolds, “Nate Moreland, Mystery to Historians,”Los Angeles Sentinel, August 13, 1998
Gary Smith, “Damned Yankee,”Sports Illustrated, October 13, 1997
1997
Adrian Burgos Jr., “Jugando en el Norte: Caribbean Players in the Negro Leagues, 1910-1950,”Centro: Journal del Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños
Jim Price, “A Half Century of Pain: A retrospective look at the 1946 Spokane Indian bus accident,”The Spokesman-Review, June 24, 1996
Joseph M. Wayman, “Pitching Won-Loss Records, National League, 1890-1899,”Grandstand Baseball Annual
1996
James A. Smith Jr. and Herman Krabbenhoft, “Triple Play Project,”The Baseball Quarterly Review
Hank Thomas & Chuck Carey, for research involved in “The California Comet” on Walter Johnson’s California semi-pro career
Michael O’Grady, “From Covehead to the Polo Grounds: The Story of Henry Haverlock Oxley, Major Leaguer”
1995
Peter C. Bjarkman,Baseball with a Latin Beat: A History of the Latin American Game
Robert F. Burk,Never Just a Game: Players, Owners and American Baseball to 1920
Jack Kavanagh,Walter Johnson: A Life
1994
Lloyd Johnson and Miles Wolff,The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball
James A. Riley,The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues
Michael Gershman,Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark
1993
Phil Dixon,The Negro Baseball Leagues: A Photographic History
Barbara Gregorich,Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball
William Ryczek,Blackguards and Red Stockings: A History of The National Association
1992
Robert Gregory,Diz: The Story of Dizzy Dean and Baseball During the Great Depression
Herman Krabbenhoft, “Baseball Quarterly Reviews”
Mark Stang and Linda Harkness, “Rosters!”
1991
Bruce Kuklick, “To Everything a Season — Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia 1909-1976”
1990
Dr. Harold Seymour,Baseball: The People’s Game
Dick Clark, John Holway and James A. Riley, for work on Negro League statistics inThe Baseball Encyclopedia (8th edition)
James E. Miller, “The Baseball Business”
1989
Bill Deane,Award Voting
Paul Dickson,The Dickson Baseball Dictionary
Marc Okkonen,Major League Uniforms of the 20th Century
1988
Melvin Adelman, for his work on 1820-1870 New York City baseball
Stew Thornley, “On to Nicollet,” a team profile of the Minneapolis Millers
Bob Tiemann and Rich Topp, for their work cataloging managerial changes
1987
Andy McCue,Baseball By the Books
Rob Ruck,The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic
^Slide, Anthony (2010). "A Publishing Phenomenon that Begins and Ends with Scarecrow Press".Film History.22 (3):300–301.doi:10.2979/fil.2010.22.3.298.JSTOR10.2979/fil.2010.22.3.298.S2CID192112592.The initial print run for a book in the Filmmakers series, and, for that matter, most if not allScarecrow titles, was six hundred copies. A similar print run has been the norm at McFarland andGreenwood Press.
^Slide, Anthony (2010). "A Publishing Phenomenon that Begins and Ends with Scarecrow Press".Film History.22 (3): 304.doi:10.2979/fil.2010.22.3.298.JSTOR10.2979/fil.2010.22.3.298.S2CID192112592.McFarland [...] books were primarily aimed at the library market. It was a mail order publisher with no interest in bookstore sales, but unlike its major competitor, virtually from the start all of its books were typeset.
^Slide, Anthony (2010). "A Publishing Phenomenon That Begins and Ends with Scarecrow Press".Film History.22 (3): 305.doi:10.2979/fil.2010.22.3.298.JSTOR10.2979/fil.2010.22.3.298.S2CID192112592.Most film scholars, students and buffs would assume that McFarland's main thrust has been towards film book Publishing [but] it is the largest publisher of military memoirs and baseball-oriented titles. It is also rich in books on women's, African-American, and gender studies, on U.S. history, and is proud of its automotive line. It also boasts of being the most prestigious publisher of historical and reference books on chess.
