David S. Neft is a writer and historian best known for his groundbreaking work in creating various sports encyclopedias.

Early career

Neft received a BA, MBA, and PhD (Statistics) from Columbia University, and worked as chief statistician for the polling company Louis Harris & Associates

Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive , headquartered in New York, New York, is a custom market research firm, known for the Harris Poll. Harris works in a wide range of industries...

 from 1963 to 1965.http://www.gannett.com/go/es/2000/janfeb/pages/neft.html

Big Mac

In 1965, he was a founder of a company called Information Concepts, Inc. (ICI) and headed the first effort to compile a computerized database of baseball statistics. The task took more than three years, as Neft and a team of researchers travelled across the country to fill the gaping holes in baseball's statistical and biographical records. The resulting work was published in 1969 by the Macmillan Publishing Company. Although the official title was "The Baseball Encyclopedia", the massive book was generally referred to as "Big Mac." It was a quantum leap from early baseball encyclopedias, with a breadth and depth that far exceeded anything that had come before it.

Sports Encyclopedias

Neft left ICI in 1970, spending the next few years developing dice-based sports games for Sports Illustrated Enterprises. He returned to the sports reference field when he founded Sports Products, Inc.. With partner Richard M. Cohen

Richard M. Cohen

Richard Merrill Cohen is an American journalist and television producer. He is a former senior producer for CBS News and CNN.-Career:Cohen is the recipient of numerous honors in journalism...

, the company produced a new baseball encyclopedia in 1974 called "The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball." That same year, they published groundbreaking new encyclopedias for football (The Sports Encyclopedia: Pro Football) and basketball (The Sports Encyclopedia: Pro Basketball).

The baseball encyclopedia has been updated each spring, with the 27th edition appearing in 2007. Seventeen editions of the football encyclopedia were published (the last in 1998). The basketball encyclopedia was published until 1992, a total of five editions.

Besides this line of encyclopedias, Neft edited more than a dozen other sports books.

Pre-1933 Football Research

In 1978, Neft & Cohen published Pro Football: The Early Years, a startling new look at professional football before 1933. Because the National Football League

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 hadn't kept official statistics in its first thirteen seasons, knowledge of the period was extremely limited. Neft led a team of researchers that meticulously reconstructed the statistical record, using box scores, play-by-play accounts, and game stories from local newspapers. The result was a remarkable new look at the teams and players from the NFL's earliest seasons.

Gannett

Neft returned to Harris, then owned by Gannett, in 1977, serving as executive vice president. In 1985, he became Gannett's director of research, a position he held until his retirement in 2002. He is widely recognized within the newspaper industry as a market research expert.

External links

• Article on Neft's retirement from Gannett