Eight members and four guests enjoyed the first-ever Rogers Hornsby Chapter Playoff Watch Party and Cookout on Saturday at the home of Gilbert and Raeanne Martinez.
The only disappointment – aside from the lackluster performance by the St. Louis Cardinals – was the postponement of the late game between the Rockies and the Phillies due to snow in Denver.
The jalapeño-onion burgers were popular, as were the raspberry-filled cupcakes with icing designed to look like baseballs (the cupcakes were courtesy Lucila Martinez, Gilbert Martinez’s sister-in-law).
There was no quiz, but the group grappled with some baseball trivia. Norman Macht pondered how many Hall of Famers (as a player or manager) had won exactly one World Series. He didn’t know how many there have been, but one candidate would be Earl Weaver. Are there others?
Gilbert Martinez repeated a question he asked on the list-serve – Which is the only team, since 1930, that had four players each with 200 or more hits in a season?
With barely a pause, Bill Gilbert named the team: the 1937 Detroit Tigers. The group came up with the four players: G. Walker (213), C. Gehringer (209), P. Fox (208) and H. Greenberg (200).
Gilbert Martinez also shared that a team with three players with 200+ hits each has occurred a handful of times. They are the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs in 1930, the ’35 N.Y. Giants, the ’63 Cardinals, the ’82 Brewers and the ’91 Rangers.
There was some discussion about a fair flyball by Joe Mauer that had been mistakenly called a foul ball in the Yankees-Twins game the night before. There was also some discussion about who the Astros should hire as their next manager. Both Bill Gilbert and Gilbert Martinez said they hoped it would be Tim Bogar, first base coach for the Boston Red Sox, and former Astros player. Bill joked that Bogar’s schedule was about to be wide open (for interview purposes) because the Angels had the Red Sox on the brink of elimination (And Bill was right – the Angels eliminated the Red Sox at Fenway with a dramatic 9th inning come-back the following day).
The next meeting has not yet been scheduled, but will probably be in early November.