A longtime Astros executive, an umpiring pioneer, a look at the colorful history of baseball through postage stamps and a preview of the upcoming season with the Round Rock Express highlighted the 16th Annual Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting of the Rogers Hornsby Chapter.
More than 35 members and guests from around Texas and across the United States joined our virtual meeting on Saturday.
Tal Smith, longtime executive with the Houston Colt .45s and Astros, told us how his love of baseball as a little boy led to a lifetime in the game. His career started with the Cincinnati Reds front office but also included time working for the New York Yankees and George Steinbrenner. He also had multiple stints with the Houston franchise, from its original inception as the Colt .45s to the Astros. He was involved with the Astrodome project and 30 years later, in the design of Minute Maid Park (originally called Enron Field).
To watch our conversation with Tal Smith (pictured above, left), which includes his memories of working with chapter founder Bill Gilbert in salary arbitration cases, please check out the video recording: https://youtu.be/1fB3kqAczRk
Professional umpire Perry Barber (pictured above, right) joined us via Zoom from Fenway South in Fort Myers, Florida, for about an hour before the start of a women’s baseball championship game. Barber estimates that she has called 8,000 games at all levels of baseball, including MLB spring training games, collegiate games and Little League games. She’s also worked as an umpire in games in Japan and the Caribbean. She said she’s made it her goal to help more women enter the umpiring profession and wants to see them reach the highest levels of professional sports.
You can learn more about Barber (about how she’s a former Jeopardy! champion and how, as a musical artist, she once opened for the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Hall & Oates): https://youtu.be/2FKv3NTPcwo
In the video, you’ll see surprise cameos by members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League!
Express General Manager Tim Jackson (pictured below, left) and Director of Broadcasting Mike Capps (pictured below, right) gave their preview of the Express, the Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. Even though the MLB owners have locked out the players, most minor league players are not affected by the work stoppage. Jackson said his club and other minor league teams are tentatively preparing for a season of 150 games to begin on April 5, but details are still being worked out.
Jackson shared that some of the experimental changes include larger bases (from 15 to 18 inches), an eight-camera system to call automatic balls and strikes, and PitchCom, a system in which the catcher wears a digital armband to select pitches that are relayed to the pitcher through an audible signal in the pitcher’s ballcap. More information about this system can be found here: https://www.sporttechie.com/pitchcom-electronic-device-combat-sign-stealing#
On the roster side, Mike Capps talked about players he’s looking forward to watching this season, including Sam Huff (catcher prospect with lots of raw power, though Capps thought he might see more playing time in the field or as DH); third baseman Josh Young, right-handed pitcher Cole Winn and the Rangers’ first-round (and second overall) draft pick Jack Leiter, son of former major leaguer Al Leiter.
Capps also shared that he’s the co-author with Chuck Hartenstein of the forthcoming “Grinders: Baseball’s Intrepid Infantry,” a book about the bulk of players who have bounced back and forth between the major and minor leagues. For more information about the book, check out this link: http://stoneycreekpublishing.com/grinders.html
The chapter also presented Mike Capps with a complimentary SABR membership as a token of our appreciation for his long involvement with our chapter, visiting with us for our winter meetings and inviting us up to the broadcast booth at Express games. Thanks for being such a great friend to the chapter, Cappy!
For many years, chapter member and Predictatron chief Jim Baker has opened our winter meetings with an icebreaker. This time, he surprised us with special guest Rob Neyer (pictured to the right), longtime baseball writer and commissioner of the West Coast League, a collegiate summer baseball league in the Pacific Northwest. Neyer discussed SABRcast, a weekly podcast in which he interviews a wide range of guests with a focus on baseball topics. He’s interviewed broadcasters such as Brian Kenny and Bob Costas, former players such as Doug Glanville, David Cone and Bill Ripken and baseball journalists such as Alyson Footer, Hannah Keyser and Tyler Kepner. You can find his weekly podcast on podcasting apps and on the SABR website at https://sabr.org/sabrcast.
Here’s a link to his most recent podcast with Jeff Neuman, editor of The Baseball Encyclopedia: https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/4/2/1/421e6057c6c49e58/010322_SABRcast_Episode_143_Jeff_Neuman.mp3?c_id=118655828&cs_id=118655828&expiration=1641751606&hwt=24ff1d50c6cfd4ca7a78ea2de9fec54d
Chapter member Dan Walsh (pictured above) gave a colorful presentation about baseball history depicted in postage stamps from around the world. Dan described a rich history of recognizing the game of baseball and players, from Little League World Series champs to Olympic legends.
John Fredland (pictured to the left), committee chair of the SABR Baseball Games Project, invited members to consider contributing game stories to the archive that aims to research, write and publish accounts of professional ball games, including regular-season, postseason and All-Star games. For more information about the project, check out its webpage: http://sabr.org/gamesproject.
At the beginning of the meeting, we took a brief moment to remember Bill Gilbert, who founded the Rogers Hornsby Chapter and the Larry Dierker Chapter. He also proposed the winter meeting, which the Hornsby chapter has held every January for the past 16 years. All winter meetings have been held at Texas State University, except for the last two years, when the meeting was offered online because of the pandemic.
As we have often done at our winter meeting, we conducted a Hall of Fame vote to see which players on the current ballot, if any, have our support for election to Cooperstown. As chapter events director Jan Larson noted, our vote has often served as a reliable predictor for the actual HOF vote.
From 30 submitted ballots, none of the players reached the 75 percent threshold to trigger election. The top vote-getter in our election was David Ortiz, with 73.33 percent (22 out of 30). Only two other players reached at least 50 percent of the vote: Roger Clemens with 53.33 percent (16 of 30), and Barry Bonds with 50 percent (15 of 30). Rounding out the top six were Curt Schilling with 46.67 percent (14 of 30), and Scott Rolen and Billy Wagner, both of whom had 40 percent (12 of 30). Two voters opted for “None” to be elected on this ballot. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America will announce election results for the 2022 ballot on Jan. 25.
It should also be noted that one voter confided in me that the voter intended to vote for Ortiz, but neglected to do so. That would bring the vote to 23 out of 30, or 76.67 percent, enough for election. However, another member, who was unable to participate in the voting, indicated that this member’s ballot would not have included Ortiz, resulting in a 23 of 31, or 74.19 percent. Again, just short of the 75 percent cutoff! What can we surmise from this? Probably that the vote is going to be very close, and if anyone gets elected, it’s probably Big Papi.
To download and view our election results, click here: Mock HOF 2022 vote results.
We also thanked Ryan Pollack (pictured above), winter meeting coordinator, for his six years organizing our winter meetings. His leadership and innovations have helped us grow the winter meeting, making each year better than the last. We’re thankful for his great work and grateful that he’ll still be an active chapter member and webmaster. As a small token of appreciation, we presented him with a vintage logo design of his favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles. Thanks so much, Ryan!
This was our 182nd consecutive month with a meeting, a streak that dates to December 2006.
Many thanks to our speakers and presenters, and for everyone able to join us! Our next meeting will be held virtually on SABR Day, Jan. 29 UPDATE: Feb. 5. More details to come!
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