Category: BasebALZ

Content about the Baseball Alzheimer’s project.

BasebALZ Season 9 wrap-up

Season Nine of our baseball reminiscence program wrapped up on July 30 at Westminster Senior Living in Austin.  All six sessions were well-attended, with 15-20 participants, caregivers, volunteers and guests present.

We enjoyed presentations on Baseball Bobbleheads (authored by Jerry), The Curveball (Jerry), The Evolution of the Glove (Monte & Linda), Baseball Lingo (Ira), The National Anthem and Baseball (Dan), an Eddie Gaedel update (Jim) … just to name a few.  Recurring agenda items were Today in Baseball (Mike and Jim),  and Stump the Experts (Bobby and Renee).  We also had some fun hands-on activites including Baseball Bingo (Mike) and Beanbag Baseball (Bob and Diane).

A highlight of the July 30th session was “Let’s Do the Twist”.  We had some serious twistin’ goin’ on, including Bob & Diane and Bobby & Renee (top) and John & Vicki.  We all enjoyed the dancing and listening & singing to Chubby Checker.

Fellow SABR member and author Anne Keene joined us.  She added some very interesting memories from her research on her current book – The Cloudbuster Nine.

In his “Stump the Experts” segment, Bobby once again stumped the SABR volunteers.  The answer was “Matt Batts”, a San Antonio native who played 10 years in the majors from 1947-1956.

Mike was the emcee for Season Nine.  Here he chats with Dave and Diana before one of our sessions.

Our leader Jim Kenton was on the “DL” for Season Nine, but we expect him to complete his rehab assignments and rejoin the BasebALZ team for Season Ten.

Speaking of Season Ten – dates for the six sessions are September 10,24; October 8, 22 and November 5 and 19.  We expect to return to Westminster and we extend our most sincere thanks to them for hosting BasebALZ in 2018.  Many thanks, as always, to Alzheimer’s Texas for sponsoring our program.

We are also taking August “off” at the Kerrville Veterans Administration Hospital.  Volunteers Dan & Ann and Bob & Diane will return to Kerrville in September to resume the monthly program there.

The fun continues … “See you in September”.

BasebALZ Season 9 Opening Day

A new season of our Alzheimer’s baseball reminiscence program opened on Monday, May 21 – returning again to Westminster Manor Senior Living in central Austin.  The facilities and ball park food were outstanding, and we appreciate them hosting us for Season Nine.

Fifteen participants, caregivers, and volunteers were in attendance.  In addition to baseball memories, the get-together doubled up as a birthday party for both John and Paul (we won’t reveal ages).  Sarah provided the birthday goodies and we sang “Happy Birthday” right after “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”.

The entire group enjoyed some swag, including new t-shirts, courtesy of Tom Keefe and the Eddie Gaedel Society (see picture above).  Memories of Bill Veeck’s most notorious promotion, and the St. Louis Browns, live on …

Jerry led a discussion on Bobbleheads and John won one with his claim of perfect attendance over the three years we’ve been offering the BasebALZ program.

We had to skip the usual “Stump the Experts” agenda segment, as our research team of Bobby and Renee were absent.  They had a good excuse – they were in Boston and took in a Red Sox game:

The season is off to a great start.  We will continue with sessions at Westminster every other Monday through July 30.

BasebALZ Season 8 Wrap-up

It was a full house at our BasebALZ outing to Round Rock’s Dell Diamond on Monday, April 23.  Participants, caregivers, and volunteers enjoyed an 11-4 Round Rock Express victory over the visiting Colorado Springs Sky Sox.

We enjoyed the game in comfort, complete with food and drinks.   A big THANK YOU to United Heritage Credit Union and Alzheimer’s Texas for working together to host us in UHCU’s luxury suite at Dell Diamond.

Season Eight of BasebALZ, our baseball-themed Alzheimer’s reminiscence program, ran for six sessions from February through April, 2018.  We were hosted at the Austin, Texas office of our sponsor – Alzheimer’s Texas.

Just a few highlights included:

Baseball Bingo – Mike created this version of bingo and it was an immediate hit with everyone.  We had a Baseball Bingo session twice during Season Eight, as well as at one of the sessions at the Kerrville VA Hospital.

Stump the Experts – Bobby and Renee continued their feature effort to try to stump the SABR “experts” with clues about the life of a ballplayer.  Bobby threw three “shutouts” this season, successfully stumping the “experts” at three of the six sessions.

All-Time Latino All-Stars – we continued a periodic feature where we vote for various “all time” teams.  Ira led the discussion on selecting the all time line-up of Latin American players.

Singing – always a big part of every program, we devoted a full session to “Songs about Baseball”.  Above – Dodgers fans Jerry (l) and Dan (r) get ready for a rendition of “It’s a Beautiful Day for a Ball Game” and – below – we all join in for “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You”.

In addition to our now-three-year-old program at Alzheimer’s Texas here in Austin, we continue with our monthly program (every second Friday) at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Kerrville, Texas.  Our program at the VA continues to be well-received by the patients as well as administrators.

We will take a short break and then Season Nine of BasebALZ will commence on Monday, May 21, 2018.  We will have a change of venue, with Season Nine being hosted by Westminster Senior Living – 4100 Jackson Ave., Austin, TX 78731.

For more background on the BasebALZ program, see our informational page here.

BasebALZ Season 8 Opening Day

On Monday, January 29 the “Talking Baseball” Alzheimer’s reminiscence program had a successful “opening day” for Season Eight.  This marks three years that the program has been offered at the Alzheimer’s Texas offices here in Austin.  Fifteen participants, caregivers, and volunteers were in attendance.

The theme of this session was Latin American baseball, and in particular Cuba and Cuban players.  Just a few highlights included:

Monte discussed his recent baseball trip to Cuba.

Ira (r) gets ready to lead a discussion and vote on a Latin American all-star team.

Bobby challenges the group to identify a player in the “Stump the Experts” segment.  Bobby threw an “opening day shutout” as he successfully stumped the group.  The answer was early 20th century Cuban pitching great Adolfo Luque.

The group also took a few moments to remember long-time participant and super Red Sox fan – Tom.  He was one of our original members, having been an active participant for all previous seven “seasons”.  Tom passed away earlier this month.

BasebALZ Season 8 sessions will be offered bi-weekly at Alzheimer’s Texas through April.  We are also continuing a monthly program at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Kerrville, as well as a periodic session at AGE of Central Texas.  For more information, see our informational page at:  http://www.sabrhornsby.org/about-basebalz/

 

BasebALZ Wrap-up – 2017

The Alzheimer’s Baseball Reminiscence program (BasebALZ) has had a busy and successful 2017:

We continued our monthly programs at the Kerrville (Texas) Veterans Administration Hospital.  A highlight was the November 10th session preceding Veteran’s Day:

The driveway leading to the Kerrville VA hospital.

Volunteers chat with an early arrival.

A full house of participants (Kerrville photos by Ann Walsh)

We conducted a pilot session of BasebALZ at the Austin offices of AGE of Central Texas on October 30.  We had 12 participants in attendance for the one-hour trial reminiscence program.  We had great participation with lots of discussion about baseball, old autos, and the golden age of television.  We hope to be able to continue this partnership in 2018.

At the Alzheimer’s Texas offices in Austin, we held three “seasons” of BasebALZ – 18 biweekly sessions in all.  We wrapped up our most recent “season” – Season Seven – on November 13:

Our Astros fans celebrate the 2017 World Series victory.

We had a full house (21 participants and volunteers) for the season finale.

Every session, Bobby does his best to “Stump the Experts”

The Talkin’ Baseball Band plays “Take me out to the Ballgame” (Austin photos by Linda Cely)

click here for a short video:  video short

After a break for the holidays, BasebALZ will start up again at Alzheimer’s Texas on January 29, 2018.  For more information on the BasebALZ program – visit our information page here.

Opening Day for BasebALZ Season 7

The summer baseball season may be winding down, but a new season of the Alzheimer’s “Talking Baseball” program got underway on Patriots Day, Monday September 11 at the Alzheimer’s Texas offices.  We had a great start to Season Seven, with twenty participants, caregivers, and volunteers in attendance.

… it was standing-room-only …

John kept order,

while Monte and Dave do the “guns up”.

Renee (l) and Bobby (r) brought along guest Bob to help out with “Stump the Experts”.  Bob’s wife is the grand-daughter of John Owen “Chief” Wilson, who was born in Austin and played with the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals from 1908-1916.  In 1912, Chief Wilson established a major league record that still stands — he hit 36 triples!

A good time was had by all!!

BasebALZ enjoys Alzheimer’s Night at Dell Diamond

Thirteen participants, volunteers and family members attended Alzheimer’s Night at Round Rock’s Dell Diamond on Monday evening July 31.  As often happens when we venture to Dell Diamond, the game went extra innings with the hometown Express taking a walk-off 7-6 win in the bottom of the 11th on a two-out, two RBI double by 3B Will Middlebrooks.

In addition to the exciting game, many of us enjoyed the “$1 hot dogs and sodas” promotion on Harry Potter Night at the ballpark.  Needless to say, a good time was had by all.

BasebALZ Season 6 Wrap-up

Season Six of the BasebALZ program wrapped up on July 10 at the Alzheimer’s Texas offices in Austin.  This “season” marked over two years that the Rogers Hornsby Chapter of SABR has been offering this program for those dealing with Alzheimer’s disease.

We opened the season on May 8 with a record attendance of 13 participants and caregivers, plus nine volunteers:

Over the course of the six bi-weekly sessions, we presented and discussed topics targeted to the interests and memories of our participants.  These included:

Recalling if anyone once used a slide-rule:

Talked about the world’s most valuable baseball card:

Sang some polkas:

Played “Stump the Experts”, where one of our participants presented a short bio of a ballplayer to see if our volunteers could determine who it was.  This became a regular feature of each meeting:

Talked about a trip to “The Field of Dreams” in Iowa:

We recognized our program leader, Jim Kenton, with the presentation of an honorary “Doctor of Baseball Reminiscence” diploma:

Chapter member Dan Walsh wrapped up the closing session with a vote for the “All Star Team of the 1960s”:

A good time was had by all:

After a short summer break, Austin-based BasebALZ will start up again in September.  In the meantime, our volunteers continue to make a monthly visit to the Veteran’s Administration in Kerrville to present BasebALZ there.

More information on the BasebALZ program is here.

 

BasebALZ Season 6 Sets Attendance Mark on Opening Day

Our baseball-themed Alzheimer’s reminiscence program, BasebALZ, opened “Season Six” on Monday May 8 at the Alzheimer’s Texas offices in Austin.  We had thirteen participants, caregivers and guests in attendance, and we’re expecting more as this “season” progresses.  Nine volunteers from the SABR-Hornsby Chapter and Alzheimer’s Texas were there to deliver and support the program:

BasebALZ leader Jim Kenton opens the session.

In a discussion of “Things from 1960 that we don’t use anymore”, we see if anyone can remember how to use a slide rule …

Season Six of BasebALZ will run through July.  For more information on the BasebALZ program, click here.

 

BasebALZ wraps up successful 5th season

Our chapter’s Alzheimer’s reminiscence program — BasebALZ — wrapped up a fun and successful fifth season with an outing to Dell Diamond on Monday, April 11.

The completion of Season Five (which ran from January through April) marks two years that the Hornsby SABR chapter has been delivering the baseball-themed Alzheimer’s program in Austin.  Eleven participants and caregivers enjoyed talkin’ baseball, music, TV … and yes, in Texas, even some football.

Besides presentations and discussion, we had some activities such as oiling up some ball gloves …

… autographing some baseballs …

… playing “stump the experts”, where our participants try to stump the SABR volunteers on baseball history …

… and deciding who was going to “pick first” or “bat first” in a simulated game.

Plans are already underway for Season Six, to begin in May, 2017 at the Alzheimer’s Texas offices in Austin.

In addition to the program in Austin, SABR volunteers are delivering the program at the Kerrville Veteran’s Administration hospital on a monthly basis.  Program leader Jim Kenton is also working with the Alzheimer’s Association, the U.S. Army at Ft. Sam Houston, and the VA in San Antonio to start programs in the Alamo City.

For more information on BasebALZ, visit our informational page here.