Category: Chapter News

Society for American Baseball Research

Rogers Hornsby Chapter (Central and South Texas)

Annual Report, June 2023 – May 2024

By Gilbert D. Martinez

Chapter Commissioner

            After conducting its first election in the previous year, SABR’s Rogers Hornsby Chapter took another big step when membership overwhelmingly approved chapter bylaws in an online vote in May 2024.

            It was another very active year for the chapter. Highlights included the 18th Annual Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting in January, which featured Jason Starkovich, a former minor league umpire who now works as an umpire development observer for Major League Baseball; Joe Sheehan, national baseball writer and contributor to The Athletic; Zak Ford, chair of SABR’s Dusty Baker Chapter in Sacramento, and author of “Called Up: Ballplayers Remember Becoming Major Leaguers”; and chapter member Bailey Hall who presented research to determine which was worse: a leadoff walk or a leadoff single? The group also heard from Tim Jackson, Round Rock Express general manager, and longtime journalist and broadcaster Mike Capps, with their previews of the upcoming Express season. In addition, chapter members Jan Larson and Syd Polk gave presentations about their stadium tours. Author Justin Mckinney shared details from his book, “Baseball’s Union Association: The Short, Strange Life of a 19th-Century Major League,” about the short-lived Union Association and ill-fated clubs. Chapter member Peter Myers, who splits time between San Antonio and Denver in his retirement, joined the ushering staff at Coors Field in 2023. He shared some of his highlights in experiencing the game from an usher’s perspective and working with other retirees and college and high school interns. Predictatron contest-runner Jim Baker presented trophies to four-time winner Raeanne Martinez for winning the season-long prediction contest and Frank Rechtorovic for nailing the post-season contest (with what Frank noted was the “largest margin of victory”).

            Building on a survey conducted in spring 2023 by chapter member and webmaster Ryan Pollack in which respondents asked for more virtual meetings, the chapter added some Zoom meetings. The chapter celebrated SABR Day in February on Zoom by having Keith O’Brien, a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning journalist and SABR member author of “Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball.” He explained why now was the right time to revisit Rose’s career, the gambling scandal and his continued exile from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his forthcoming book, which was published in March. In August, Steven Gietschier, author of “Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years,” joined the chapter on Zoom to discuss his book, which later won the 2024 Dr. Harold and Dorothy Seymour Medal, honoring the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year.

            In April, author and Larry Dierker Chapter member Mike Vance shared excerpts from his recently published book, “Wingo: The Remarkable Life of an Unremarkable Man.” Vance read from “Wingo,” the first of a duology, depicting a fictional character interacting with baseball legends and locations in New York.

            In July, the chapter celebrated 200 consecutive months in which the chapter has met, a streak started in December 2006.

Seeking to include chapter members in San Antonio, the chapter, for the first time, had a group outing to a San Antonio Missions game at Nelson Wolff Municipal Stadium in September and watched the San Antonio Missions drop their regular-season finale to the Springfield Cardinals.

            Chapter members also hosted monthly meetings at their homes on three occasions. The family of Baily Hall hosted a chapter meeting in June and April; and Jim Baker hosted a World Series watch party in October.

            In addition to active email discussion on a Google Groups email list, the chapter has regular trivia quizzes at meetings, the aforementioned Predictatron contest along with Ryan Pollack’s Awardatron, which challenges members to predict the winners of baseball’s major awards prior to the start of the season.

            May 2024 marks nine years that our chapter has fielded baseball reminiscence programs.  In 2015, Hornsby Chapter volunteers led by Jim Kenton started SABR’s first program in partnership with Alzheimer’s Texas.  Reminiscence, recalling pleasant memories of the past, has proven to be an effective way to improve the quality-of-life of those dealing with dementia, chronic health problems, isolation or loneliness.  Since then, the number of programs using baseball as a reminiscence topic has grown both locally and nationally. 

             The past twelve months have been a year of “getting back to normal” as local volunteers have been able to resume in-person sessions with participants, care partners, and supporting staff at partner organizations.  “The Baseball Guys” have been back at the Kerrville Veterans Administration Hospital for several months now.  Jim reports that the Kerrville staff have recommended the program to their colleagues at the Audie Murphy VA in San Antonio, and he has been actively working to get a program started there as well.

           Likewise, since February 2023 the “Baseball Memories” team has been presenting a 90-minute monthly program at Williamson County AGE of Central Texas in Round Rock.  The audience at this adult day care facility is a large, diverse group.  We have an excellent relationship with the AGE management team, and they are very supportive and enthusiastic about the program.  As part of our program, we’ve created a Baseball Memories Library at AGE and donate appropriate baseball books to them monthly.

          Over the past nine years, 15 Hornsby Chapter members, along with several spouses, have volunteered to facilitate or otherwise assist with these programs.  We have positively affected the well-being of participants and their care partners.  Currently, 10 SABR volunteers and several family members are involved in delivering the VA and AGE programs.  In total, we have held 20 in-person sessions in the past year, reaching 35 to 50 participants monthly.  We recently wrapped up offering the pandemic-era “Talking Baseball” online program.  Sixteen sessions of this program were held, with an average attendance of around 10.  Everyone involved in these offerings have found baseball reminiscence to be a worthwhile and rewarding experience. 

          In the upcoming year, we hope to have the new program at the VA in San Antonio up-and-running.  Likewise, we will explore starting another program at the newly opened AGE of Central Texas facility in South Austin.  There are plenty of opportunities to get involved in this valuable community service program.  In addition to plenty of baseball (of course), we also add music, video, history, and other sports in order to invoke a broad range of pleasant memories from a diverse audience.  If you’d consider volunteering, have an idea for a new program in your community, or just would like to learn more, contact Monte Cely at cely@swbell.net.       

Monte Cely contributed information about the chapter’s baseball reminiscence programs to this report.

Society for American Baseball Research

Rogers Hornsby Chapter (Central and South Texas)

Annual Report, June 2022 – May 2023

By Gilbert D. Martinez

Chapter Commissioner

            As precautions against the pandemic have eased in the last year, the Rogers Hornsby Chapter returned to more in-person meetings, continuing its streak of monthly meetings to 198 months in May.

            The chapter also continued long-standing traditions such as an outing to see the Round Rock Express, a World Series watch party and annual winter meeting. We also celebrated SABR Day with a Zoom meeting and added an outing to see the Austin Weirdos of the Pecos League of Professional Baseball.

            Most of our meetings involve lunches on the weekend with baseball chatter and a trivia quiz. Jim Baker continued his long-running Predictaron contest in which members try to forecast the regular and post seasons and presented trophies to the regular season and postseason winners. Ryan Pollack added Awardatron, a contest in which members try to guess the winners of the major baseball awards by making their picks before the start of the season.

            In May, under guidance from the SABR national office, the Hornsby Chapter conducted its first-ever election for chapter leadership. After a week-long self-nomination process and a three-day online voting period, chapter members unanimously elected Gilbert Martinez as chapter commissioner. He was the only candidate on the ballot and plans to appoint directors to the chapter’s leadership team.

            In April, Ryan Pollack created a poll to survey members about their overall satisfaction with the chapter and their suggestions for improvement. We had 20 out of 78 members respond, for a response rate of 25%, and 19 out of 20 rated their satisfaction with the chapter at 3 or 4 (satisfied and very satisfied). Among the suggestions from survey respondents was to incorporate an outing to a Minor League game in San Antonio, which has been tentatively scheduled for later in 2023. We’re hoping to conduct the survey annually to stay in touch with all our members and let that guide our decisions for chapter activities.

            Another change the chapter made was transforming the monthly meeting summaries into monthly newsletters, launching for the first time in April. In addition to summarizing the monthly meeting, the newsletter also includes tidbits about regular chapter activities involving the baseball memories volunteer efforts, Predictatron and Awardatron contests, baseball research and other baseball-related topics.

            At the 17th Annual Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting in January, Nancy Finley, niece of Oakland A’s owner Charlie O. Finley, talked about her book “Finley Ball: How Two Baseball Outsiders Turned the Oakland A’s into a Dynasty and Changed the Game Forever.” David Vaught, a Texas A&M history professor and author of “Spitter: Baseball’s Notorious Gaylord Perry,” told of Perry’s life and career of a pitcher known to use foreign substances while pitching. Feature writer Mike Bryan shared anecdotes of working with Cal Ripken Jr., Keith Hernandez and Kirby Puckett in writing books with them about their lives. Express General Manager Tim Jackson and broadcaster Mike Capps previewed the team’s roster and MLB’s rules experimentation with bigger bases and pitch clocks. Our youngest member and high school sophomore, Bailey Hall, gave a brief history of the use of statistics in baseball and how technology has transformed how we watch and analyze the game we love. Also, winter meeting coordinator Jerry Miller, a long-time Dodgers fan, gave a touching remembrance of Vin Scully. Members also shared their baseball memories from the 2022 season and participated in a mock Hall of Fame vote.

          In addition, Hornsby volunteers are beginning their ninth year offering a baseball memories program to participants and care partners living with Alzheimer’s, dementia, or living in isolation or institutionalized.  The chapter established a partnership with AGE of Central Texas and are offering regular sessions.

          For SABR Day, we held a meeting on Zoom and spoke with longtime Astros broadcaster Bill Brown, who is part of the Class of 2023 to be inducted into the Astros Hall of Fame in August.

Society for American Baseball Research

Rogers Hornsby Chapter (Central and South Texas)

Annual Report, June 2021 – May 2022

By Gilbert D. Martinez

Chapter Commissioner

            The last year has been a mixed bag for the Rogers Hornsby Chapter; while we have mostly returned to in-person meetings, we’ve also had to shift to virtual meetings as precautions against the continuing pandemic.

            In addition to lunch meetings, the chapter organized multiple outings to the Dell Diamond and a World Series watch party.

            One particular highlight was the May 2022 meeting in which chapter members gathered for a barbeque dinner before a Round Rock Express game at the Dell Diamond. The game was followed by a screening at the ballpark of “Facing Nolan,” the new documentary about the career of Nolan Ryan.

            For our in-person gatherings, we usually met for lunch, but in March, we had breakfast tacos at a local barbeque restaurant. We plan to mix breakfast and lunch meetings in the coming year.

            We also had our 16th annual Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting in January on Zoom, featuring former Astros executive Tal Smith, baseball writer Rob Neyer, umpiring pioneer Perry Barber and Mike Capps and Tim Nolan of the Express. In addition, Ryan Pollack coordinated this, his sixth winter meeting, and elected to step down from that role, but he remains an active member and continues to serve as our webmaster. Active member Jerry Miller will take on the coordinator role and lead the effort to organize our winter meeting next year.

            Whether in-person or virtually, the chapter continued its streak of meeting at least once monthly for 186 months, a streak dating to December 2006.

            In addition, Hornsby volunteers are beginning their eighth year offering Talking Baseball programs to participants and care partners living with Alzheimer’s, dementia, or living in isolation or institutionalized.  Biweekly programs are held in Austin and Georgetown.

            Volunteers are hoping to restart the program soon at the Kerrville VA Medical Center and are exploring starting a program in Seguin. Chapter members have also been instrumental in the expansion of these programs to other SABR chapters.  Currently, SABR “Baseball Memories” programs are offered in seven other cities nationwide, with several other SABR chapters exploring local possibilities.

            Also, longtime SABR and chapter member Jim Baker continued running Predictatron, a contest to predict win totals for all teams and playoff teams and World Series champions. This year, he added trophies for the season-long Predictatron champion and for the playoff portion of the contest. The trophies include the names for each winner, going back to 2008 for the season champion and 2007 for the postseason champion.