Event Summaries Archives - Rogers Hornsby Chapter

Baseball trivia, a new wins-by-payroll stat and barbecue lunch fill April gathering

April 2025 Newsletter

By Gilbert D. Martinez

Fifteen chapter members – including three attending their very first Hornsby Chapter meeting – enjoyed a pleasant spring day and barbecue lunch provided by the family of Nicole Bryan-Hall, Brian Hall and Bailey Hall in Central Austin on Sunday.

We extended a warm welcome to James Navarro, who is new to the Hornsby Chapter, formerly with the Rocky Mountain Chapter; Clayton Hsiung, who is an exchange student at the University of Texas at Austin and from Taiwan; and Jeff Latimer from Martindale.

Co-host Brian Hall spent weeks crafting a trivia quiz for this month’s meeting with a hodgepodge of questions that focused on baseball in recent years and introduced a new statistic that tracks teams’ opening day payrolls divided by wins.

Newcomer Clayton Hsiung took top prize (and a pair of socks, pictured above, featuring his favorite team, the Texas Rangers!) with 28 points, while Ryan Pollack took second with 25 points (winning a Jose Altuve votive candle). They are pictured above (ClaytonWhile they were the only contestants with scores in the 20s, Ira Siegel had 18 points; James Navarro and Jerry Miller had 17; and Gilbert Martinez had 16.

Click here to take your swing at Brian Hall’s baseball quiz.

Click here for the answers: Brian Hall’s baseball quiz — key.

To learn more about his new statistic, click here.

For the list of players that have had Tommy John surgery, click here.

Many thanks to the Halls for their generous hospitality and challenging quiz and to everyone able to join us, especially the new members!

Speaking of trivia…

As you probably know, SABR 53 will be June 25-29 at the Westin DFW Airport in Irving! And the Hornsby Chapter is looking to put together a trivia team. Planning on attending and want to join our trivia team? Please reach out to Chapter Commissioner Gilbert D. Martinez.

Also, make note that early bird registration for SABR 53 ends April 25. Click this link for more details about registration, hotel, scheduled speakers and events: https://sabr.org/convention/

Hopes run high as Predictatron begins anew!

[Note: Jim Baker shared the first Predictatron update of the season with the email list on April 6.]

By Jim Baker

Sunday, April 6, 2025, edition

IT’S ALL TOO REAL NOW!

And so it begins: another season of Predictatron futility, exuberance, frustration and joy. The contest with the impossible mandate of predicting an entire baseball season is underway once more.

Breaking out on top is Team Hall, pacing the field with a score of 291 points. As you would imagine, Team Hall is also our first Player of the Week. They lead the Brian Rogers Division by 29 points over Mr. Wancho after the first go-round. Not too far behind them is Eric Robinson Division leader Mr. Dillon, who comes out of the starting blocks with 289 points. His closest pursuer is Mr. Harrell, who is just 10 points off the mark. Those blessed with keen memories will remember that Mr. Dillon came within three Yankee World Series wins of taking not only this contest, but our postseason tourney as well. If this first week’s performance is any indication, he’s trying to make up for that close loss.

Mr. Rogers, our defending champion, is showing the effects of his offseason spent celebrating his victory and making the rounds of the banquet circuit as a much-sought-after lecturer, stumbling out of the chute 81 points off the leader. As we well know, though, no lead is safe at this early point in the season. In his attempt to defend his own division, Mr. Robinson finds himself in the middle of the pack.

With 25 participants, this is our largest field ever. We are welcoming two new players this year, Mr. Barnes of the Rogers Division and Mr. Windham of the Robinson. In the battle for the mythical Rookie of the Year title, the latter leads the former 245 to 224 for starters. Watch this space for updates on that particular rivalry.

When one submits a ballot to a contest of this sort, one never knows how far removed one is from the collective group think of all the contestants. One way to measure it is to compare this year’s submissions to last year’s standings. Perhaps the safest thing to do would be to simply submit last year’s standings as your ballot for this year. If that were the case, you would have a perfect score of 1,000 in the following chart. This reckoning, known as “Mild or Wild” does just that: gives each player a score comparing their ballot to last year’s standings. The higher your score on this chart, the ”milder” your ballot is; the lowest scores are, therefore, the “Wildest.”

Mild or Wild 2025

Note that the average and median are both around 840. Which approach is best? We shall see…

897	Gilbert Martinez
894	Kevin Barnes
869	Jerry Miller
866	Scott Gay
864	Ira Siegel
860	Team Hall
858	Mike Dillon
858	Bob Windham
853	Gary McIntosh
851	Jim Baker
851	Eric Robinson
842	Don Dingee
841	Mike Harrell
839	John Rechtorovic
839	Syd Polk
835	Brian Rogers
832	Mike McNulty
830	Frank Rechtorovic
829	Ryan Pollack
822	Dan Walsh
818	Chris Crombar
815	Jan Larson
809	Raeanne Martinez
795	Tom Wancho
792	Michael Bass

In our next report, we’ll find out which teams we as a group favor for titles, Locks and all that sort of thing.

Through games of Sunday, April 6, or 5.9 percent of the 2025 season:

Brian Rogers Division

	PLAYER	Points	PB
1	Team Hall*	291
2	Tom Wancho	262	29
3	Scott Gay	257	34
4	Mike McNulty	243	58
5	Kevin Barnes	224	67
6	John Rechtorovic	211	80
6	Syd Polk	211	80
6	Jim Baker	211	80
9	Brian Rogers	210	81
9	Gilbert Martinez	210	81
11	Ryan Pollack	208	83
12	Don Dingee	197	94
	*Player of the Week

Eric Robinson Division

	PLAYER	Points	PB
1	Mike Dillon	289
2	Mike Harrell	279	10
3	Jerry Miller	259	30
4	Frank Rechtorovic	257	32
5	Bob Windham	245	44
6	Jan Larson	244	45
7	Eric Robinson	241	48
8	Ira Siegel	237	52
9	Chris Crombar	225	64
10	Gary McIntosh	222	67
11	Dan Walsh	217	72
12	Raeanne Martinez	208	81
13	Michael Bass	127	162

A new season of Awardatron underway!

[Note: Ryan Pollack shared the following on the group email list on March 27, shortly after the start of the season.]

By Ryan Pollack

Happy baseball, y’all! The ballots are in and the season has begun. Yes, I know it began in Japan a couple weeks ago. You know what I mean.

This is the fourth year of the contest and we have a record-high 20 players. Including myself! Yes, I have no special knowledge, no crystal ball, no inside scoop that y’all don’t have. So I’m in the mix as well.

For scoring purposes, I will split us into two divisions. This year we are going with 1950 RoY winners. Yes, you guessed it, that means we will have the Walt Dropo division and the Sam Jethroe division. I have assigned you to these divisions randomly.

Let’s take a look at whom we think will take home the hardware this year:

As a group we are pretty sure BWJ will take home the hardware. I waffled between him and Judge but decided to bet on youth. The rest of the field is split between some familiar faces and names — guys who have flashed excellence and at times finished in high spots but have never won the award itself. (Yordan is on my fantasy team so I would love to see him win the award as well!)

I do so dearly hope that Gunnar wins the MVP. He was the frontrunner for much of last year but, like many of the O’s, tailed off too much to get close in the end.

Here we have another clear favorite! Can you blame folks? I predict fewer stolen bases for Ohtani, but he has shown dominance on the mound in the past, so it’s fair to expect the same from him again this year. (Side note — I’m sorry, but can we just take a moment and recognize that the first 50/50 player in major league history is also a starting pitcher, and a pretty good (at times borderline ace) one at that?!?!!? I … I need a moment to wrap my head around this. Sorry. Talk amongst yourselves. Sheesh).

Scoobs (say that in Shaggy’s voice, please) is the favorite to repeat here. I see no reason why he can’t, which is why I picked him. He’s at peak age and was absurdly dominant last year, by which I mean, did not rely on that much batted ball luck or sequencing to achieve his results. The rest of the field is pretty mixed, with some thinking that Gilbert and Ragans will take the leap, as well as recent extendee Bibee (yes, I made that joke on purpose).

Phenom Skenes is the clear favorite here amongst the group. The young fireballer impressed everyone last year en route to NL ROY hardware. He is projected by many systems and pundits to be the best pitcher in the NL this year. Perennial also-ran Wheeler comes in (naturally!) 2nd place. After that you have a pair of previous award winners in Sale and Snell, and the very-good-but-never-quite-dominant Cease.

The AL ROY field seems wide open. In my opinion nearly all of these guys have some kind of shot, with the exception being, err, Skubal. (Yes, I gave that contestant plenty of time to change their submission. No, they did not.) The two Red Sox prospects — Anthony and Campbell — are why many think the team will do much better this year than in the last couple of years.

The NL ROY predictions are more heavily concentrated around two players — Sasaki and Crews, in this case. Also, someone is clearly hoping the Orioles trade Mayo to the NL prior for an early-season callup. (That someone is not me, not unless we get some amazing haul for him.)

Continuing the Red Sox theme, many here think Alex Cora will win AL MOY. The Red Sox had a very good offseason, so if they make the playoffs convincingly, he might. The next cluster of votes went to Dan Wilson, newly minted skipper of the Mariners. Will he succeed where Scott Servais could not? In my opinion the Mariners still lack the offense to make a run at the division; although, the Astros are probably the most vulnerable they have been in a long time, and the Rangers have holes as well.

Finally, we land on NL MOY predictions. It’s never wise to bet against Terry Francona, as he is an awesome manager and has won the hardware several times before. Can he do it again but this time in a different Ohio city? I’m not personally sure the Reds have enough talent to make a run, but hey, what do I know?

====

Stick around y’all, it’s going to be a fun season — especially in the AL, as there are a significant number of teams with a reasonable shot at the playoffs. I plan to provide updates & commentary towards the end of each month.

Thanks for playing and see ya in about a month!

Next meeting

Our next meeting will be a Round Rock Express game at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 17, for Star Wars Night! More details to come early next month about a pre-game barbecue dinner at Salt Lick and where we’ll be sitting.

“Talking Baseball” enjoys evening at Dell Diamond

Twenty participants, volunteers and family from the baseball reminiscence program enjoyed an evening at Dell Diamond in Round Rock on Monday May 13.

In a “rematch” (of sorts) of the 2017 World Series, the Astros and Dodgers AAA affiliates squared off. The Express prevailed 5-2 over the OKC Dodgers.

A big “THANK YOU” goes out to United Heritage Credit Union for arranging the use of their luxury suite plus food and drink. Thanks, as always, to our great sponsors at Alzheimer’s Texas. A good time was had by all.

Baseball Reminiscence program celebrates 100th session

The “Talking Baseball” reminiscence program celebrated its 100th session on Monday April 8 at Westminster Senior Living in Austin. Our SABR chapter’s program in Austin, offered in conjunction with Alzheimer’s Texas, has been running for four years. This session concluded our 11th “season” in Austin. The monthly program in Kerrville, in cooperation with the Veteran’s Administration there, has been in operation for three years.

We had “standing room only” with 26 participants, caregivers, family, guests and volunteers in attendance. This also set a record for attendance at a single session.

Two special guests joined us for our Centennial program. Former Texas Longhorn and professional baseball pitcher Jim Gideon (standing) entertained the group with stories of his years at U.T. and in the Texas Rangers organization. Jim also fielded questions and autographed baseball cards and baseballs for the attendees. Local radio personality and Alzheimer’s Texas board member Ed Clements (seated) added to the fun. We sincerely thank Ed and Jim for joining us.

Very special thanks to our long-time sponsors at Alzheimer’s Texas. In addition to all their logistical support, they even brought the cake!

Our next scheduled events are the monthly program at Kerrville VA Hospital and then a night at Dell Diamond in May (in one of the luxury suites courtesy of United Heritage Credit Union). Planning for Season 12 is underway. Stay tuned!

Remembering chapter founder Bill Gilbert at monthly meeting

Sixteen chapter members and guests, gathering for the first time since the passing of chapter founder Bill Gilbert, paid tribute to him on Saturday and remembered his contributions to our community.

We had an empty chair, a World Series edition Astros cap and some fresh garden flowers at the head of the table in Bill’s remembrance. We owe so much to him, not least of which his hand in creating our vibrant baseball community. May he rest in peace.

Jan Larson recounted how Bill contacted SABR members in the Austin area for regular lunch meetings, starting in 2003. Three years later, the group officially became a SABR chapter. Later, Bill worked hard to create the chapter’s annual winter meeting, starting in 2007 and has become a recurring signature event for the chapter every January since.

As we sometimes do at our monthly meetings, we had a trivia quiz; this one supplied by Jim Baker. The theme of the quiz was teenagers who have played in the big leagues, and it was won by Tom Thayer, earning him the prize of the movie poster from the baseball movie, “Bang the drum slowly.”

In addition, Dan Walsh brought his collection of baseball stadium postcards to share with the group. It included major and minor league team stadiums, and even a few from Japanese ball clubs.

The next chapter meeting will be the World Series Watch Party at Jim Baker’s house on Saturday, Oct. 27. World Series Game 4 is scheduled for that evening. More details to follow next month.

BBQ accompanies dog-days-of-summer baseball chat

A dozen chapter members and guests endured the dog days of summer with large slabs of baseball talk and sides of post-season prognostications on Saturday.

The group gathered at County Line on the Lake for delicious barbecue, meeting for the 141st consecutive month. A wide range of professional team logos were represented at the meeting, including the Astros, Dodgers, Indians, Rockies and the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Nippon Professional Baseball.

Ryan, who attended the Sabermetrics, Scouting and the Science of Baseball conference in Boston earlier this month, sported a shirt from the conference – a periodic table of baseball statistical abbreviations. While he’s bummed at the tough season his Orioles are having, he’s hoping his team will hold on to secure the first pick in next year’s draft. Meanwhile I sported an Ichiro Suzuki shirt that featured a chart showing his 1,000th, 2,000th, 3,000th, and 4,000th hits. Jan grabbed one of his many caps and sported one of the Washington Nationals, a team rapidly fading from contention.

Speaking of contention, some in the group see the Boston Red Sox as the strongest team in the American League while the National League is a complete toss-up. One attendee said he hoped the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners slip past the Houston Astros for playoff qualification, though there were others who disagreed with this outcome!

The group also welcomed first-time Tom to the group. He’s an Indians fan, just like another Tom in the group, so we all agreed that this will help us remember his name. Jeremy traveled the furthest to join us for lunch, having driven from San Antonio and planning on taking in a Round Rock Express game that evening.

Ira shared how much he enjoyed touring Wrigley Field during a trip to Chicago earlier this month. He said he was surprised at how close second base looked from the center field bleachers.

Next meeting will be at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 8, at Serranos (5030 W. U.S. 290 service road) in Southwest Austin. A request for RSVPs will be forthcoming.

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”.

Ichiro and Ohtani among topics at May monthly meeting

A dozen chapter members and guests enjoyed an Italian lunch and caught up on the young season at the monthly meeting on Saturday.

Topics included the extended conversation on SABR-L about Ichiro Suzuki’s new role in the Mariners’ front office and whether his playing career is done, Shohei Ohtani’s early success as a two-way player and the early lead by the Martinezes in Jim Baker’s Predictatron contest.

We also welcomed new member Adam, who hails from Des Moines, Iowa. He shared with us that he’s a Chicago Cubs fan and worked in the front office of the Triple-A Iowa Cubs while in high school and college.

We also congratulated member and author Anne Keene for the publication in May of her book, “The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team that Helped Win World War II.” She’s planning on attending SABR 48 in Pittsburgh in June to discuss her book, which is available online and at local bookstores. In addition, her book was named as this month’s Statesman Select, making it the top recommended read in Austin. You can catch Ms. Keene discuss her book at BookPeople at 7 p.m. Friday, May 25. Click this link for more information: https://www.bookpeople.com/statesman-selects

This was the 138th consecutive month in which the chapter has meet, a streak dating to December 2006. Tom Thayer wondered when our streak might match Cal Ripken’s consecutive-game streak; Jim Baker calculated that we’re 208 years away from that!

With that in mind, our next meeting has been set for 12:30 p.m. Saturday, June 16, at Serranos in southwest Austin (MoPac and 290). Jan Larson will send out a request for RSVPs as we get closer to that date.

Chapter members watch Express overcome fog and Sky Sox

Nineteen Hornsby Chapter members and guests witnessed something at Dell Diamond that had never happened there before – a fog-induced delay of game. Fog rolled in quickly, making it difficult for fans to see outfielders and read the big board, but the Round Rock Express broke a 1-1 tie with the Colorado Sky Sox on a big five-run inning before the delay was called.

The fog delayed the game for about 30 minutes. Once the direction of the wind changed, the fog dissipated almost as quickly as it had blanketed the ballpark. The Express went on to win 6-1.

We probably should’ve known that we were in for an interesting night when the Express leadoff hitter, Jose Cardona, was called out on an automatic strike for taking too long to be ready to hit in the batter’s box. Without an announcement by the stadium announcer, we were left to decipher what had just happened. It wasn’t the only time that occurred.

Later in the game with Sky Sox second baseman Nate Orf on first, it appeared that Sky Sox third baseman Shane Opitz flied out to center. But the home plate umpire called a balk, wiping out the flyout to center and placing Orf on second. The at-bat for Opitz continued with a single. Later, Orf scored, but this caused confusion among our group as there was no announcement by the stadium public address announcer.

Other ominous happenings at the park included a seemingly friendly tug-of-war between Spike the mascot and kids. Shortly after the contest of strength began, Spike fell over and lost his head – literally! The mascot’s head popped off, bringing a quick end to the tug-of-war.

After enjoying a barbeque dinner at the Salt Lick, many of us made it through the gates in time for the Express giveaway – a replica of the Nolan Ryan statue that stands outside of the Dell Diamond and Globe Life Park in Arlington.

Many thanks to Frank Rechtorovic for sharing his before-fog and after-fog photos. Some members who recall many ballgames in San Francisco remarked that they had never attended a game in which fog suspended play. As we often say, you never know when you’ll see something at a ballpark that’s never (or rarely ever) happened before.

Before the Express’ five-spot in the 7th inning, we wondered if we might see the new extra innings rule that automatically places a runner on second. Alas, for better or worse, it didn’t come to that, but we think we got to see a pretty interesting game, nonetheless.

Next monthly chapter meeting will be at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at Romano’s Macaroni Grill at the Arboretum in north Austin. Requests for RSVPs will be forthcoming in early May.

March Lunch Meeting Summary

Eleven members and guests were in attendance at the County Line BBQ – the birthplace of the Rogers Hornsby Chapter – on Saturday, March 24, 2018 for a discussion of the upcoming season and an entertaining quiz presented by Dan Walsh. This was arguably the most fun that the members have ever had with a quiz.

Dan asked that a player of “color,” that is, a player with a color in his name or nickname, e.g. Dick Green, Red Ruffing, etc. be listed by his primary position for each of the nine positions along with a similarly named/nicknamed utility player and manager. The contestant with one or more players at the most positions would be deemed the winner.

Names mentioned by the various contestants included some fairly obvious players such as Red Schoendienst and Bud Black to the more obscure such as Chief Yellow Horse. Chief Yellow Horse compiled a career record of 8-4 in 38 games (8 starts) for the ’21-’22 Pirates . You can look it up.

Honors went to Jim Baker who was granted his choice of major awards from Dan’s major award grab bag.

The date and time for our next meeting is TBD. An announcement will be forthcoming at a future date.

Lucha libre mask grand prize at chapter meeting

Raeanne Martinez shows off her lucha libre mask, the prize for winning Monte Cely’s trivia quiz about the 2018 Caribbean Series. (Photo by Gilbert D. Martinez)

Ten chapter members and guests gathered for a Mexican lunch in southwest Austin on Sunday, Feb. 18, and welcomed back Monte Cely, freshly returned from the Caribbean Series. In return, Monte unleashed a Baseball Latinamericano trivia quiz on us.

Two-time Predictatron champion Raeanne Martinez won her first quiz at a monthly meeting, besting the field with 22 out of 28 points and securing a lucha libre mask as the grand prize from Monte (see photo above). Ira Siegel, like the rest of us, struggled on the quiz, but he did receive the last-place-finisher prize of a two peso note.

As all MLB teams are on the verge of full camp workouts, our discussions related much more to the coming season and less on 2017. The group discussed the most recent free agent signing — Eric Hosmer joining the San Diego Padres for an eight-year, $144 million deal. In some ways, the 11th hour signing suggests the overarching discussion happening in baseball – how to value a player’s worth in a long-term contract? It seems that the days of rewarding a player for past performance are over with as teams appear to prefer shorter term contracts that they think more accurately value a player’s worth in the next few seasons.

Monte also talked about attending the Caribbean Series and watching the team from Puerto Rico win it all. You can read more about Monte’s dispatches about Serie del Caribe 2018 by clicking on this link: http://www.sabrhornsby.org/2017/08/serie-del-caribe-2018/

This was the 135th consecutive month in which the chapter has had a monthly meeting, a streak that dates back to December 2006.

We’ve set the next chapter meeting for 12:45 p.m. Saturday, March 24, at County Line on the Lake on FM 2222 in North Austin. A request for RSVPs will be forthcoming in the mid March.