Category: Chapter News

SABR National Convention Report

The following is a SABR Convention report from SABR Hornsby Chapter member Gary McIntosh, who is attending the convention in Washington, D.C.

FRIDAY JULY 31:
 
I sat in on part of the Negro Leagues Committee to hear what they are doing.  Great committee that is very active.  Spent some time talking to Pedro Sierra, a former Negro League player from the Detroit Stars…we spent a chunk of time talking about his relationship with one of my favorites, Orestes Minnie Minoso
 
Then I listened to the presentation by Lee Lowenfish of Rickey Being Rickey: Branch Rickey’s 1948 Wilberforce Speech at all black Wilberforce Univ in Ohio, in which Rickey lashed out at some of the other owners about things that were happening after he had brought in Jackie Robinson.  It was a good history lesson in how things transpired from the owners vs the writers of the times.
 
Then we had a 90 minute panel discussion led by George Michael with Frank Howard and Rick Dempsey.  What an entertaining 90 minutes.  These three guys had us all in stitches, and gave a really good perspective on playing in the late 50s and 60s for Howard, and playing for Earl Weaver and for Cal Ripken Sr for Dempsey.  Well worth the time spent.  Dempsey told of his minor league managing career, and how he was told by Peter Angelos that he was the manager of the Orioles, only to be told two days later that they were hiring Lee Mazzilli, and that Angelos had made that decision based on the 15 people in the front office who worked for him and how they thought he was too dumb for the job.  Of course recently, a few years later, Dempsey got to sit down with Angelos again to discuss the Orioles manager job, and he told Angelos that he wasn’t sure who was too dumb, but apparently whomever had decided on the last 4 Birds managers would be in the running.
 
Big Frank Howard was a real treat.  He talked of his days with Koufax, Drysdale and the Dodgers, and his trade to Washington; of the days in Washington and how well he was treated for those 7 years.  He talked of how the Nationals have some major missing chinks in the armor now, and it’s primarily the depth to compete and pitching.
 
George Michael is the nationally syndicated sports show host, who was in the movies Tin Cup and Silence of the Lambs.  Very entertaining guy, who isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions
 
I also attended a meeting of the Dead Ball Era committee to see what they were involved in.  And then The Green and the Blue: the Irish-American Umpire.  Very entertaining. As was a presentation by Ray Zardetto of Once and For All, Who’s on First?  Fun presentation, with some of the history of how it was done and why.
 
Then it was time to load the buses for the trip to Camden Yards for the Orioles-Red Sox game.  5 Homers last night and the last one by Jacoby Ellsbury gave Boston what it needed for a 6-5 win over the Birds.  The young Orioles team though, swings the bat.  They hit two of the homers and gave Boston all it could take in the slugfest.  Several hundred of us went to the game, and as usual, Red Sox fans were everywhere.  Attendance was over 44,000 last night.
 
Today more good presentations.  And at 10 EDT there will be a GAFL game in the lobby.  For those who don’t remember, I am the manager of the GAFL Houston Astros.  GAFL is a league based on Statis Pro baseball and players for each franchise who played at least 5 years for the franchise.  We are in the middle of our season (which will take 4 years to play out) and today the Astros are hosting the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals.  Roy Oswalt vs Bryn Smith.
 
My Astros are a great pitching, poor offensive team so far.  Jeff Bagwell is 2nd in the NL in home runs with 8 but hit his first in a month in the last game.  Joe Morgan has stolen 19 bases in 21 attempts for Houston.  Oswalt is 7-2 with an ERA around 2.10.  It’s a fun look back at the history of these teams, and the team I’m playing today is led by Vlad Guerrero, Tim Raines, Larry Walker et al.  Astros are currently 2nd in the NL West, 1 game ahead of the Cincinnati Reds, but trailing the best team in the NL, LA Dodgers who have a lineup of Duke Snider, Babe Herman, Zack Wheat, Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Maury WIlls and others, and a pitching staff of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Whit Wyatt, Kevin Brown and Jeff Pfeffer.  What makes this staff so dominant is that guys like Pfeffer and Brown especially can dominate.  Only their years with LA count for their LA cards in the game, so Brown’s is especially good.  One of the best pitchers in the league.  Pfeffer had 23 and 25 win years for LA, and he competes pretty well too.
 
THURSDAY, JULY 30:
Lots of good stuff about the Washington Nationals so far

Yesterday’s solid presentations included:
Forfeit: the Final Game of the Washington Senators by Rick Schabowski, (when the fans took over the game with 2 outs in the 9th and the Sens up 8-6 in the last game under the Bob Short regime before the move to Texas)

Senators’ Hitting Streaks by Steve Krevisky (the 31 game streak by Sam Rice for the world champ Senators that helped drive them to the 1924 pennant; and the 33 game streak by Heinie Manush for the last championship team of the Senators in 1933)

The Big Train vs the Big Bambino: an analysis of Walter Johnson vs Babe Ruth as pitching opponents and hitting opponents, by Eric Weiss

Pull Up a Chair: Vin Scully’s Niche in Baseball History, by Curt Smith

Closers, Setup Men and LOOGYs: the Evolution of the Moddern Bullpen by Mike Emeigh

And one of the poster sessions: Rethinking Bill James’ Pythagorean Expectations by Susan Ballentine, a 12th grader using multiple regression models to use stats from both sides to predict outcomes; where James’ approach uses Runs Scored and Runs Allowed from various data, she manages to use the mathematical models to interact with each other….

Many others but these were some of the ones I heard yesterday

Red Sox at Orioles tonight–Camden Yards trip

By the way, this 12th grader is from Richmond VA, and is a winner of numerous academic honors in science and math, and has worked this summer in a NASA/NIA Summer Residential Mentorship in Engineering at NASA in Hampton, VA. She earned varsity letters in six sports in HS so far (softball, soccer, field hockey, basketball, indoor and outdoor track). She has been on the Western Pennsylvania Ski Race Team for 8 years and won the NASTAR national ski racing championship at Park City UT when she was 12. That same year she finished 2nd in the regional Punt, Pass and Kick Competition. After graduation next spring she plans to study applied mathematics at Cal Tech, Stanford or MIT….quite impressive.

July Meeting Wrap-Up

Ten members and guests attended the monthly meeting of the Rogers Hornsby SABR chapter on Monday, July 20 at Third Base in Austin.  Topics discussed included the recent All-Star game and both recent and upcoming trips by chapter members to various major league cities to see ballgames.  Tom Wancho presented an entertaining trivia quiz on the subject of unusual injuries in honor of Bill Gilbert who is currently on the chapter’s "disabled list."  Bill called in to the meeting and visited with most of the attendees for a few minutes.  Brian Rogers was the winner of the quiz and received game tickets and parking pass to a Round Rock Express game.

The next meeting was tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, August 25 at Third Base.

 

Monthly Meeting, June 2009

A total of 12 members and guests enjoyed BBQ at the Salt Lick restaurant followed by a once-every-20-years-or-so game between the New Orleans Zephyrs and Round Rock Express. Unfortunately, many of those in attendance at the Dell Diamond missed yet another example of why a baseball fan should *never* leave early regardless of the score.

After New Orleans broke open the scoreless pitchers’ duel by plating four runs in the top of the 11th inning, sending many in the crowd heading for the exits,  Round Rock came back with five in the bottom of the inning to pull out the win. The winning run scored on an errant throw from the catcher to first on an attempted 1-2-3 double play which would have ended the inning and sent the game to the 12th.

The next monthly meeting is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. on Monday, July 20 at Third Base in Austin.

Rogers Hornsby Chapter Annual Report for 2008

The Rogers Hornsby Chapter, serving Central and South Texas, was officially recognized as a SABR chapter early in 2006. The Chapter held 12 meetings in 2008 with one meeting in each month, continuing a streak of 25 straight months with a meeting. Ten were dinner meetings, held on a monthly basis, with an average attendance of ten people. In addition to baseball talk, these meetings allowed members to discuss areas of their research and were also used to plan chapter activities. Members are encouraged to bring guests to these meetings and some new active members have been added as a result.

The second annual winter meeting of the chapter was held in January 2008 on the campus of Texas State University in San Marcos. Thirty one people were in attendance at the meeting which included four research presentations by Chapter members and guest appearances by Kansas City Royals scout, Gene Watson, minor league pitcher, Chris Young, Round Rock Express Broadcaster, Mike Capps and Texas State University Baseball Coach, Ty Harrington. A new feature was a book exchange with several members bringing baseball books to exchange with other members. Remaining books were donated to the library at Texas State University.

One of the meetings in 2008 was held at Dell Diamond, the home of the Triple-A Round Rock Express. The meeting included a pre-game get together and attendance at the game as a group.

Five representatives of the Chapter attended the SABR Convention in Cleveland. Norman Macht and Gilbert Martinez made research presentations. Monte Cely had an article published in the 2008 Baseball Research Journal.

The Chapter is continuing a project to identify and commemorate former major league spring training sites in Texas. In February 2008, a three-part series ran in the Marlin, Texas newspaper detailing the history of major league spring training in that town from 1904 thru 1923. The newspaper series was timed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of John McGraw’s arrival in Marlin. A baseball display and book selection have also been established at the local library, and a historical plaque is being considered as further commemoration.

The Chapter’s official SABR-sponsored web site is in development and will be launched soon. Chapter communication and intra-chapter discussions are facilitated by a Yahoo Group mailing list.

The chapter has continued the monthly meetings in 2009. Another very successful Winter Meeting was held in January 2009 with former Astro pitcher, broadcaster and manager, Larry Dierker, as the featured speaker. The Winter Meeting is expected to be an annual affair.

Monthly meeting, May 2009

The Rogers Hornsby Chapter of SABR held its monthly get-together at Third Base in Austin on May 18, 2009.  Nine members were present. 

There was a lot of discussion about the season so far including some unusual plays.  Monte Cely presented a well-researched quiz on the St. Louis Browns which was won by Jim Baker (18 of 30) in a close race with Cy Morong (17) and Bill Gilbert (16).  Who knew that 1949 AL Rookie of the Year, Roy Sievers of the Browns, went to high school with Monte’s Mom.?
 
Jan Larson reported on the status of the Chapter web site which should be up and running in the next month.
 
The next meeting is scheduled for Saturday night, June 20 at Dell Diamond for the game between the Round Rock Express and the New Orleans Zephyrs.  Hornsby Chapter member and Express season ticket holder, Chuck Kaufman, is scheduled to throw out the first ball that night.  Jan Larson will handle communications and planning for the event.

Rogers Hornsby Chapter Annual Report for 2007

The Rogers Hornsby Chapter, serving Central and South Texas, was officially recognized as a SABR chapter early in 2006. The Chapter held 12 meetings in 2007 with one meeting in each month. Nine were dinner meetings, held on a monthly basis, with an average attendance of eleven people. In addition to baseball talk, these meetings allowed members to discuss areas of their research and were also used to plan chapter activities. Members are encouraged to bring guests to these meetings and some new active members have been added as a result.

The first annual winter meeting of the chapter was held in January 2007 on the campus of Texas State University in San Marcos. Thirty four people were in attendance at the meeting which included 4 research presentations by Chapter members and guest appearances by former major league pitcher, Carl Scheib, former player and scout, Al LaMacchia, Texas League President, Tom Kayser and San Antonio sportswriter, David King.

After the successful annual meeting in January 2007, another successful meeting was held in January 2008, again at Texas State University in San Marcos, midway between Austin and San Antonio. Thirty one people were in attendance and four chapter members made research presentations. Guest speakers included Kansas City Royals Scout, Gene Watson, Round Rock Express Broadcaster, Mike Capps, Minor League Pitcher, Chris Young and Texas State Baseball Coach, Ty Harrington. Norman Macht presented a trivia quiz. A new feature was a book exchange with several members bringing baseball books to exchange with other members. Remaining books were donated to the library at Texas State University.

Two meetings in 2007 were held at Dell Diamond, the home of the Triple-A Round Rock Express. Both meetings included a pre-game get together and attendance at a game as a group. At the first meeting, attended by 21 people, three members gave research presentations.

The Chapter is continuing a project to identify and commemorate former major league spring training sites in Texas. Norman Macht and Tom Wancho are co-leaders of this project which also involves the other 3 SABR chapters in Texas. Chapter member Monte Cely researched the spring training history of Marlin, Texas, resulting in an article that was published as a three-part series in the local newspaper. A baseball display has also been developed at the Marlin Public Library.

The chapter has continued the monthly meetings in 2008 including a trip to a game in Round Rock. The Winter Meeting is expected to be an annual affair.