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The Newsletter of the Halsey Hall Chapter
Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
May 2009
Chief Bender’s Burden by Tom Swift Wins Seymour Medal
Julio Becquer to be Featured Speaker Spring Chapter Meeting May 2
Four Board Members to be Elected at Chapter Meeting
Minnesotans in Baseball Published
Ballots for SABR Election Coming Out
Chapter Members Part of Twins Author Series
Member News
Hennessy Debuts as Major League Baseball Official Scorer
Quicksteps News
Calendar
Board of Directors
Chief Bender’s Burden by Tom Swift Wins Seymour Medal
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Tom Swift receiving the Seymour Medal, flanked by Dorothy Seymour Mills and SABR executive director John Zajc. |
Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star by Tom Swift received the 2009 Seymour Medal, which is awarded each spring to the best baseball book (biography or history) published in the previous calendar year. Tom received the award at the Seymour Conference in Cleveland on April 25.
Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees’ First Dynasty by Halsey Hall Chapter member Dan Levitt was one of three finalists (along with Chief Bender’s Burden and The Father of Baseball: A Biography of Henry Chadwick by Andrew J. Schiff) for the Seymour Medal.
Also, Chief Bender’s Burden was one of four finalists for the Larry Ritter Award
from SABR’s Deadball Era Committee.
Julio Becquer to be Featured Speaker Spring Chapter Meeting May 2
Julio Becquer, who played in parts of seven seasons in the major leagues, will be the featured speaker at the Halsey Hall Chapter Meeting on Saturday, May 2. Becquer, a native of Havana, Cuba, was a member of the Twins in 1961 and is remembered for a grand slam he hit with two out in the bottom of the ninth to beat the White Sox 6-4 in the first game of a Fourth of July doubleheader that year.
The meeting will be at the Grace University Lutheran Church, 324 Harvard Street SE, Minneapolis, 612-331-0125. Parking is in lot AA, across Harvard Street from the church. The group will attend the Twins-Royals game in the evening.
Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. with opening ceremonies, hosted by Howard Luloff, starting at 9:00. The research presentations will be:
- The 1950s St. Paul Saints by Joe O’Connell.
- Blix Donnelly by Gregg Omoth.
- A presentation by Cary Smith on archival collections.
- Accuracy in Research: The Virtue of Skepticism by Stew Thornley.
In the afternoon, following a presentation by a representative of the Minneapolis/Metro Millers about plans to build a new stadium in the southern metro area, Julio Becquer will speak and then answer questions starting at 1:00. Howard Luloff will lead a baseball trivia contest to end the meeting.
Registration for the meeting is $8, which includes lunch. There is also a meeting-only price of $5.
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Four Board Members to be Elected at Chapter Meeting
At the business meeting during lunch at the May 2 Chapter Meeting, four members will be elected to two-year terms on the chapter’s board of directors. Scot Johnson, George Rekela, Chuck Blomquist, and Kevin Hennessy have been nominated. Any other member in good standing may be nominated from the floor during the meeting.
Candidate statements:
Kevin Hennessy
I first joined SABR in 1991 at the suggestion of then co-STATS reporter Jim Rogde. I also joined the Halsey Hall Chapter but never attended a regional meeting until fall of 1997. At the time I was concerned that the Twins would be heading to North Carolina and I would have to fill a large baseball vacuum in may life. That first meeting was very interesting and within the year I had my first appointment to the HH Board which extended to four years and included time as secretary/treasurer and treasurer. I also filled a vacancy for a one-year term two years ago.
My baseball resume includes the following:
- Reporter for STATS, Inc. and STATS, LLC from 1990 to present; reporter for Sportsource, The Baseball Workshop, and Total Sports, 1991-2000.
- With the Baseball Workshop, wrote the Minnesota essays for The Scouting Report, 2006.
- “Baseball Analyst“ for the local edition of All Things Considered on MPR, 1996-2002.
- Volunteer with Retrosheet, scoring and inputting from newspaper accounts and old scoresheets for the 1920 American League season.
- Periodic presenter at HH Chapter meetings; periodic contributor to our previous publication, The Holy Cow Extra.
- Official scorer last season and this season for the St. Paul Saints; Official Scorer in one game (4/18/09) for the Twins.
- Avid baseball game and simulation hobbyist.
I feel it is important to stay involved in the organizations to which I belong to on a continuous basis. In particular, I would like to be part of the board as our chapter makes its bid for and hopefully begins to plan for the hosting a SABR National Convention. I have transferable skills in organization, leading up committees and following through on details that could help in preparation for this event. Most of all, I want to be part of helping with this event as it begins to take shape – not that I need to be a member of the board to do this, but at the same time desiring to contribute in a significant way in the hosting of this event.
SABR brings us all together in a special way that only dedicated baseball fans can appreciate. I support further efforts to do this, such as our recent collaboration with the Minnesotans in Baseball Biography book project. Although I don’t participate in most local Chapter events regularly (some not as much as I would like to, in fact) I do support all of these and value my time spent with fellow Halsey Hall Chapter members.
(Since candidate statements had been solicited in the past, one candidate submitted a statement this year even though they had not been requested. The other candidates are invited to bring statements to the chapter meeting.)
Candidates should plan to attend the chapter board of directors meeting on Sunday evening, June 14. At this meeting, the incoming board members and holdover board members will elect, from among themselves, a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer to a one-year term that will begin July 1. (A description of the duties for these offices is at http://halseyhall.org/bylaws#procedures.) Other than the elections at this board meeting, only the outgoing and holdover board members will be allowed to vote on chapter business because the board term of the incoming members will not begin until July 1.
Minnesotans in Baseball Published
Minnesotans in Baseball, a collaborative project of the Halsey Hall SABR Chapter, has been published by Nodin Press of Minneapolis and is on its way into the bookstores. Written by chapter members Anne Aronson, Rich Arpi, Doug Ernst, Bob Evans, Rex Hamann, Kevin Hennessy, Glen Herness, Scot Johnson, Dan Levitt, Howard Luloff, Ray Luurs, Art Mugalian, Gregg Omoth, Armand Peterson, George Rekela, Joel Rippel, Herb Schaper, Nat Shepard, Doug Skipper, Cary Smith, Tom Swift, Lee Temanson, Bob Tholkes, Stew Thornley, and Tom Tomashek, Minnesotans in Baseball contains profiles on 46 Minnesota natives who were prominent in baseball: John Anderson, Charles Albert “Chief” Bender, Johnny Blanchard, Joe Brinkman, Tom Burgmeier, Joe Bush, Steve Comer, Bill Davis, Blix Donnelly, Jim Eisenreich, George “Showboat” Fisher, Hank Gehring, Paul Giel, Wally Gilbert, Angelo Giuliani, Dave Goltz, Halsey Hall, Jean Ann Havlish, Kent Hrbek, Walt Jocketty, Bob “Rocky” Johnson, Jerry Kindall, Mike Kingery, Jerry Koosman, Tim Laudner, Joe Mauer, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Walt “Moose” Moryn, Greg Olson, Robb Quinlan, Jim Rantz, Rip Repulski, Larry Rosenthal, Howie Schultz, Dick Siebert, Terry Steinbach, Dick Stigman, Toni Stone, Jerry Terrell, George Thomas, Rube Walberg, Charley Walters, Wes Westrum, Don Wheeler, and Dave Winfield.
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Ballots for SABR Election Coming Out
Ballots for the election of president, secretary, and director will be arriving in the mail soon in the SABR Bulletin. All members are urged to vote. One of the candidates for director, Cary Smith, is a Halsey Hall Chapter member.
Here is a list of the board candidates:
- President: F. X. Flinn, Andy McCue
- Secretary: Vince Gennaro, Bill Marshall
- Director: Gary Gillette, Rodney Johnson, Seamus Kearney, R.J. Lesch, Cary Smith
Chapter Members Part of Twins Author Series
The Minnesota Twins will host a Baseball Author Series, which includes a number of Halsey Hall Chapter members, for season ticket holders prior to select Tuesday evening home games starting on Tuesday, May 12th. There will be a question and answer format with each author in the Mirassou Winery Sunroom starting at 6:00 p.m. with all but one of the sessions emceed by a chapter member (a poor-man’s Howard Luloff).
Here is the lineup for the series:
- May 12, Jim Thielman, Cool of the Evening: The 1965 Minnesota Twins
- May 26, John Rosengren, Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid: The Year That Changed Baseball Forever
- June 2, Dan Levitt, Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees’ First Dynasty
- June 16, Tom Tomashek and Armand Peterson, Town Ball: The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball
- July 7, Stew Thornley, Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History
- July 28, Tom Swift, Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star
- August 11, Alan Ross, Twins Pride: For the Love of Kirby, Kent, and Killebrew
- August 25, To be determined
- September 1, Christy Sauro, Twins Platoon: An Epic Story of Young Marines at War in Vietnam
- September 15, Jim Johnson, “Dummy” Hanson: A Deaf Baseball Pitcher’s Life in the Hearing World
Member News
Aaron Gleeman has a baseball column on MinnPost.com that is well worth reading.
Twins Geek John Bonnes is editing the Twins’ GameDay scorecard with more information on-line at http://www.mngameday.com.
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Hennessy Debuts as Major League Baseball Official Scorer
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Kevin Hennessy made his debut as an official scorer for Major League Baseball at the Twins-Angels game on April 18. Kevin had an active game, having to make a lot of decisions, and stood up to a strong challenge to one of his calls. |
Quicksteps News
The Quicksteps vintage base ball team will perform a demonstration match at the Metrodome prior to the Twins-Mariners game on Saturday, May 9. The Quicksteps’ open squad and SABR nine will be combined for the demonstration and then split into separate squads for the rest of the season. Here is the schedule for the SABR nine:
- Saturday, June 6—History Festival, West St. Paul
- Saturday, July 4—The Landing in Shakopee
- Saturday, July 18—Minneapolis (tentative)
- Monday, August 3—Fridley Historical Society
- Saturday, August 8—Richfield Historical Society
- Saturday, August 29—Albert Lea
- Sunday, September 20—Brooklyn Park
Members may check for updates as well as for the schedule of the open squad at http://halseyhall.org/quicksteps.html.
Calendar
May 2—Spring Chapter Meeting. For more information, contact Howard Luloff, 952-922-5036, Hfan77@webtv.net.
May 9—Hot Stove Saturday Morning, Bakers Square, 66th and Xerxes, Richfield, 9:00 a.m. For more information, contact Mark Johnson, 952-831-1153, baseballbooks@comcast.net.
June 13—Book Club Meeting, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee by Allen Barra. For more information, contact Tom Dolen, 651-483-8617, or Art Mugalian, 612-721-2825,
amugalian@comcast.net.
Halsey Hall Chapter
Board of Directors 2008-2009
President—Art Mugalian
Vice President—Lee Temanson
Secretary—Armand Peterson
Treasurer—Jerry Janzen
Doug Ernst
Gary Hackenmueller
Stew Thornley
The Holy Cow! Editor—Stew Thornley
Webmaster—John Gregory
Halsey Hall Chapter Web Page: http://halseyhall.org
Halsey Hall Chapter E-list/Message Board: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/halseyhall
Past issues of The Holy Cow! are available at http://halseyhall.org/pubs/holy.html
Chapter History: http://halseyhall.org/officers_history.html
Chapter Procedures and By-Laws: http://halseyhall.org/bylaws.html
Society for American Baseball Research: http://sabr.org
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