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The Newsletter of the Halsey Hall Chapter
Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)

November 2008

Recap of Fall Chapter Meeting
New Members: Will Young and Ed De Celle
Cow Chips
Calendar
Board of Directors

Recap of Fall Chapter Meeting

Johnny Blanchard

More than 20 SABR members and guests attended the Fall Meeting of the Halsey Hall Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research at TCF Bank on Lexington Parkway in St. Paul on October 18. The morning portion of the meeting included several research presentations:

• Rich Arpi talked about Dick Siebert and Art Mugalian about Walt “Moose” Moryn, the subjects of the biographies they wrote for the upcoming Minnesotans in Baseball book.
• Pete Gorton gave an update on the Donaldson project, which he started several years ago to compile statistics on pitcher John Donaldson.
• Stew Thornley presented a slide show on the Polo Grounds.

In addition, Bob Tholkes provided a season summary of the Quicksteps vintage base ball team.

During the business meeting at lunch, a motion was passed to amend the by-laws with the addition of the following sentence to Article I (Chapter), Section 3 (Meetings): “A quorum shall consist of a majority of board members for meetings of the board of directors and at least 10 chapter members for semi-annual business meetings.”

The afternoon highlight was an appearance by Johnny Blanchard, an outstanding athlete from Minneapolis who played for the New York Yankees in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Johnny spoke and answered questions for 90 minutes, covering topics such ranging from offering to have a beer (and then a milkshake) with Jerry Kindall to Mickey Mantle’s final days to Phil Linz’s harmonica to Whitey Ford’s secret for loading up a baseball.

The meeting concluded with Howard Luloff’s baseball quiz as Team Smith pounded Team Thornley.

New Members: Will Young and Ed De Celle
Will Young grew up in Richfield. His parents bought season tickets for the Twins when he was a baby, so he attended about 20 to 25 games a year sitting next to the players’ wives. His grandpa (the baseball patriarch of the family) taught Will to score when he was four, and he now has 20 scorebooks filled with games he has attended. Will was so thorough with his scoring that Kent Hrbek’s father-in-law often stopped by to check out his book. Will was at the Metrodome for Game Two of the 1991 World Series, Scott Erickson’s no-hitter in 1994, and Eddie Murray’s 3,000th hit. He also attended the first game of the American League playoffs at Yankee Stadium in 2004. He had a Twins blog for about four years and received 1,000 visits a day until retiring from it last spring. Will’s wife is also hooked on baseball, a result of Will telling her to ask him any baseball question that popped into her head.

Will spent seven years in Washington, D. C., as a student before returning to the Twin Cities. He is now the operations manager of the Campus Center at Macalester College in St. Paul, making sure that events function smoothly. While in Washington, he attended several meetings of the Bob Davids SABR Chapter, and he has also attended SABR conventions in Toronto and Cleveland.

Will shares his January 13 birthday with Kevin Mitchell, Elmer Dessens, Fred Schulte, Steve Comer, Bob Forsch, Larry Jaster, Cactus Keck, Goat Anderson, Jersey Joe Walcott, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

The Halsey Hall Chapter also welcomes new member Ed De Celle, who was recruited by Joe O’Connell.

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Cow Chips
Howard Luloff was once again the voice of St. Louis Park High School football, doing public-address announcing for their games. Last spring, Howard did the p. a. announcing for a high-school section baseball tournament. . . . Cary Smith got a grant from the Minnesota Digital Library to digitize the photo collection of the Excelsior-Lake Minnetonka Historical Society. He continues to attend library school at the College of St. Catherine. . . .Aaron Gleeman is a columnist for MinnPost.com. . . . Paul Rittenhouse has been officiating year-round, making the calls in softball, football, and basketball. . . . Jerry Janzen, Brenda Himrich, and her husband went to a haunted hayride that also featured All-Star Wrestling matches, including the opportunity for Jerry and Brenda’s husband to pose with and be body slammed by The Virgin Louisa Liece (see photos below).

Calendar
    November 9—Research Roundtable, Perkins Restaurant, 4917 Eden Avenue, Edina, 6:00 p.m. For more information, contact Bob Tholkes, 763-781-6161, rjtholkes@msn.com.

    November 22—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.

    December 6—Book Club Meeting, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., Crazy ‘08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History by Cait N. Murphy. 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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