The Holy Cow! September 2003

Ohio Cup Festival Brings Rain

The 12th Ohio Cup Festival of Vintage Base Ball was held on Saturday and Sunday, August 30-31 in Columbus, Ohio, at the Ohio Historical Center Complex among ankle deep water puddles. Twenty-five determined vintage base ball clubs from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota and Pennsylvania did not let several inches of rain on Friday and Friday night stop the 19th century base ball games. Several chapter members who are members of the Quickstep and St. Croix Base Ball Clubs combined forces and formed a team known as the Minnesota Loggers for the festival. Nine Quicksteps participated in the fourth Ohio Cup in 1995 and in recent years Minnesota vintage ballists have participated as the Minnesota North Stars (Quicksteps, St. Croix, and Rochester Roosters ) in 2001 and Minnesota Loggers and Rochester Roosters in 2002 and 2003.

After a slight delay to find the driest place to set up the fields, play began around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday. The Loggers faced the Columbus Capitals and were bested by that Ohio nine by a score of 9 aces (runs) to 6 aces. It seemed their well struck balls found gaps and strange bounces in the outfield while hits from the Minnesota boys were right at the fielders. Possibly the semi-arid conditions in Minnesota this summer left our boys unaccustomed to the feel of water in their shoes and playing six games in two days in wet and dirty uniforms.

After an hour rest the Loggers faced the Indianapolis Blues, with the result being almost identical, a 9 to 5 loss. The final game of Saturday for the Loggers was played around three o’clock in the afternoon in the Ohio Village meadow against the Deep River Grinders of Hobart, Indiana. In a game that will go down in vintage base ball lore as the “Tree Game” the Loggers held on for a 2 to 1 victory with an assist from a tree in left field. With a runner on base in the late innings of the game, a Grinder hit a ball into a tree. Logger outfielders spent several minutes trying to locate the ball, before boosting the smallest and lightest Logger, outfielder Paul Harris, up into the tree to retreive the ball. Since the ball was recovered before it had struck the ground, the batter was ruled out and the lead preserved.
Sunday games were played against the Rock Springs Ground Squirrels of Decatur, Illinois, (6-3 loss), the Sycamore, Ohio Grasshoppers (5-3 win) and the Carriage Hill Clodbusters (New Carlisle, Ohio), a 10-6 loss. After a barbecue at the home of Ohio Village Muffin, Bob Golden, on Sunday night, the Loggers headed home on Labor Day Monday only to run into several hours of rain in Indiana and Illinois. Chapter members attending the Ohio Cup as the Loggers were Dean Thilgen, Jim Wyman, Rich Arpi, and Bob Tholkes, who sharpened his tally-keeping skills rather than risk injury and wet feet. Other members of the Loggers were Jody Ebnet, Patrick Pfundstein, Paul Harris, Don Hammer, and Lawrence Williams. Don and Jody played several other games with other teams, including the Rochester Roosters, Canal Fulton Mules, and the Clodbusters. Rich Arpi also played a game at second base with the Indianapolis Blues, a second year club attending their first Cup.

The Fall meeting of the Halsey Hall Chapter of SABR will take place on Saturday, October 25th at the United Community Methodist Church at 950 Gould Avenue in Columbia Heights (just east of Central Avenue by the Dairy Queen and movie theatre). As normal, the meeting will begin about nine a.m. with research presentations If you would like to give a presentation let Jim Wyman (763-427-6517) know as soon as possible. Kyle McNary, author of a biography on Double Duty Radcliffe will be one of the presenters. Lunch will be the normal fix your own sandwiches with chips and soda for a small charge. As of this writing a main speaker has not been arranged but members can stay over and watch that night’s World Series game in the company of fellow baseball enthusiasts.

Baseball Results 2003

Minnesota Amateur Tournaments

Class A - Minnetonka Millers

Class B- Austin Greyhounds

Class C - Green Isle Irish

and a

national championship in the American Legion World Series to the Rochester, Mn. A’s. Rochester defeated Cherryville, North Carolina 5-2 in the championship game of the national tournament held in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Congratulations to all these teams.

The chapter book club will meet on Saturday October 4th at 10:00 a.m. at the Barnes and Noble coffee shop (lower level) at the Edina Galleria (just south of the Southdale Mall off of France Avenue). The featured book is Moneyball by Michael Lewis. All members of SABR are welcome and you need not have read the book to participate, as past meetings can attest to (though it does help). Suggestions about future meetings and books should be directed to the moderator, Tom Swift at swifttom@hotmail.com or (507-645-2280).

Chapter Breakfast

Will be held on Saturday, September 6th (this notice is unfortunately too late for those who didn’t place it on the calendar after reading the previous issue) at the normal location of the Bakers Square at 66th and Xerxes in Richifield at 8:30 a.m. with a Twins game at ll:00 a.m. to follow. The breakfast meetings, which have been held for several years now, are scheduled every other month on the first Saturday of the month. The next breakfast will be on November 1st.

Halsey Hall Chapter Officers:

President: Jim Wyman

Vice-president: Bob Tholkes

Secretary-Treasurer: Rich Arpi

Web-master: Dean Thilgen

Other Members of the Board of Directors: Chuck Blomquist, Tom Swift, and Rex Hamman.

You heard it here first.....

with a real possibility of the National League wild card race ending in a tie involving more than two teams, Bud Selig will find a way to screw it all up.

Thank you to those of you that have sent in your renewal since the last issue. However, we still have around (30) members on our current mailing list that have not renewed as of this date. Subscribers who do not renew will not receive issues after the next issue (October).

If you see a red dot below, you are one of the thirty members who have not renewed. This year there is an option to receive and electronic copy for a rreduced price of $ 6.00 (as opposed to $ 12.00 for the paper copy). Please send your payment, made out to the Halsey Hall Chapter, to Rich Arpi at the address listed below. If you want an electronic copy remember to list the e-mail address where you want the newsletter sent.