Halsey Hall Chapter - SABR: Research Committee

Home > Chapter Member Research Projects

The chapter's research committee has put together a white paper on how to do baseball research. Get in touch with us if you have additional research tips to share.

This page offers chapter researchers a place to describe their projects and post queries. The power of the Internet will eventually make the topics, names and places described here appear on search engines. To submit information or queries about your research, chapter members may contact Dan Levitt, committee chair.

Chapter, Board Member Signs Book Contract

Halsey Hall Chapter member Tom Swift has signed his first book contract. He is writing a biography of Charles "Albert" Chief Bender that will be published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2006 or 2007. Bender, a Hall of Fame pitcher who spent most of his major league career with the Philadelphia Athletics, was born on the White Earth Reservation in Crow Wing County, Minn. Until Dave Winfield was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, Bender was the only living Minnesota-born player enshrined in Cooperstown, N.Y. Swift welcomes suggestions and information from chapter members. He can be reached at the contact information listed in the SABR directory. For more information about Bender or the forthcoming book, visit www.nickelcurves.com

1877 St. Paul base ball ad and Red Caps photograph ad

Minnesota 19th Century Base Ball Project
February 2005 update

Dean Thilgen, Rich Arpi, Bob Tholkes, Cary Smith and other Halsey Hall Chapter members are working on the Minnesota 19th Century Base Ball Project, which will culminate in 2007 with the year-long celebration, Sesquicentennial of Regulation Baseball in Minnesota, 1857-2007. This is a multi-faceted effort, attempting to fully document the early years of Minnesota baseball.

A central effort is canvassing extant 19th century Minnesota newspapers, noting all baseball references. We are now actively extracting articles from the 1870s and 1880s. The extracts are being used to compile a list of known 19th century Minnesota clubs. The articles are also being used to complete a chronology for the forthcoming Minnesota baseball history section on this web site.

Biographies underway by Dean Thilgen: Capt. Rollin C. Olin, who was an ace pitcher for the North Star Base Ball Club of St. Paul during the post-Civil War years; St. Paul musician Russell C. Munger, who started the first baseball club there in 1858; John S. Barnes, who managed clubs in St. Paul and Minneapolis in the 1880s and 1890s. Research on the subject of the sesquicentennial, the Nininger Base Ball Club of Nininger City, Minnesota Territory, is in progress. Rich Arpi is revising and updating his earlier articles on St. Paul baseball.

The next phase of the project works in other primary and secondary sources, seeking early Minnesota baseball photographs and illustrations, artifacts, and other supporting evidence. An example of ones we seek are described in this 1877 advertisement, shown above, from the Charles W. Stiff studio of St. Paul, Minnesota. These 1877 Red Caps BBC photographs, printed in three sizes, would be a great addition to this website. If you can send us a scan of any 19th century Minnesota baseball-related image, please let us know.

In 2002, the first results of this project were given in presentations to the Vintage Base Ball Association by Deano Thilgen at their annual convention and the spring Halsey Hall Chapter meeting by Deano Thilgen and Rich Arpi. Research from this project has been incorporated in two forthcoming books to be published by Minnesota Historical Society Press, including a general Minnesota baseball history by Halsey Hall Chapter president Stew Thornley. In 2004 an article by Dean Thilgen on Minnesota baseball from 1857 to 1868 was published by the Living History Society of Minnesota.

Your contribution and participation is needed. Please contact us. vbbdeano@myinfmail.com

Armand Peterson is half of a writing team that is researching amateur ball. This comes from their website, Minnesota Baseball Glory Days: "We’re writing a book about amateur baseball in Minnesota, covering the years from the end of World War II until 1960. Baseball boomed right after the war, and towns all over the state built or improved their fields, and hundreds added lights. By 1950, there were over 800 amateur teams playing in 105 leagues, regularly drawing crowds over a thousand. Eight of the leagues were Class AA, stocked with former pros, young college stars and pro prospects, and with payrolls to match." www.mnbaseballglorydays.com/

Cary Smith is researching players Leon Day, Willie (Bill) Foster, Hal Newhouser, Phil Niekro, John Montgomery (Monte) Ward, and Willie "Devil" Wells.

Stew Thornley documents the graves of hall of fame players, and researches the history of the Minneapolis Millers. Thornely is actively working on a Minnesota baseball history book for the Minnesota Historical Society.