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


February 2023

Editor:
Stew Thornley

Index to past stories in The Holy Cow!

  • Back at Twinsfest
  • Spring Chapter Meeting April 15
  • Upcoming Events
  • Bill Davis Dies
  • New Members
  • Quiz by Bob Komoroski
  • Cow Chips
  • Answers to Quiz
  • Calendar
  • Board of Directors
  • Resources

    Back at Twinsfest

    The Halsey Hall Chapter at Twins Fest

    After a two-year break because of the pandemic, Twinsfest was back, and so was the Halsey Hall Chapter. Doug Skipper once again did the heavy lifting to set it up and coordinate members to staff the booth, promote the organization, and show off our Beyond the Twins: Hall of Famers in Minnesota display. The volunteers were Art Mugalian, Daniel Dorff, Brenda Himrich and her husband, Gene Gomes, Darryl Sannes, Jeff Lenz, and David Karpinski.

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    Spring Chapter Meeting April 15
    Events Committee chair Howard Luloff announced April 15, 2023 as the date for the next Spring Halsey Hall Chapter meeting at Faith Mennonite Church. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. with the program beginning 15 minutes later.

    The cost for the meeting and lunch is $10. The meeting only is $5. Those wanting lunch are asked to RSVP to Howard Luloff, 952-922-5036. People can pay by cash (with correct change appreciated) or check at the door.

    The business meeting, during lunch, will include the election of four members to the chapter board of directors. There will be a featured speaker in the afternoon, and the morning will consist of research presentations by chapter members.

    Members are invited to submit a proposal to make a research presentation at the meeting. Proposals must be sent by April 1 to Research Committee co-chairs Dave Lande or Gene Gomes and include a title and brief outline of what the presentation will consist of with emphasis on the research that will be included. Standard oral presentations are 20 minutes (with an additional eight minutes for questions) although the duration may be longer or shorter depending on the needs of the presenter and of the schedule.

    One presentation slot is always reserved for a first-time presenter until four weeks before the chapter meeting (March 18). If a slot remains after that, any member can submit a proposal until April 1, two weeks before the meeting, when the Research Committee will wrap up the schedule of presentations.

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    Upcoming Events
    Everyone is invited to a gathering/hang out of the Minneapolis Association of Baseball Enthusiasts at Grumpy’s Northeast, 2200 4th Street NE, Minneapolis 55418 (one block east of University Avenue and three blocks south of Lowry Avenue) on Friday, February 10. Come anytime after 5 p.m. and stay until they kick you out. Drink, eat Heggie’s pizza, and talk baseball with friends. Always a good time.

    The book club will meet at Barnes & Noble in Har Mar Mall at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 11 and discuss The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton. Brent Heutmaker has organized a list of all the book selections since the book club started in August 2002: Halsey Hall Book Club Selections

    The next Research Committee meeting, via Zoom, will be Monday, February 20 (with the next meeting Monday, March 20). Contact co-chairs Dave Lande or Gene Gomes if you would like to attend. Other Research Committee members are Brenda Himrich, Sarah Johnson, Dan Levitt, Doug Skipper, Stew Thornley, Rich Arpi, Anders Koskinen, Hans Van Slooten, Mike Haupert, Bob Tholkes, Daniel Dorff, Darryl Sannes, Tom Swift, David Karpinski, Glenn Renick, John Buckeye, and Bob Komoroski.

    Justin Mckinney will make a zoom presentation about the 1884 St. Paul team in the Union Association on Monday, March 6 at 7:00 p.m. According to Justin, a baseball researcher and archivist living in Canada, “The Union Association was formed as an upstart major league in September 1883. Led by an impulsive 26-year-old millionaire named Henry Lucas, the league endured a tumultuous, bizarre, and memorable 1884 season, before it disbanded in early 1885. This presentation will tell the story of how an 8 team league became home to 12 teams in 13 cities, including the odd plight of the nomadic St. Paul, Minnesota club, who joined the league in late September and never played a home game.”

    The Fred Souba Hot Stove Saturday Morning, an informal breakfast gathering for the purpose of talking baseball, will be at Manning’s at 22nd and Como in southeast Minneapolis on Saturday, March 11 at 9:00 a.m. We can get tables reserved if we have some idea of how many are coming. Please RSVP to me, stew@stewthornley.net, if you plan to attend. This is an informal RSVP, so feel free to show up even if you haven’t RSVP’d and/or don’t sweat it if you RSVP and can’t make it (although an un-RSVP, if possible, would be appreciated).

    Keep up to date with chapter activities on social media:

    SABR Halsey Hall Chapter Facebook page

    Halsey Hall Chapter Twitter page

    Please visit both pages, and, if you haven’t yet, “Like” the Facebook page and “Follow” the Twitter page and set your notifications to be alerted to new posts.

    Also:

    Regular Events

    Video Archives of Past Events

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    Bill Davis Dies

    Bill Davis, Tim Laudner, Bob Johnson, Frank Quilici

    Bill Davis, Tim Laudner, Bob ’Rocky“ Johnson, and Frank Quilici at the 2012 SABR convention.

    Bill Davis, who twice was a featured guest at our chapter meetings and was on the player panel at the 2012 SABR convention in Minneapolis, died January 13 at the age of 80. Bill was a baseball and basketball star at Richfield High School and played both sports for the Minnesota Gophers, including as a first baseman for the national championship team in 1964. Bill played for Cleveland and San Diego and was the first first baseman in the history of the Padres.

    Don Evans, Bill Davis, and Greg Wasick

    Bill Davis, flanked by Don Evans and Greg Wasick, on a Gophers panel at the Fall 2004 Chapter Meeting.

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    New Members
    New to the Halsey Hall Chapter and SABR: Mark Glotter

    The Halsey Hall Chapter has welcomed five new members since our previous chapter meeting and has 234 members.

    Know a potential member? Here are resources for getting that person happily involved in SABR:

    Membership application

    Get more out of your membership experience by checking out SABR Member Benefit Spotlight Series.

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    Quiz by Bob Komoroski
    The January Research Committee meeting included a quiz submitted by Bob Komoroski. There is a theme to the quiz.

    1. This team was established in 1903 as a charter member of the Pacific Coast League and would twice serve as the AAA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.
    2. This former USC Trojan played for seven MLB teams, one of which was the Chicago Cubs. He played for another team on two separate occasions. He was a no-show at Wrigley Field on the day the Cubs chose to honor him.
    3. This Fenway Park landmark was named after him.
    4. He managed the Brewers and the Cubs. Rickey Henderson credits him with teaching him the fine points of stealing bases.
    5. Jim Bouton played for this independent team which was the subject of a documentary. Bonus points for the name of the family which own the team and the stadium in which they played.
    6. He was the 2012 N.L. Gold Glove winner at second base and a member of back-to-back College World Series championships.
    7. This two-sport athlete is the second youngest player in Blue Jay history to hit a home run at 20 years, 77 days, surpassed only by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
    8. This former Twin was fired four days after being named manager by the Arizona Diamondbacks. He also served time in jail on multiple occasions but would go on to become a successful minor league manager.
    9. This two-time All Star is the recipient of three distinguished awards, the Gold Glove (three times), the Roberto Clemente Award, and the Emmy Award (four times).
    10. His first MLB appearance was at age 25 with the 1968 Detroit Tigers, although he was traded late in the season and would not appear in that year’s World Series. Eleven years later, he would be a significant player in the Pirates 1979 World Series championship. He also had a successful broadcasting career.

    Quiz Answers below

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    Cow Chips
    Emily Leachman, daughter of Nancy Jo, appreciated the picture in last month’s The Holy Cow! showing our group in front of an Iowa sign in 1991. Though young at the time, Emily said she remembers even more the following year when we posed in front of another sign that had its “Welcome to the Heartland” slogan mysteriously altered.

    1992 Iowa road trip

    The second Halsey Hall Chapter road trip, August 8-9, 1992, with some Leachmans, a Wyman, a couple of Hepokoskis, a Rekela, a Levitt, and a miscreant. This trip included a minor-league game in Clinton, Iowa, and a side-jaunt to Field of Dreams.

    Brenda Himrich has been named to the Minnesota Twins Season Ticket Holder Advisory Council. She plans to use her platform to express concern about the noise and cacophony that are an unfortunate staple of their “game production.”

    David Karpinski’s Baseball Roundtable profiled Halsey Hall Chapter board member and Twins official scorer Sarah Johnson.

    Baseball Roundtable Talks with MLB Official Scorer Sarah Johnson

    David’s blog has long been on Feedspot’s list of “Top 100 Baseball Blogs” and recently was added to the Anytime Baseball list of “66 Top Baseball Sites You Should Be Following.”

    Front cover of Fields Apart

    Joe Niese, under the pen name J. N. Kelly, has a new book, Fields Apart, a work of historical fiction for young adults of all ages. It is set to be released by Rowe Publishing in mid-February, and orders are available through the publisher or at http://joeniese.com.

    Back cover of Fields Apart

    Dan Levitt had an article, “Anticipating and Controlling Cheating and Unwanted Behavior—Lessons from Baseball,” (with a reference to cornhole cheating) in the December 6, 2022 CEO World magazine.

    Terry Bohn wrote about Willie Ludolph for the SABR BioProject.

    The SABR Games Project has new entries by chapter members:

    Several games stories by chapter members that are in the Metropolitan Stadium book are now on-line:

    Games Project leader John Fredlund produced a list of the 50 articles most viewed in 2022 with one by a chapter member coming in seventh with 4,007 views: July 1, 1990: Andy Hawkins no-hitter is ‘no winner’ for Yankees.

    A SABR ebook SABR eBooks¡Arriba! The Heroic Life of Roberto Clemente— which has articles by chapter members, is not available in Spanish and can be downloaded for free by chapter members: ¡Arriba! La Heroica Vida de Roberto Clemente.

    Ben and Lloyd Kepple

    Lloyd Kepple was back at Twins Fantasy Camp, playing on the Wallbangers with his son Ben. (The two are pictured above. Ben is the good-looking one.) The Wallbangers made the playoffs but were then victimized by a day of rain that truncated the playoffs and caused the elimination of some of the lower seeds. Lloyd was also inducted into the Twins Fantasy Camp Hall of Fame and is shown below flanked by fellow inductees Pat Held and John “Stumpie” Stump.

    Pat, Lloyd, and Stumpie

    Cary Smith, along with Jason Schwartz, is a co-leader in cataloging the photos in the SABR/Rucker Archive.

    The SABR 19th Century Research Committee had an interesting presentation about Elysian Fields by Jonathan Popovich as part of its 19th Century Speaker Series.

    LSD on cover of 1966 Houston Astros program

    The Houston Astros promoting hallucinogenics on the cover of their 1966 programs? The prelude to a Dock Ellis no-hitter? A year before White Sox manager Eddie Stanky was called a crybaby by Minnesota fans, Cubs manager Leo Durocher was so tagged in Houston. The initials on the baby bottle are for Leo S. Durocher (never mind that Leo’s middle name was Ernest). Read on: Why Does a 1966 Astros Baseball Program Show a Cub Drinking LSD?

    The January 2023 edition of Keltner’s Hot Corner, the newsletter of the Ken Keltner Badger State Chapter is on-line:

    Keltner’s Hot Corner, January 2023

    For past Keltner’s Hot Corner newsletters:

    Keltner’s Hot Corner

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    Answers to Quiz by Bob Komoroski
    The theme is Oregon. Birthplaces and/or hometowns are noted for the players.

    1. Portland Beavers
    2. Dave Kingman (Pendleton)
    3. Pesky Pole, named after Johnny Pesky (Portland)
    4. Tom Trebelhorn (Portland)
    5. Portland Mavericks, Russell family (including actors Bing and Kurt), Multnomah/Civic Stadium
    6. Darwin Barney (Portland, Beaverton)
    7. Danny Ainge (Eugene)
    8. Wally Backman (Hillsboro)
    9. Harold Reynolds (Eugene, Corvallis)
    10. Jim Rooker (Lakeview)

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    Calendar
        January 28—Twinsfest, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m..

        February 10—Minneapolis Association of Baseball Enthusiasts hang out, Grumpy’s Northeast, around 5 p.m. or so.

       February 11Book Club, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham by Ron Shelton.

        February 19—Halsey Hall Chapter Board of Directors meeting via Zoom, 6:00 p.m. For more information on attending, contact Gene Gomes.

        February 20—Research Committee meeting, 7:00-9:00 p.m. via Zoom. For more information, contact Dave Lande or Gene Gomes.

        March 6—Zoom presentation on the 1884 St. Paul Union Association team by Justin Mckinney, 7:00 p.m.

        March 11—Fred Souba Hot Stove League Saturday Morning, 9:00 a.m., Mannings’s, Southeast Minneapolis.

        March 20—Research Committee meeting, 7:00-9:00 p.m. via Zoom. For more information, contact Dave Lande or Gene Gomes.

        April 15—Spring Chapter Meeting, 8:45 a.m., Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis. For more information, contact Howard Luloff, 952-922-5036.

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    Board of Directors 2022-2023
    President—Gene Gomes
    Vice President—David Karpinski
    Secretary—Sarah Johnson
    Treasurer—Jerry Janzen
    Daniel Dorff
    John Swol
    Bob Tholkes

    Events Committee Chair—Howard Luloff
    Research Committee Co-Chairs—Dave Lande, Gene Gomes
    Membership Committee Chair—Stew Thornley

    The Holy Cow! Editor—Stew Thornley
    Ass. Editors—Jerry Janzen and Brenda Himrich
    Webmaster—John Gregory
    Ass. Webmasters—Frank Kadwell, Hans Van Slooten, and Stew Thornley
    Social Media Directors—Bob Komoroski, Facebook; Hans Van Slooten and Tom Flynn, Twitter

    Halsey Hall Chapter Web Page

    Past issues of The Holy Cow! are available on-line.

    Chapter History

    Chapter Procedures and By-Laws

    Society for American Baseball Research

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    Resources

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