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The Newsletter of the Halsey Hall Chapter
Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
June 2011
Editor:
Stew Thornley
Spring Chapter Meeting Recap
The Halsey Hall Spring Chapter meeting was held May 14 in Minneapolis with 30 members and guests attending: Howard Luloff, Roger Godin, Joe O’Connell, Ani Janzen, Jerry Janzen, Stew Thornley, Brenda Himrich, Dan Levitt, Mendal Mearkle, George Savanick, Art Mugalian, Mark Johnson, Jed Levitt, Allan Burdick, John Swol, Lee Temanson, Doug Ernst, Rich Arpi, Gary DeSmith, Scot Johnson, Armand Peterson, Wayne Leebow, Lloyd Keppel, Bob Tholkes, Kevin Hennessy, Fred Buckland, Gregg Omoth, Ray Luurs, Fritz Reeker, and Doug Skipper.
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Twins general manager Bill Smith addressed the Halsey Hall Chapter at its spring meeting. Bill mentioned that Glenn Gostick, a charter member of the chapter who died in March, always sent his yearly statistical summary to Terry Ryan, the former general manager, and Ryan always said it was worth purusing because there was information in Gos’s material that they didn’t get from anywhere else. |
The meeting featured four research presentations:
- Joe O’Connell on the holiday doubleheaders between the St. Paul Saints and Minneapolis Millers.
- Kevin Hennessy on Rollie Hemsley and his (Hemsley’s, not Hennessy’s) experiences with Alcoholics Anonymous.
- Armand Peterson on the history of amateur and semi-professional baseball in Minnesota.
- Dan Levitt on a notable off-field incident involving John McGraw in 1920.
Four members—Gary DeSmith, Art Mugalian, Brenda Himrich, and Fred Buckland—were elected to the chapter’s board of directors to succeed outgoing directors Kevin Hennessy, Buckland, Scot Johnson, and a vacant spot. The chapter board of directors will meet and elect officers for the 2011-2012 year. (A description of the duties for these offices is within the chapter procedures on the chapter website.)
Other upcoming events:
The Halsey Hall chapter book club’s next selections are Ring Lardner’s You Know Me Al and Mark Harris’s Bang the Drum Slowly. The latter is also a movie, the story of a tobacco-chewing catcher with Hodgkin’s disease and the close friendship that develops between him and the team’s star pitcher as a result of the illness. Starring Robert Di Niro and Michael Moriarty with a stirring performance by Vincent Gardenia as manager Dutch Schnell. 96 minutes, rated PG. The book club will meet on Saturday, June 4 at 9:30 a.m. at the Barnes and Noble cafe in Har Mar Mall in Roseville. Har Mar Mall is located on Snelling Avenue about a mile and a half north of the state fairgrounds. For more information, contact Tom Dolen at 651-483-8617 or Art Mugalian at 612-721-2825.
The next Hot Stove Saturday Morning, an informal breakfast gathering for the purpose of talking baseball, will be at 9:00 on July 16 at Bakers Square in Richfield (66th Street to the east of Xerxes Avenue).
SABR 41 will be held from Wednesday, July 6 to Sunday, July 10 in Long Beach, California. The convention will be at the Hilton Long Beach & Executive Center (701 West Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach 90831-3102, 562-983-3400), which has a special convention rate of $119 per night for guest rooms. The convention will include trips to a Los Angeles Dodgers-San Diego Padres game and a Los Angeles Angels-Seattle Mariners game.
The 2012 SABR Convention will be in Minneapolis. The Convention Committee will meet in conjunction with the meeting of the Research Committee on Sunday, May 22 at 6 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble cafe in Har Mar Mall. SABR executive director Marc Appleman was in Minneapolis on May 12 to look at possible sites. The possible locations are the Marriott in City Center, the Hyatt Regency, and the Hilton. Marc also had dinner with two members of the local committee to discuss activities for the convention. The donor breakfast may be held in the Metropolitan Club at Target Field, and a bus tour will be offered to see the former sites of Nicollet Park, Lexington Park, and Metropolitan Stadium as well as baseball graves at Lakewood Cemetery. The group will go to a Twins game during the convention, and a St. Paul Saints game is also planned. The Halsey Hall Chapter will be promoting the 2012 convention at the upcoming convention in Long Beach.
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New Member: Michael Fallon
Michael Fallon found out about SABR from his friends/acquaintances Peter Schilling and John Thorn. A writer, editor, and nonprofit manager who lives in St. Paul with his wife, Nicole, and daughter, Eleanor, He was born in San Diego and grew up in Los Angeles as a Dodgers fan. “I met my favorite baseball player of all time, Sandy Koufax, at age one in 1967, and still have my copy of his autographed autobiography. I also met many of the Dodgers and Twins players from the 1965 series —Mudcat Grant, Lou Johnson, Willie Davis, Frank Quilici, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, etc.
“The first baseball games I ever attended were at Dodger Stadium during the team ’s 1970s heyday. I went to high school with Mark McGwire and went to college with Jeff Kent. I began rooting for the Twins after moving to Minnesota in 1998.” Michael attended the last two regular-season games at the Metrodome, including the tiebreaker game between the Twins and Tigers, in 2009. He adds, “For years, I have published writing on visual arts for local and national publications, and I am just now beginning to turn to writing about my other great interest, baseball.”
Michael shares his February 6 birthday with fellow and former chapter members Gregg Omoth and Jodi Elowitz as well as Babe Ruth, Smoky Burgess, Richie Zisk, Dale Long, Glenn Wright, Chad Allen, J. E. B. Stuart, Zsa Zsa Gabor, François Truffaut, Mamie Van Doren, Bob Marley, Har Mar Superstar, Dutch Reagan, Eva Braun, and Fabian.
The Halsey Hall Chapter also welcomes Timothy Odzer and Jeff Evans to SABR.
Member News
Joel Rippel has co-authored a book, Minnesota Sports Trivia with J. Alexander Poulton. Joel will have an article in the program for the upcoming College World Series on Fordham baseball coach, the first college coach to reach 1,000 wins. Joel notes that Coffey is probably the only player to be a teammate of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth in the same season. Joel is also working on a biography of Dick Siebert.
Arnold Arcana
SABR member Bill Arnold offers tidbits in his Beyond the Box Score webzine (Copyright 2011, Sports Features Group). Here are a few of the bits from recent weeks:
- Francisco Liriano of the Twins failed to become the first pitcher in
26,427 days, since Johnny Vander Meer in 1938, to throw back-to-back
no-hitters in the bigs.
- Skipper Mike Scioscia of the Angels, on May 8, joined Walter Alston
(Dodgers), Tommy Lasorda (Dodgers), Earl Weaver (Orioles), Danny Murtaugh
(Pirates), Red Schoendienst (Cardinals) and Tom Kelly (Twins) to win 1,000
games with the only major-league club he’s managed.
- Kent Koch, the 23-year-old captain and second baseman for St. Cloud State, is also the mayor of Loretto, Minnesota, having been elected last November.
- Tony LaRussa’s daughter, Bianca, earned a spot on the cheerleading squad for the Oakland Raiders.
Renewal Deadline Coming Up for Paper Copies of Newsletter
The subscription fee is due for those wanting to get printed copies sent to them. Those wishing to receive a printed copy each month may send a check for $15, made out to Halsey Hall SABR, to Jerry Janzen, 10201 Phaeton Drive, Eden Prairie, Minnesota 55347-4735.
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Calendar
May 22—Research and Convention Committee. For more information, contact Stew Thornley, 651-415-0791.
June 4—Book Club, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., You Know Me Al by Ring Lardner and Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris. For more information, contact Tom Dolen, 651-483-8617, or Art Mugalian, 612-721-2825.
July 16—Hot Stove Saturday Morning, Bakers Square, 66th and Xerxes, Richfield, 9:00 a.m. For more information, contact Mark Johnson, 952-831-1153.
June 5—Halsey Hall Chapter Board Meeting, 6 p.m. For more information, contact Kevin Hennessy, 651-492-2298.
Summer 2012—SABR Convention, Minneapolis
Board of Directors 2010-2011
President—Kevin Hennessy
Vice President—Fred Buckland
Secretary—Bob Tholkes
Treasurer—Jerry Janzen
Scot Johnson
Cary Smith
The Holy Cow! Editor—Stew Thornley
Webmaster—John Gregory
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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