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


May 2008

Bob “Rocky” Johnson to Appear at Spring Chapter Meeting May 3
Book Club to Read Chief Benden’s Burden by Tom Swift
New Member: Tom Larson
Dr. Fan Reaches 72
Condolences
Sports Grave Tour of Lakewood Cemetery on Memorial Day
Hu’s on First
Calendar
Board of Directors


Bob “Rocky” Johnson to Appear at Spring Chapter Meeting May 3

Bob “Rocky” Johnson will be the featured guest at the Halsey Hall Chapter Meeting Saturday, May 3 at the Grace University Lutheran Church, 324 Harvard Street SE, Minneapolis, 612-331-0125. Parking is in lot AA, across Harvard Street from the church. Parking info is also available by clicking here. The group will attend the Twins-Tigers game that evening.

Rocky, who grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and Edina, Minnesota, played 11 seasons in the American League, including all or parts of five seasons with the Baltimore Orioles. As a member of the Washington Senators in 1962, Rocky hit the first home run at D. C. Stadium as John Kennedy and other dignataries looked on. There may be other guests appearing on the player panel, which will begin at 1:00, although Rocky is the only confirmed guest at this point.

Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. with opening ceremonies, hosted by Howard Luloff, starting at 9:00. The research presentations will be:

Howard Luloff will lead a baseball trivia contest at 2:30.

During the business meeting at lunch, three new members will be elected to the chapter’s board of directors. Anyone interested in running for a two-year term may contact nominating committee chair Bob Tholkes at 763-781-6161, rjtholkes@msn.com.

Candidates may want to mark their calendars for Sunday, June 1, when the chapter board of directors will meet and elect officers for the 2008-2009 year. The board meeting will be at 6:00 p.m. at the home of Bob Tholkes, 3966 NE Reservoir Boulevard, Columbia Heights 55421-4069. At this meeting, the incoming board members and holdover board members will elect, from among themselves, a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer to a one-year term that will begin July 1. (A description of the duties for these offices is at http://halseyhall.org/bylaws#procedures.) Other than the elections at this board meeting, only the outgoing and holdover board members will be allowed to vote on chapter business because the board term of the incoming members will not begin until July 1.

Registration for the May 3 chapter meeting is $8, which includes lunch. There is also a meeting-only price of $5. Those wanting lunch must RSVP to Howard Luloff at 952-922-5036, hfan77@webtv.net, by April 26.


Book Club to Read Chief Bender’s Burden by Tom Swift

The next selection for the book club, which will meet on June 14 at 9:30 a.m. at Barnes & Noble in at Har Mar Mall in Roseville, will be Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star by Tom Swift.

Swifty has received some outstanding reviews for his book, including a starred review from Library Journal: “Signal thanks to journalist Swift for this authoritative biography of Charles Albert Bender. . . . Swift sets aside the myths about this most famous American Indian player while vividly describing him. . . . [This book] is for all interested in the First Nations, quite apart from baseball.”

Dan Levitt, Peter Schilling, and Tom Swift at the Baseball Book Bonanza
Dan Levitt, author of Ed Barrow: The Bulldog Who Built the Yankees’ First Dynasty, Peter Schilling, author of The End of Baseball, and Tom Swift with Chief Bender’s Burden appeared at the “Big Baseball Book Bonanza” at Magers & Quinn Booksellers on April 12.

Other book news:
John Rosengren had a full house in the Halsey Hall Room of the Metrodome before the April 18 Twins game for his book bash for his new release on the 1973 season. Dean Urdahl, author of Touching Bases with Our Memories: The Players Who Made the Minnesota Twins, 1961 to 2001, has an historical fiction novel, Uprising, about the 1862 Dakota conflict.

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New Member: Tom Larson

A SABR member since 1986, Tom Larson (stage name Wolf Larson) recently moved to Minneapolis with his wife, Pamela Mead, who is the daughter of of one of our chapter founders, Alden Mead. For the past nine years, they lived in Berkeley, California. Born and raised in Chicago, Tom is still a Cubs fan. He got to Wrigley Field, with his dad and grandfather, in 1966 and was a big fan of Adolfo Phillips “because Leo Durocher said he was as good as Willie Mays (that turned out not to be true).”

Tom started playing baseball when he was 10 and was a catcher in high school. From 1982 to 1999, he managed a team in the Chicago Theatre Softball League, the Practical Theatre Co. Toledo Mudhens, which won the championship in 1987.

Tom is the executive director of the Burnsville Performing Arts Center, currently under construction and scheduled to open in January of 2009, and plays saxophone in a rock-and-roll band, the Riffmaster and the Rockme Foundation.

Born in 1958, Tom shares his August 17 birthday with Jorge Posada, Mike Maroth, Dustin Pedroia, Alex Cole, Boog Powell, Butch Hobson, Diego Segui, Jim Davenport, Rudy York, and Mae West.

Other new members: Jonathan Carter, Rebekah Billings, and Doug Kenison.


Dr. Fan Reaches 72

Seth C. “Dr. Fan” Hawkins attended the Washington Nationals’ opener in Nationals Park, the first game in the new stadium, extending to 72 his record of having seen at least one regular-season game in every ballpark used for major-league baseball from 1950. Genial big-time D. C. attorney and former Rutgers competitive speaking star J. G. Harrington set his own mark by becoming the only person to treat and accompany Dr. Fan to first-ever games in two ballparks (Oriole Park at Camden Yards in 1992 being the other).

The last ballpark in use at which Dr. Fan did not attend a game was League Park in Cleveland in the 1940s.


Condolences

Condolences to Fritz Reeker, whose wife, Lynne, died after a long illness.

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Sports Grave Tour of Lakewood Cemetery on Memorial Day

A morbid chapter member will be leading tours of sports graves at Lakewood Cemetery on Memorial Day, May 26. The baseball graves on the tour will include Paul Giel, Mike Kelley, and Spencer Harris. Other sports graves will include Virgil Johnson, a member of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame; Joe Hutton, the basketball coach at Hamline University; and Minnesota Gophers football stars Pug Lund and Bobby Cox. Lakewood Cemetery is at 3600 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis. The tours are free and open to the public. They will be held on the hour from noon to 4:00. Those attending should come to the mausoleum, which is to the west of the main administration building.


Hu’s on First

Hu on first base


Calendar

    May 3—Spring Chapter Meeting. For more information, contact Howard Luloff, 952-922-5036, Hfan77@webtv.net.

    June 14—Book Club Meeting, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, 2100 Snelling Avenue North, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star by Tom Swift. For more information, contact Tom Dolen, 651-483-8617, or Art Mugalian, 612-721-2825, amugalian@comcast.net.

    May 10—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.

    May 18—Research Roundtable, Perkins Restaurant, 4917 Eden Avenue, Edina, 6:00 p.m. For more information, contact Cary Smith, 952-807-8767, zinnbeck@aol.com.
   

Halsey Hall Chapter
Board of Directors 2007-2008
President—Dan Levitt
Vice President—Lee Temanson
Secretary—Armand Peterson
Treasurer—Doug Ernst
Art Mugalian
George Rekela
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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