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

SABR MVP Chapter 2022-2023

August 2024

Editor:
Stew Thornley

Index to past stories in The Holy Cow!

  • SABR 52: It’s Dang Near Here!
  • Upcoming Stuff
  • Our 33rd Themed Quiz by Gene Gomes
  • Parade of Hall of Fame Homes
  • New Member Jeff Papas
  • Thought for the Month
  • Cow Pies
  • Answers to Our 33rd Themed Quiz by Gene Gomes
  • Calendar
  • Board of Directors
  • Resources

    SABR 52: It’s Dang Near Here!
    SABR 52 LogoThe bankrupt (morally and financially) social site formerly known as Twitter is a-twitter and agog with news and tidbits about the SABR convention returning for a three-peat in Minneapolis as SABR 52 will take place Wednesday, August 7 to Sunday, August 11, at the Hyatt Regency, 1300 Nicollet Mall.

    SABR has made a promotional video with stellar members Dan Levitt, Ed Edmonds, and Brenda Himrich (and her husband): What to Expect at SABR 52 in Minneapolis.

    Thanks to Gene Gomes, Curt Brown wrote an article in the July 28, 2024 Star Tribune about Walter Ball and also promoted the SABR convention: Baseball historians remember career of legendary Minnesota pitcher Walter Ball. The historians cited in the article include chapter members Terry Bohn and the late Jim Karn.

    Complete SABR 52 Schedule

    Wednesday from 4:30 to 5:30 is a chapter leaders meeting followed by a welcome reception with free food and unfree booze.

    For those not too worn out from all that, Thursday morning brings the Ross Adell First-Time Attendee Coffee Talk. Ross was a great SABR member who died young (as the great ones do). He wrote books on New York Mets trivia and was a keeper of the list of game-ending home runs. Ross hated the term “walk-off,” so if you want to honor him, use “game-ending” instead of the nouveau and already lame term that is used by people who think it sounds trendy.

    The rest of the day has the SABR business meeting, opening remarks by Derek Falvey; panels with Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, Bert Blyleven, Jim Kaat, Glen Perkins, and LaTroy Hawkins; an introduction to the new digital archives of The Sporting News; committee meetings; research presentations; trivia preliminaries; happy hour; and a choice of a tour of Target Field or a Saints game, where participants will get to tour the City of Baseball Museum and meet that night’s official scorer, Sarah Johnson.

    Friday has the umpires panel of Emma Charlesworth-Seiler, Tim Tschida, and Jeff Nelson; a Twins analytics panel, including our own Hans Van Slooten; the presentation of the Roland Hemond Award, a Saints panel, and lots of research presentations and committee meetings (including special guest Melissa Ludtke at the Women in Baseball meeting at noon) before the group outing to the Twins game.

    Saturday has a lot more of the same including the donor breakfast and a future of baseball broadcasts panel and a panel on Black baseball in Minnesota with Pete Gorton, Todd Peterson, Carl Rogan, and Frank White. That night will be a big whoop-de-doo with the presentation of awards and the trivia finals.

    Two Halsey Hall Chapter members, Alan Holst and Dan Levitt, are making research presentations on Saturday, but unfortunately they are both at the same time (1:30 p.m.). Another member will be speaking at the Baseball Landmarks Research Committee meeting at 1:00 on Thursday. Dan and Mike Haupert will be chairing the Business of Baseball Research Committee meeting, and Cary Smith will be chairing the Pictoral History Research Committee meeting.

    Those hanging around until Sunday will get to go to a town ball game in Cologne.

    The Halsey Hall Chapter has hosted the convention in 1988 and 2012 and both were big hits. For a blast from the past, check out information on the 2012 convention:

    SABR 42 in Minneapolis, 2012

    Handouts from the 2012 convention have been updated and are available on-line:

    Minneapolis and St. Paul Ballpark Sites (one-pager)

    Twin Cities Ballparks (full booklet)

    [Note to the volunteers who will be stuffing goody bags at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 6: Plan to hang around and have lunch at the hotel or a nearby place after the stuffing.]

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    Upcoming Stuff
    The next Book Club meeting will be Saturday, August 17 at Barnes & Noble in Har Mar Mall at 9:30 a.m. The book selection is Leave While the Party’s Good: The Life and Legacy of Baseball Executive Harry Dalton by Lee Kluck. 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 Fred Souba Hot Stove Saturday Morning, an informal breakfast gathering for the purpose of talking baseball will be at Manning’s on Saturday, September 14 at 9:00 a.m.

    The next Research Committee meetings, via Zoom, will be August 19 and September 23 at 7:00 p.m. Research Committee members are co-chairs Dave Lande or Gene Gomes as well as 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, Terry Bohn, Ed Wehling, John Gregory, Art Mugalian, John “Sparky” Seals, Ed Edmonds, and Bob Komoroski. Let Dave or Gene know if you would like to attend and/or join the committee.

    The Fall Chapter Meeting will be Saturday, November 2 at Faith Mennonite Church, 2720 E. 22nd Street in south Minneapolis. Registration begins around 8:15 a.m. with the program beginning at 8:45. The cost for the meeting and lunch is $10. People can pay by cash (with correct change appreciated) or check at the door.

    The day will follow the usual format with research presentations in the morning and a featured guest or guest in the afternoon with a trivia quiz by Howard Luloff to wrap it up.

    Members are invited to submit a proposal to make a research presentation at the meeting. Proposals may be sent 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 (October 5). If a slot remains after that, any member can submit a proposal until October 19, two weeks before the meeting, when the Research Committee will wrap up the schedule of presentations.

    Also coming:
    The Professional Football Researchers Association (begun by SABR member Bob Carroll) will have its annual convention in the Twin Cities Thursday through Sunday, July 10-13, 2025 at the Drury Plaza Hotel in downtown St. Paul. Some Halsey Hall Chapter members are also members of the PFRA Great Plains Chapter. Dues to PRFA are only $35. It&146;s not baseball, but it is another sport.

    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. (The Facebook page now has 296 members. Bob Komoroski has established rules—essentially, don’t be a dink. The page is still public although Bob has set up a series of questions for new members to cull out spammers, trollers, and other degenerates.)

    Also:

    Regular Events

    Video Archives of Past Events

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    Our 33rd Themed Quiz by Gene Gomes
    The July Research Committee meeting included a quiz by Gene Gomes, who advises, “Get the theme quickly, then solve the rest of the quiz . . .maybe.”

    1. Nickname of the sportswriter who wrote, “Ninety feet between bases is the nearest to perfection that man has ever achieved.”
    2. Last name of this former Montreal first-round pick who homered for the Twins in a playoff game vs. Oakland four years after he homered for the Yankees in a playoff game vs. Angels.
    3. Last name of this player who was drafted by Kansas City, and whose purchase by the Yankees nine years later was voided by Bowie Kuhn.
    4. Nickname of this HOF pitcher who became a six-time World Series champ after posting a 39-96 won-loss mark for his former team, the Red Sox, from 1924-1930.
    5. Last name of this 19th century HOF infielder/catcher for several teams, who earned over 2,000 hits, two batting titles, and a world championship as a 39-year-old for Detroit in 1887.
    6. Give the first word of this Georgia-born player’s two-word nickname, who was signed by Kansas City, and pitched in that franchise’s three World Series-championship seasons.
    7. Nickname of the pitcher who was a key starter for McGraw’s Giants from 1903-1913. In his best year—for the 1905 champion Giants—he had his only 20+ win-season.
    8. Last name of the lefty White Sox pitcher who picked up a “save” in Game 5 and a win in Game Six of the Hitless Wonders’ 1906 World Series takedown of the favored Cubs.
    9. Last name of the pitcher who made the NL squad for the AL-NL All Star Game in 1942, the year he ranked 2nd in pitcher WAR behind Walker Cooper. He was second in wins for Cincinnati with 15, behind Johnny Vander Meer’s 18.

    Extra inning:
    Upon entering a game on April 24 this season, pitcher Luke Little was ordered to change out his glove because it had what stitched on it?

    Bonus: Give the names of the following people and their birthdays:
    a. He signed Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson and Dave Winfield as free agents.

    b. In her debut, she was escorted off Crosley Field in 1969 after kissing Pete Rose on the cheek.

    c. He led the NL in RBI in 2004, no doubt being helped by his home park.

    d. He finished 2nd for NL Rookie of the Year behind Ted Sizemore despite out-homering him 18-4 and out-slugging him .409 to .342.

    Answers below

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    Parade of Hall of Fame Homes
    Want a 3.3-mile trip that will take you past the childhood homes of four members of the Baseball Hall of Fame? Start at 671 N. Lexington Parkway, where Joe Mauer grew up. Head south on Lexington, turn left on Rondo Avenue, right on Oxford Street, left on Carroll Avenue, and halfway down to block to 1000 Carroll for the Winfield home. Back at Oxford, go south a half-mile to the northeast corner of Oxford and Portland Avenue (1037 Portland) to where the Molitors lived. Continuing south on Oxford, turn right on St. Clair Avenue and left on S. Saratoga Street to 292 Saratoga where Jack Morris once lived. (The Winfields lived at 1009 Carroll Avenue until moving to the other side of Carroll Avenue in the mid-to-late 1960s. The home at 1009 Carroll Avenue no longer exists. The Molitors lived at 1463 Grand Avenue, northwest corner of Grand Avenue and Pascal Street, until the mid-1960s.)

    Joe Mauer's childhood home Dave Winfield's childhood home

    Clockwise from top left: The childhood homes of Joe Mauer, Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, and Jack Morris

    Jack Morris's childhood home Paul Molitor's childhood home

    With an epicenter of University Avenue and Syndicate Street, all four Hall of Famers once lived within a 1.62-mile radius of one another, according to SABR member and math whiz Fred Worth. Fellow SABR whizzers Dale Mahoney, Tom Reinsfelder, Merritt Clifton, and John Gregory have noted the as-the-crow-flies distance of the homes farthest apart (Mauer and Morris) as 2.16 miles with a radius, having the epicenter at Selby Avenue between Syndicate and Griggs streets, as 1.08 miles.

    One More!
    Anthony Bush was inducted into the Proctor Baseball Hall of Fame at the team banquet for the Proctor Rails on June 26. He is now among the luminaries at Proctor Rails Baseball.

    Visit Anthony’s boyhood home at 4678 Caribou Lake Road, Duluth 55811. (Note: This will extend your tour by another 151.3 miles.) A picture of Anthony and his home was not available as this issue of The Holy Cow! went to press, but a reasonable facsimile is presented below:

    Vince the Crash Test Dummy

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    New Member Jeff Papas
    Born in Minneapolis and now living in White Bear Lake, Jeff Papas is the director of information for Hamline University, and for more than 40 years he has been the freelance play-by-play voice for University of Minnesota, Duluth football, east suburban high school sports, and “just about every sport imaginable, hockey, amateur baseball, you name it.” Jeff also calls the state amateur baseball championships each summer on Neighborhood Sports Network (NSPN), a four-state webstreaming service for high school, semipro and amateur sports.

    Jeff went to his first Twins came in 1969, when he was four. His uncle got free tickets from a friend, Baltimore outfield Merv Rettenmund. “ The two things I remember best were the Twins losing the game and seeing my idol, Harmon Killebrew, in the flesh for the first time.” As a media member, he covered the 1991 World Series and was on the field and in the clubhouse interviewing Gene Larkin after Game Seven and getting his shoes ruined by champagne. His best memory of the night was seeing Kirby Puckett standing on a chair and leading the singing of “We Are the Champions.”

    Jeff worked with the Duluth-Superior Dukes in the Northern League as official scorer, public-address announcer, and radio broadcaster Borders signed his scorebook after the game, and he is donating it to the Baseball Hall of Fame. “I have a million Northern League stories,” Jeff says, “most of them funny and some of them even printable.”

    A fanatical computer baseball player, Jeff is now replaying the history of the Twins using Strat-O-Matic.

    Jeff shares his June 13th birthday with Jonathan Lucroy, the other Billy Williams, Hugh Luby, Mel Parnell, Tom Cheek, Kat Dennings, the Olsen Twins, Bob McGrath of Mitch Miller and Sesame Street fame, Tim Allen, Basil Rathbone, Garnet “Ace” Bailey, Paavo Nurmi, Paul Lynde, Red Grange, and Christo Vladimirov Javacheff.

    Also new to the Halsey Hall Chapter: Ross Bennett, Quinn Wahl

    Our chapter has welcomed four new members since June 1, the beginning of the SABR fiscal year reporting period, and has 190 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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    Thought for the Month
    Die before you get old. Oops, too late.
    —Grandpa Simpson

    Spite is underrated.
    —George Costanza

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    Cow Pies
    For the third straight year, Howard Luloff did the public-address annoucing and Jeff Lenz the scoreboard operation for the Stars and Strikes American Legion baseball tournament in Delano.

    Expat Halsey Haller Rich Cohen retired six years ago and is looking for a home for the baseball memorabilia housed in the medical office he occupied for 37 years. This is largely Minnesota Twins related material, but there are also some things of general baseball interest. This includes posters and various nicknacks. He would be happy to accept any offer for any of these things plus shipping from Hamilton, New York (birthplace of New York Giants great Hooks Wiltse). For more information (including a request for photos), contact Rich at cohenrichards@gmail.com or 315-750-8110.

    Ten chapter members went to a Rochester Honkers game July 13 and had a pre-game confab at a local watering hole with Honkers broadcaster Kyle Traynor. Corky Gaskell brought game-used Honkers jerseys and gave them to the group.

    Kyle Traynor pontificating

    The game got rained out, but there was one pitch—a ceremonial one— by a chapter member (shown below with Hooter the Honker mascot looking on) courtesy of Kyle’s connections.

    Ceremonial pitch

    The SABR book, Dodger Stadium: Blue Heaven on Earth (free download for SABR members), has an article by Dave Lande on Willie Stargell hitting a home run out of Dodger Stadium August 5, 1969.

    The SABR Games Project has new game story by a chapter member:

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    Answers to Our 33rd Themed Quiz by Gene Gomes

    1. Red (Smith)
    2. (Rondell) White
    3. (Vida) Blue
    4. Red (Ruffing)
    5. (Deacon) White
    6. Blue (Moon Odom)
    7. Red (Ames)
    8. (Doc) White
    9. (Ray) Starr

    Extra inning
    American flag patch

    Bonus
    George Steinbrenner, July 4
    Morganna Roberts, July 4
    Vinny Castilla, July 4
    Coco Laboy, July 4

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    Calendar
        August 17Book Club, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., Leave While the Party’s Good: The Life and Legacy of Baseball Executive Harry Dalton by Lee Kluck.

        August 19—Research Committee meeting, 7:00-9:00 p.m. via Zoom. For more information, contact Dave Lande or Gene Gomes.

        August 25—Halsey Hall Chapter Board of Directors meeting, 7:00 p.m. For more information on attending, contact Ed Edmonds.

        September 14—Fred Souba Hot Stove League Saturday Morning, 9:00 a.m., Mannings’s, Minneapolis.

        September 23—Research Committee meeting, 7:00-9:00 p.m. via Zoom. For more information, contact Dave Lande or Gene Gomes.

        November 2—Fall Chapter Meeting, 8:45 a.m., Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis. For more information, contact Howard Luloff, 952-922-5036, or Bob Komoroski.

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    Board of Directors 2024-2025
    President—Ed Edmonds
    Vice President—Mike Haupert
    Secretary—Daniel Dorff
    Treasurer—Rich Arpi
    Terry Bohn
    John Buckeye
    Howard Luloff

    Events Committee Co-Chairs—Howard Luloff, Bob Komoroski
    Research Committee Co-Chairs—Dave Lande, Gene Gomes
    Membership Committee Co-Chairs—Stew Thornley, John Buckeye
    MVP Chapter Committee Chair—Gene Gomes

    The Holy Cow! Editor—Stew Thornley
    Ass. Editors—Jerry Janzen, Brenda Himrich, and John Buckeye
    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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