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


October 2007

Townball Panel to Be Featured at October 20 Fall Chapter Meeting
Hamann Cleaning Up
Names Are the Same
Biography Project Update
New Members: John Baynes and Dain TePoel
Answers to Names Are the Same
Calendar
Board of Directors


Townball Panel to Be Featured at October 20 Fall Chapter Meeting

Armand Peterson, co-author of Town Ball: The Glory Days of Minnesota Amateur Baseball, has lined up a panel of former townball players—Bob Montebello, Dick Cassidy, Sid Langston, Ken Staples, and possibly Howie Schultz—for the Halsey Hall Chapter Fall Chapter meeting, Saturday, October 20 at the Grace University Lutheran Church, 324 Harvard Street SE, Minneapolis, 612-331-0125.

Bob Montebello led the Ohio State Buckeyes in batting average in 1951, the first season at Ohio State for coach Marty Karow and the first season in which the Buckeyes went to the College World Series. Bob then came to Minnesota to play amateur baseball for Litchfield (recruited by Dick Siebert) and later coached baseball at Bemidji State University. Rollie Seltz played minor-league baseball (including with Duluth in the Twin Ports League in 1943) as well as major-league basketball and later became the player-manager for Excelsior of the Minnesota Valley League, which won the state Class A title in 1949. Dick Cassidy, according to Glenn Gostick, is the second-best athlete ever to play at North High School in Minneapolis (guess who Glenn picks for number one?) and was a member of the Minneapolis Teamsters team that won the state Class A championship in 1956. Sid Langston played seven years of minor-league baseball and with town teams in Fairmont, Winona, Mankato, and Austin (where he learned the plumbing trade from Emil Scheid, who owned the Austin team). Ken Staples also played minor-league baseball, in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization, and managed the Minnesota Twins affiliate in St. Cloud in the 1960s. He played for and/or managed amateur teams in Fairmont, Mankato, and West St. Paul and is still connected with the Twins. Howie Schultz played for the St. Paul Saints and Brooklyn Dodgers at the same time he was playing basketball at Hamline University (he later played in the National Basketball Association). After his major-league baseball career, Howie played for the Willmar Rails in 1950 and was drafted by Dick Siebert to play for Litchfield in the state tournament in 1951. He later played for Faribault in the Southern Minnesota League and eventually for town teams in LeSueur and St. Paul Park.

Research presentations will include Dain TePoel with Master Mick and Redneck Roger: Framing Analysis of the Homerun Chase of 1961, Bob Tholkes on Joe Bush, Tom Swift on Charles “Chief” Bender, and Dave Jensen on baseball cards.

Registration for the meeting begins at 8:30 with research presentations starting at 9:00. Lunch will be at noon, followed by the townball panel at 1:00. The meeting will conclude with a Jeopardy-style baseball quiz around 2:30.

Attendees can head over to the Thornley-Himrich residence (1082 Lovell Avenue, Roseville, 651-415-0791) after the meeting to watch playoffs on television. Click here for a map and directions.

The cost of the meeting is $8 with lunch and $5 without lunch. Please RSVP to Events Chair Howard Luloff at 952-922-5036, hfan77@webtv.net, by October 13.

Parking is in lot AA, across Harvard Street from the church. Parking info is also available by clicking here.


Hamann Cleaning Up

Spike Shannon Grave
Rex Hamann, who writes the American Association Almanac, has visited the graves of many Association stars. In the process, he’s discovered many in deteriorating condition and has done what he can to spruce them up, along with leaving a baseball on the grave. The grave shown above is that of William “Spike” Shannon in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Minneapolis after getting a Hamann makeover.


Names Are the Same

a. Former Minnesota Twins managers and Senator Larry Craig’s attorneys.

b. Minnesota Timberwolves 2007 second-round draft choice and a player who homered on his first pitch in the majors (in the Metrodome in 2000).

Answers are below.


Biography Project Update

Nat Shepard has submitted a biography about an overachieving pitcher, Steve Comer, who took an average fast ball and turned it into a respectable major-league career. The Comer piece joins the biographies of the others already completed: Charley Walters, Walt Jocketty, Halsey Hall, George Thomas, Jack Morris, Howie Schultz, Don Wheeler, Toni Stone, Jim Rantz, and Tim Laudner. These biographies will eventually appear on the web site for SABR’s BioProject, after they are published in a book on Minnesotans in baseball in 2009. Members wanting a sneak preview may request a Word file of any of the biographies by sending a message to stew@stewthornley.net.

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New Members: John Baynes and Dain TePoel

John Baynes works in warehousing and lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Karen.

From New Richland, Minnesota, John played baseball in high school and college and described his game as, “Classic no speed, little hit, average defense kind of guy, but I understood what was happening on the field.” As a kid, he went to games at Metropolitan Stadium and now goes to about 20 games a year with Karen. Besides baseball, he is “into all kinds of strange music and movies” and golfs way too much.

John shares his October 20 birthday with Mickey Mantle and lesser mortals, including Keith Hernandez, Juan Gonzalez, Dave Collins, Judy Johnson, Juan Marichal, Bela Lugosi, and Grandpa from Hee Haw.

Dain TePoel is from Rochester and now works for Northwestern Mutual as a client relations coordinator in Minnetonka. Dain was four when the Twins won the World Series in 1987 and went to his first major league game the next year. From that point on, he and his brother were hooked on the sport, “obsessed with collecting cards and learning all the stats and oddities amidst all the players and teams.”

Dain did several research papers on baseball topics when he was in college. They include an article that has been published on the Mantle-Maris home-run race in 1961, and papers on Curt Flood and the reserve clause, Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech, baseball movies, and the effects of radio and television on baseball.

Dain was an intern for the Rochester Honkers of the Northwoods League for two summers and then was a broadcaster for them in 2005. The next year he was an intern for the St. Paul Saints and has interviewed with the Twins in their community-relations and broadcast departments.

Dain has attended a number of notable games, including the division and league playoffs in 2002 and 2004. During the regular season, he saw two triple plays at Twins games in 2006, and this season he watched Johan Santana strike out 17 batters in a game and Scott Baker take a perfect game into the ninth inning.

One of his favorite games was on July 15, 2002 when the Twins came back from a 7-1 deficit to beat the Angels. Christian Guzman capped the comeback in the eighth with a two-out, three-run homer that landed right behind Dain and a friend of his.

Dain shares his March 13 birthday with Johan Santana, Will Clark, Home Run Baker, Cliff Mapes, Buster Clarkson, and Eric “The Swattin’ Swede”” Erickson although he wishes he had been born a day later so he could have had a birthday with Kirby Puckett.

Also new to the Halsey Chapter: Jeffrey Schwenn


Answers to Names Are the Same

a. Tom Kelly and Billy Martin.

b. Chris Richard.

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Calendar

    October 13—Book Club Meeting, Ramsey County Library, County Road B and Hamline Avenue, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., A Well Paid Slave: Curt Flood’s Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports by Brad Snyder. For more information, contact Tom Dolen, 651-483-8617, or Art Mugalian, 612-721-2825, amugalian@comcast.net.

    October 20—Fall Chapter Meeting. For more information, contact Howard Luloff, 952-922-5036, hfan77@webtv.net.

    November 3—Hot Stove Saturday Morning, Bakers Square, 66th and Xerxes, Richfield, 9:00 a.m. For more information, contact Mark Johnson, 612-822-9638, baseballbooks@comcast.net.

    November 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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