Resources
Steve Elsberry Dies
Steve Elsberry died at 79 on August 24, two weeks after attending SABR 52 in Minneapolis. Steve was the Umpire in Chief of the Field of Dreams Chapter in Iowa and a frequent attendee, along with wife Lyn, to Halsey Hall Chapter meetings. Known for his combo Giants/Athletics hat in recognition of his Bay Area heritage, Steve was a season ticket holder for the Iowa Cubs and in 2004 was the team’s 10 millionth fan. Services for Steve were held at the Cubs ballpark August 29.
Officers and Chapter History: In Memoriam
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Lunch McKenzie to Speak at November 2 Chapter Meeting
Mark “Lunch” McKenzie, the former baseball coach at Concordia University in St. Paul, will be the featured speaker at the fall chapter meeting Saturday, November 2. Lunch retired in 2019 after 20 years as head coach and is still on the staff as an assistant. The Coach of the Year in the Northern Sun Conference in 2005, Lunch has an all-time record of 456-361-1, including 281-234 in conference play. Under Lunch, the Golden Bears won the conference tournament in 2003 and 2008. Normally, the featured guest speaks in the afternoon, but Lunch will be on from 10 to 11:30 in the morning. The meeting will include up to four research presentations by members, one before Lunch, one between Lunch and lunch, and one or two after lunch. As usual, the meeting will conclude with a bang-up trivia quiz by Howard Luloff.
The Fall Chapter Meeting will be 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.
Three research presentations have been approved so far:
Sam Sundermeyer, Last Ounce of Magic: Win Probability of the 2009 Twins
The 2009 Minnesota Twins turned in one of the most exciting campaigns in team history. Although the club once again fell short to the Yankees, fans who were along for the last ride in the Metrodome remember Mauer’s MVP campaign, the September comeback, and the last ounce of Dome magic in Game 163.
With 15 years of fond remembrance now behind us, it begs the question: was the ride as magical as we remember? Did the Twins really beat the odds to win the division? Through the use of advanced win probability statistics, memory will be checked with reality.
Stew Thornley, Werden’s All-Stars Vs. The Old Guards
The Hennepin History Museum has an oversized souvenir bat signed by players who participated in a 1933 benefit game between Werden’s All Stars and The Old Guards of the Diamond. Perry Werden, the biggest name in Twin Cities baseball along with Mike Kelley between the 1890s and 1920s, settled in Minneapolis after his playing career. In the 1890s Werden twice hit more than 40 home runs for Minneapolis and held the professional single-season home-run record until Babe Ruth broke it in 1920. In the 1910s he operated an independent team known as Werden’s All-Stars that played in local leagues and barnstormed. Werden also umpired professionally and remained a prominent personality in Minneapolis and a frequent attendee of Millers games at Nicollet Park as a guest of team owner Mike Kelley. In 1933 Werden’s All Stars came together again for a benefit game against The Old Guards, a group of past players who were well known in the city. These players included a number of former professional/major league players such as Gene Ford, Al Dretchko, Rube Schauer, Spike Shannon, and Pierre “Pete” Briere, who had played professionally and became a noted coach of amateur teams in the Twin Cities. (Briere’s son, Tom, became a sportswriter at the Minneapolis Tribune for decades.) This presentation will focus on Werden and his achievements with mentions of others who played in this game as well as a description of the game itself. The Hennepin History Museum will bring the bat, signed by this participants in this game, to the meeting.
Note: The chapter is collaborating with the Hennepin History Museum for this presentation to be made at the museum the following Saturday. See below for more information on this event.
Bob Tholkes, In The Year of Baseball Fever (1867): Baseball Clubs
The presentation is entirely from contemporary sources and deals with diversity of the clubs, governance, activities, and interclub relations.
One central aspect of the baseball “fever” of 1867 was that aspiring baseballists nationwide organized themselves, as they had since the pioneering Knickerbocker Club of New York City (and even before), into clubs. The presentation uses contemporary primary sources to examine the groups from which clubs were drawn and their governance, activities, and means of interclub relations.
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.
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.
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Other Upcoming Stuff
The next Book Club meeting will be Saturday, October 19 at Barnes & Noble in Har Mar Mall at 9:30 a.m. The book selection is Summer of Shadows: A Murder, A Pennant Race, and the Twilight of the Best Location in the Nation by Jonathan Knight. 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 meetings, via Zoom, will be October 21 and November 18at 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 NINE Fall Conference will be virtual October 24-25, a chance for members to hear and see interesting presentations without going to Arizona.
NINE Online Registration
The chapter is collaborating with the Hennepin History Museum for a reprise of the presentation from the chapter meeting on the Werden’s All-Stars Vs. The Old Guards. This presentation will be Saturday, November 9 at 1:30 p.m. at the museum, 2303 3rd Avenue South, Minneapolis 55404 (on the block north of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts).
The Fred Souba Hot Stove Saturday Morning, an informal breakfast gathering for the purpose of talking baseball will be at Manning’s, 22nd and Como in southeast Minneapolis, on Saturday, November 16 at 9:00 a.m.
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 307 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, wankers, trollers, and other degenerates.)
Also:
Regular Events
Video Archives of Past Events
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Ed Edmonds’s Guess the Theme Quiz
The September Research Committee meeting included a quiz by Ed Edmonds:
- This second baseman from Torrance South High School in California started his MLB career in 1966 for the Boston Red Sox. In five games, he managed 3 hits in 18 at bats. He played in 3 World Series, and his MLB career ended in 1973 with the Oakland A’s. His 2 back-to-back errors created one of the most interesting showdowns in World Series history between a team owner and the Commissioner. He did play in Japan in 1975.
- Known for giving up a famous home run, this hurler pitched many years for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but he spent part of 1954 with the New York Yankees. He graduated from New York Mount Vernon High School and attended NYU, where he played baseball and basketball. He was 6’-3“.
- This player could best be described as a utility infielder (he played 2B, SS, and 3B) for 11 seasons in the 1950s and 1960s. He played for the Reds, Senators, Dodgers, Tigers, Angels, Indians, and Cardinals. He was an All-Star for the Senators in 1958 despite hitting only .263 for the season. Plus, the answer to the question of whether he played in that All-Star game, is, of course, no. This man attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School in California. Additional hint—he has a strong nickname.
- This pitcher, who spent his high school years at Newberry High School in South Carolina, did play in the 1958 All-Star game, and he finished his career with 105 wins, 100 losses and a 3.29 ERA. He would make a lot of money in the modern game for his 1,817 innings and 479 career games. He played for the Giants, Orioles, Pirates, and Braves. He won 19 games for the 1962 Giants, but lost game one of the World Series that year.
- Another utility infielder for the Red Sox, Twins (1961), Angels, Phillies, and Kansas City Athletics, this graduate of Susan Miller Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, finished his career with a .221 batting average. In his 10 years, he hit a total of nine home runs. Those long balls came against such pitching aces as Ike Delock, Tom Sturdivant, Bob Turley. Harry Byrd, and Ray Moore. Six of them were solo shots, and the other three produced 2 RBIs.
- Another graduate of Susan Miller Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, this player’s career included over 350 games in left field, second base, and third base for the White Sox and Orioles. He received MVP votes in four different years, but he only landed on an All-Star team in 1971. He struck out in his one pinch-hitting appearance in that All-Star game.
- This player, who graduated from St. Andrew’s Parish High School in Charleston, South Carolina, before becoming an All-American at Clemson, was primarily an outfielder during his 12-year career for the Indians, Expos, Cubs, Braves, Giants, and Reds. His career batting average was .238, and he hit only 6 home runs in 2,039 plate appearances. Unlike the answer to question 5 above, two of this player’s home runs came off HOFers Jim Bunning and Don Drysdale. He scored 2 runs with only 2 plate appearances in the 1970 NLCS including the go-ahead run in the 10th inning of the first game after hitting a triple and the winning run in game 3. He batted 3 times in 3 games for the losing side in the 1970 World Series.
- This catcher graduated from Chico High School in Chico, California. He played 9 years for the Phillies and 3 years for the Orioles as a backup behind the plate. With the Orioles, he did not play in either the 1969 ALCS against the Twins or the 1971 World Series. However, in the 1969 World Series, he was a perfect 2-for-2 in his team’s loss to the Miracle Mets. He had a .233 career batting average.
- This righty, a graduate of William L. Dickinson High in Jersey City, New Jersey, put together a career 54-56 W-L log in a 6-year career for the Yankees and Kansas City Athletics. A 1956 All-Star selection, this pitcher is best remembered for his sole World Series win during the Yankees 1955-1958 World Series stretch (2 wins, 2 losses) —a 9-0, 3-hit masterpiece (2 by Duke Snider, and 1 by Carl Furillo) in game 7 of the 1956 World Series.
- This shortstop and third baseman had an excellent 16-year career playing primarily for the Reds and Twins (1969-1971). He also played or the Rangers, Indians, and Angels. He was a 4-time All-Star for the Reds and a 1971 All-Star for the Twins. He amassed 1,725 career hits including 118 home runs. He was a native of Cuba. So, if you thought the theme had something to do with U.S. high schools, that is not the case.
Bonus: If you have not figured out the theme, this should help. This German-born hurler established a MLB record playing for 14 teams during his 17-year career. Those teams were the Dodgers, the Rays, the Tigers, the Diamondbacks, the White Sox, the Cardinals, the Nationals, the Cubs, the Braves, the Marlins, the Padres, the Orioles, the A’s and the Blue Jays.
Answers below
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Dana Yost Honored
Dana Yost’s poem, Ruth Talks Hitting, has been nominated for the annual Best of the Net Anthology, which honors writing and art in online publications. Dana said the poem was inspired by a photo he has of Ruth. The poem was published in the Spring issue of The Twin Bill. Dana credited editors Matthew Johnson and Scott Bolohan, who nominated the poem, for “coming up with some really cool art work” for it.
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Spread of Baseball in Minnesota Spreading
The Spread of Baseball in Minnesota project, which was on display at the SABR convention in Minneapolis, is expanding its scope. A project of the chapter Research Committee and started by Rich Arpi, the Spread of Baseball has traced the first games played in each county in Minnesota. Recently, the project was expanded to include the Dakotas, and Rich would like to document all games played in the Upper Midwest from 1857 to 1923. It is a local version of the broader Pre-pro Baseball and is at Pre-pro Clubs and Games in Minnesota..
Rich notes that the project includes professional, college, high school, and town teams. He said “While some professional teams overall record is documented in various places, this project aims to record pre-season games, in season exhibition games against town teams and barnstorming teams, post-season games as well as home and road records for each club.” An aim of the project is to compile a more complete record on amateur baseball prior to the beginning of the state tournament in 1924 and to do the same with high school baseball before its state tournament started in 1948.
Many members have been involved in tracking down games, and everyone is invited to participate in the project. For more information and to see the spreadsheet with the information collected to date, contact Rich, rich.arpi@outlook.com
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New Members
The Halsey Hall Chapter welcomes Riley Heck and Douglas Raynie
Our chapter has welcomed 10 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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Highlight of the Month
Join Austin Hedges and his teammates in the celebration of a milestone home run on September 11.
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Cow Pies
Kristin Anderson found a video, 1942 St. Paul Military Parade- Flyover- Leading to Baseball Game, which has footage of a game at Lexington Park with good looks at the ballpark’s distant right-field fence atop a berm.
While you’re surfing YouTube and looking for a catchy diddy, check out Carl Yastrzemski from the Impossible Dream album.
The SABR BioProject has two new articles by members:
The SABR Games Project has several new game stories by chapter members:
The SABR MLB Team Employee Database, compiled with the considerable help of Dan Levitt and the help of others, is now on-line.
Articles from the SABR 52 convention publication, Baseball in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, are now on-line.
Also on-line are the research presentations made at SABR 52.
The September 2024 edition of Keltner’s Hot Corner, the newsletter of the Ken Keltner Badger State Chapter, is on-line:
Keltner’s Hot Corner, September 2024
This issue includes includes an article by Jayson Stark on Danny Jansen becoming the first player to play for two teams in the same game in the major leagues. Read Jayson’s article to find out who did it in the minors.
Past Keltner’s Hot Corner newsletters:
Keltner’s Hot Corner
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Answers to Ed Edmonds’s Guess the Theme Quiz
- Mike Andrews
- Ralph Branca
- Rocky Bridges
- Billy O’Dell
- Billy Consolo
- Don Buford
- Ty Cline
- Clay Dalrymple
- Johnny Kucks
- Leo Cardenas
Bonus: Edwin Jackson
Theme: Players who will produce a low rarity score on Immaculate Grid
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Calendar
October 13—Halsey Hall Chapter Board of Directors meeting, 7:00 p.m. For more information on attending, contact Ed Edmonds.
October 19—Book Club, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., Summer of Shadows: A Murder, A Pennant Race, and the Twilight of the Best Location in the Nation by Jonathan Knight.
November 16—Fred Souba Hot Stove League Saturday Morning, 9:00 a.m., Mannings’s, Minneapolis.
October 21—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.
November 9—Presentation on Perry Werden, 1:30 p.m., Hennepin History Museum, 2303 3rd Avenue South, Minneapolis 55404.
November 18—Research Committee meeting, 7:00-9:00 p.m. via Zoom. For more information, contact Dave Lande or Gene Gomes.
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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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