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

April 2014

Editor:
Stew Thornley

• Roy Smalley to Speak at Spring Chapter Meeting March 29
  
• Member News and Events
  
• New Members
  
• Calendar
  
• Board of Directors
• Resources
  

Roy Smalley to Speak at Spring Chapter Meeting March 29
Former Twins shortstop Roy Smalley will be the featured guest at the spring meeting of the Halsey Hall Chapter Saturday, March 29 at the Faith Mennonite Church, 2720 E. 22nd Street in south Minneapolis. Registration is at 8:30 with the program beginning at 9:00. Smalley will appear at 11:00. A business meeting will be held during lunch. The cost for the meeting and lunch is $10. The meeting only is $5. Those wanting lunch should RSVP to Scott Cummings, 952-334-0075.

Two research presentations have been approved:

• Lee Temanson with A Night at Barnett Field: The Legend of Steve Dalkowski. Lee, supplemented by news accounts from the Fargo Forum, will recount a game he saw Steve Dalkowski of Aberdeen pitch against the Fargo-Moorhead Twins at Barnett Field in Fargo soon after Dalkowski had pitched a no-hitter against Grand Forks in May of 1959. Lee will also bring the only baseball card ever made of Dalkowski.
• Stew Thornley with Baseball in Bloomington, a slide show with photos related to baseball coming to Bloomington. It is mostly Met Stadium photos from the years of the Twins and Millers, and it contains a lot of information about how Met Stadium came to be (a stadium almost ended up in St. Louis Park) and what happened after Met Stadium was built and the efforts to get a major-league team.
• Dan Levitt with The Kansas City Royals Baseball Academy, which was created by Ewing Kauffman shortly after he was awarded an expansion team in Kansas City in 1969.

During the business meeting, three members will be elected to the chapter’s board of directors to succeed outgoing directors Jerry Janzen, Dave Jensen, and Howard Luloff. Three members have agreed to run for office:

• Jerry Janzen. Candidate statement: “It has been my privilege to serve on the board for four terms as your treasurer. I am willing to continue to serve on the board and take care of your money if elected.”
• Gene Gomes. Gene first joined SABR around 1981. After reading the old Baseball Abstracts by Bill James in the late 70s, he wanted to read the publications of SABR and learn about baseball statistics and their analysis. “My best sport as a kid was actually football, but I always found baseball to be the most interesting sport to follow and read about. We did win the New Orleans city championship in the 16-year-old bracket in 1968. I used to take off early from my dental practice during the summer months in order to coach all three of my children’s baseball teams. I read books and watched tapes made by the hitting coach at Louisiana State University. The last time I coached was for my son“s Senior Babe Ruth team about nine years ago. Presently, in addition to the Twins, I follow college baseball, especially LSU. I've been to Omaha a couple of times for the CWS, and I need to go back. I have been a Twins season-ticket holder since 2002. I’m looking forward to doing another research topic for a meeting. My first one was two years ago. I would also like to look into finding ways to invite other SABR members in the area to our meetings. The only promise that I have is that if you like your SABR membership, you can keep it.”
• Stew Thornley. Candidate statement: “I’m an over-the-hill retread who has been on the board too many times and am running again only because someone was needed. If anyone who is not a retread too many times is interested in serving, I will withdraw my candidacy and nominate that person. We are fortunate in our chapter to have a lot of veterans with experience in chapter matters and institutional memory. However, to remain viable, our chapter needs younger and/or newer people to get involved; someday, they will be veterans who have the experience and institutional memory to pass on to others. For this to happen, the rest of us retreads/old farts have to stay out of the way to allow them to have opportunities. So I will serve if needed, but I’d really love it if someone else wants to take advantage of the opportunity. Thanks.”

Anyone else interested in running for the board may declare his or her candidacy and/or be nominated from the floor during the business meeting. Even though the terms for the new board members will not begin until July 1, they are welcome to attend the next chapter board of directors meeting on April 13. The board will set the date for the June board meeting. 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 and other leadership positions 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 since the board term of the incoming members will not begin until July 1.

Other upcoming activities:
The Halsey Hall Chapter Book Club will meet Saturday, April 5 at 9:30 a.m. at Barnes & Noble in Har Mar Mall in Roseville to discuss Seasons in Heck: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and the Worst Baseball Team in History—The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers by Mike Shropshire. In addition, the group will discuss the telecast of Game Six of the 1977 World Series. The complete game is available for purchase from iTunes or for viewing on YouTube: 1977 World Series, Game 6: Dodgers @ Yankees.

The Research Committee will meet Monday, April 14 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at Bakers Square in Richfield (66th Street to the east of York Avenue). For more information, contact Brenda Himrich or Sarah Johnson. The committee is continuing with its Spread of Baseball project, started by Rich Arpi. Two webpages have information on the spread of baseball, Pre-pro Baseball and Pre-pro Clubs and Games in Minnesota.

The next Fred Souba Hot Stove Saturday Morning, an informal breakfast gathering for the purpose of talking baseball, will be at 9:00 on May 10 at Bakers Square in Richfield (66th Street to the east of York Avenue).

Road trip: This year’s Northern League outing will be Saturday, June 14 to Rochester to see the Honkers play the Alexandria Blue Anchors at 7:05 p.m. at Mayo Field. Kyle Traynor, a gynecologist and incoming back-up official scorer for Twins games, is the official scorer for Rochester.

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Member News and Events
John Rosengren has had his latest book, The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal and John Roseboro Turned Baseball’s Ugliest Brawl into a Story of Forgiveness and Redemption, published and has some upcoming events. John will be at Magers & Quinn Booksellers (3038 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis 55408, 612-822-4611) on Tuesday, March 25 at 7:00 p.m. John will be on a panel moderated by Dick Bremer in the Pohlad Auditorium at the Minneapolis Central Library on Thursday, April 10 at 7:00 p.m. The panel will include Tim Wendel, author of own to the Last Pitch: How the 1991 Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves Gave Us the Best World Series of All Time.

Tim Wendel will also be appearing with the author of Minnesota Twins Baseball: Hardball History on the Prairie at SubText Books (165 Western Avenue North, St. Paul 55102, 651-493-3871, beneath Nina’s Coffee Cafe in the Blair Arcade building two blocks west of the St. Paul Cathedral on the corner of Selby and Western) at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, April 11.

Bob Tholkes, Rich Arpi, and Joe O’Connell are driving to Houston for the SABR convention July 30 to August 3 and have room for another member in the car. Anyone interested may contact Bob Tholkes, 763-781-6161.

Joe Niese is looking for a roommate for the SABR convention. Anyone interested may contact Joe, 715-523-0369.

Anthony Bush has written an article on the Duluth White Sox of the Class D Minnesota-Wisconsin League, The 1910 White Sox: Glory Fades Away.

SABR is producing a book consisting of biographies of players on the 1965 Twins as well as others connected with the team. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2014. Gregory Wolf, the project editor, is looking for someone to write game-by-game summary of the season. Anyone interested in learning more may contact Gregory Wolf.

The Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference will be held in Detroit, August 14-16, 2014. Information is available at LarryLester42.com. Scholarships are available for the conference (due April 15). SABR 2014 Negro Leagues Committee Scholarship Application

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New Members
The Halsey Hall Chapter welcomes new members Charles Saeger, Jeff Lenz, Steve Hobbs, and Mark Olson. Mark is writing biographies of Mel Nelson and Bill Pleis for the SABR book on the 1965 Twins as well as a historical novel on Charles Albert Bender.

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Calendar
    March 29—Spring Chapter Meeting, Faith Mennonite Church, 2720 E. 22nd Street, Minneapolis, 9:00 a.m. For more information, contact Scott Cummings, 952-334-0075.

    April 5—Book Club and Vintage Game Video Club, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, Roseville, 9:30 a.m., Seasons in Heck: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and the Worst Baseball Team in History—The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers by Mike Shropshire, and Game Six of the 1977 World Series. For more information, contact Art Mugalian, 612-721-2825, and Gary DeSmith, 320-286-5127.

    April 14—Research Committee Meeting, 66th and York, Richfield, 6:30 p.m. For more information, contact Brenda Himrich or Sarah Johnson. (A meeting is also planned for April 14 at 6:30 p.m.)

    May 10—Fred Souba Hot Stove Saturday Morning, Bakers Square, 66th and York, Richfield, 9:00 a.m. For more information, contact Mark Johnson, 952-831-1153.

    June 14—Northwoods League Road Trip to Rochester, 7:05 p.m. (leave mid-afternoon from the Twin Cities). For more information, contact Stew Thornley, 651-415-0791.

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