Annual SABR Convention

Transcription

1 SABR Minor League Newsletter Robert C. "Bob" McConnell, Chairman 210 West Crest Road Wilmington DE ReedHoward July 2000 (302) Annual SABR Convention The annual SABR convention held in West Palm Beach last month was very successful, although the attendance was lower (about 300) than normal. George Case, son of the former Washington Senator, was introduced as the new executive director. Lyle Spatz, a member of our committee and chairman of the Records Committee, won the prestigious Bob David's Award. Twenty-two people attended the Minor League Committee meeting. Dave Chase gave a status report on the Minor League Hall of Fame and the player data base project (see his report below). Jerry Jackson gave a talk on his project of listing every minor league city newspaper and the libraries which will loan the newspaper microfilm via the inter-library loan program. This project is nearing completion. Jerry also reviewed his minor league managers project. He can use help on obtaining biographical data (date and place of birth and death). Jerry can be reached at sabrmnlgs@aol.com. Ted Lukacs gave a talk on his research on ballparks. John Pardon made an appeal to locate former league statisticians, or members of their families (see note below). The National Pastime: Museum for Minor League Baseball Work continues on the Player Database project under the direction of the Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Lloyd Johnson continues as the manager of the project for the Museum. About thirty SABR members are working on the project. This is a challenging task and we will need effort from more SABR members. Lloyd can be reached at lloydj@msn.com, or (816) The relationship between the Museum and the Minor League Committee will not be one sided. It is our intention to build upon it and make it mutually rewarding. Get involved today to be party to the bright future. On another matter, the Museum would like to host a national SABR convention once we are open. At the appropriate time, I will call upon many of you to help with that process. In addition to the Museum, Memphis offers a state of the art Triple A ballpark with convention facilities on site. Major hotels are at the front entrance to the park. The Museum site sits just beyond the left field wall. Memphis will be a unique site for a future SABR convention. I know I can count on each of you for your input and support. The Museum development team is coming together. Each segment has been selected for their expertise and enthusiasm for this project. The challenges are many, but we are confident that the Museum will be a success for fans, researchers, players and families. We welcome and encourage your participation. Dave Chase, Director The National Pastime: Museum for Minor League Baseball

2 Additions and Changes to Roster of January, 2000 Carl Henry, 9457 Cold Corner Rd., Hamersville OH 45130; Walt Jayroe, (2); 1321 W. Lynwood, Phoenix, AZ 85007; ; Rio Grande Assn. of 1915, Douglas Copper Kings of 1958, 19th Century umpires, Arizona ballparks. Bill McMahon; change (3) to (2); add add Akron teams and players. Marc Okkonen; change address to 889 Woodside Road, Apt 1, Muskegon, MI Statisticians! Where Are You? In recent years statistical bureaus have compiled the data on baseball's professional leagues. In years past many of the leagues had data compiled by individuals. Whatever happened to these individuals and their records? The goal of this project is to compile a list of these individuals, to research the backgrounds of each, and to determine if any records still exist. Anyone interested in this project should contact John F. Pardon, PO Box 728, Crugers, NY Roster of Nineteenth Century Minor League Players Reed Howard has been developing a roster of players and managers who played in Nineteenth Century organized minor leagues. The information contains, as well as it can be developed, full names, year, span, team, league, position, and any available biographical data. An example would be: Alcott Charles 1882 Camd.-Merritt Indep of Phila. PA 1883 August Flowers Indep 6/6-9/29 Pott.-Anthracite IntSt of /1-9/17 Allentown East t;õ84 Res /2-9/28 Trenton East t,ss /8-7/29 Syracuse Int t;õ86res /11 Scranton PaSt of 5/23-7/16 Williamsport PaSt ss Hazleton CPa /3-5/6 St. Louis WestA 50 g. Mansfield TriSt t 8/14-9/3 London Int t 9/8-9/19 Albany Int of g. Mansfield TriSt t Youngstown OhSt ss /1-7/23 Altoona EIntSt t Reed is working through the alphabet and is presently completing the Mc's, which now consists of 38 pages. He is looking for help, and is willing to provide information to other committee members seeking information on Nineteenth Century players. The records of many leagues have not yet been compiled, in many cases the first names of players can not be identified, in some cases number of games, but not spans, are known. If anyone has compiled the record of a Nineteenth Century league, or the records of a player who played in the Nineteenth Century, Reed would appreciate this information. If anyone is working on a league, team, or player history, Reed would be willing to share any information he has compiled. Reed Howard can be reached at rhoward@udel.edu, or (302)

3 The Bushwhackers John Benesch has recently retired and he will now have time to work on a revision of his book, The Bushwhackers. We will have details on this valuable reference book in a future newsletter. John needs the extra base hit leaders for the 1900 Western League (not the renamed American League) and all battings stats for the 1893 Western League. Write to John at 75 Phaeton Drive, Penfield, NY Compilation of League Averages Ray Nemec, the demon compiler, has completed the averages for the 1916 Northern League and the 1919 International Northwestern League. He is working on the 1902 and 1911 Southern Association. He is completely redoing the 1902 averages since, he says, the published figures are totally inaccurate. Ray plans to do the 1902 Texas League and the 1892 Southern League in the near future. Carlos Bauer has completed the 1894 California Players League and the 1896 California League. He is working on the 1912 and 1915 California Leagues. Joe Murphy is working on the 1910 and 1911 Central California Leagues. Bob Richardson has completed the averages for the 1904 New England League. He lists four players with only last names known: Bierman; Concord/Lawrence; May 16-June 27; infielder from Cincinnati. Schroeder; Fall River; Aug. 30-Sept. 10; outfielder from Hornellsville, NY. Stagwold; Fall River; Aug. 26; outfielder from Baltimore. Vandergrift; New Bedford; June 4-July 22; catcher recalled by Jersey City. If you know anything about these players contact Bob at 386 Riverway #4, Boston, MA Bob has almost finished with New England League averages. Again, we encourage members to compile averages for leagues which did not have their averages published. Also we need people to compile stats for "less than ten games" players. As most of you know, very few pre-world War II leagues included these players in their published averages. Box Scores Needed An appeal was published in the January newsletter for 1941 California League box scores. That list has been narrowed down to three games: April 19, Bakersfield at Fresno; June 6 (2nd game), Anaheim at San Bernardino; and June 14, Bakersfield at Fresno. Also, two box scores for the 1902 Southern Assn. are needed; July 15, Shreveport at Atlanta; and September 8, Atlanta at Little Rock. Anyone with this information should contact Ray Nemec. Connecticut History David Walter is working on a book covering the history of minor league baseball in Connecticut. He is asking for any material from our committee members that may be helpful. David can be reached at 155 West Main Street #413, Vernon, CT 06066, (860) Fourteen Inning No Hit Game On May 10, 1905 in the Texas League, pitcher Lower of Waco threw a one-hit game. The only hit came in the first inning, and the game ended in a scoreless tie after 15 innings. Thus Lower pitched a 14 inning no hit game after the first inning.

4 Minor League Baseball Stars IV The response to this project has been very poor. John Benesch has sent some player career records of very good players. Bob Schulz sent a list of suggested candidates along with one example of his work. Ed Brooks, Terry O'Neil, and Ron Selter sent lists of candidates. Bob Bailey sent an interesting list - players who have played in three or more Junior World Series or Dixie Series, on the theory that the players had to be fairly good to have played on that many very good teams. We will try to provide these lists in the next newsletter. Texas League Official Media Guide and Record Book This book was put together and published under the direction of League President Tom Kayser, a member of our committee. The book is the most complete minor league record book that we have ever seen. Some of the highlights are as follows: Information on each present club; officials, phone numbers, addresses, schedule. Farm club affiliations with major league clubs, 1919 to date. Ballparks, 1920 to date. Standings, 1888 to date with W-L records, managers, franchise shifts during season. Post season games; scores of all playoff games, info on Dixie Series, Tex-Mex Series. All Star selections, 1971 to date. Club attendance, 1971 to date. Year-by-year leaders; thirteen batting and eleven pitching categories. Career top ten; sixteen batting and fourteen pitching categories. Batting, pitching & fielding records; individual and club. There is much more information in the book. Contributors to the book include committee members Davis Barker, John Benesch, Bob Davids, Bob Hoie and Bill Weiss. The book is available to SABR members for $10.00, including shipping. Make checks payable to TEXAS LEAGUE, and send to 2442 Facet Oak, San Antonio, TX The All-Time Japanese Baseball Register This 322 page book contains material never before available in the United States. It has the career record of every batter with a minimum 1500 G, 150 HR,.270 Avg. (750+ G), 200 SB and/or winner of a batting title; every pitcher with a minimum of 400 G, 125 W, 1000 SO, 100 Sv, 2.99 ERA (300+ G), 2.50 ERA (1400+ IP) and/or winner of an ERA title. Importantly to our committee members who compile career records for minor league players, the Register also includes the records of every American who played in at least one game in Japan and every Japanese player who played in the major leagues. Sometimes in career records there is a gap of a year or two, and perhaps the player was playing in Japan during that period. There are thirteen stat categories for batters and sixteen categories for pitchers. The cost of the book is $23.95, including shipping. Make checks payable to BASEBALL PRESS BOOKS and send to PO Box 22493, San Diego, CA Books on the Minor Leagues Kevin Saldana has written two books on the minor leagues. This Date in Minor League Baseball History sells for $11.95, and Minor League Baseball Teams in the 1990Õs sells for $6.95. We do not have details of these books. Kevin can be reached at Chateau Lane, Huntington Beach, CA 92647, or sabrkev@angelfan.com.

5 National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (NA) Jim Ferguson, who works in the public relations department of the Association (Minor League office) is working on a book to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NA. The target date is the beginning of the 2001 season. Details of the book have not been worked out. If you wish to contribute an article on any phase of the minors, write to Jim at the NA office, PO Box A, St. Petersburg, FL Miscellaneous A fan (not a SABR member) called recently and wanted to know the details on a player who hit home runs in six consecutive games and lost every one of them! The fan said that he read about it in a newspaper, very possibly a Los Angeles paper, about, I am very skeptical that this ever happened, but I told him I would run it by our members. Could this have actually happened to a player? I suspect that the story listed the possible ways in which a player could lose homers. I can think of (1) batter passes runner while circling bases; (2) batter was out of the batter's box when he hit the ball; (3) umpire called time before the pitch; (4) fan interfered with outfielder trying to make catch; (5) game called before 5 innings completed; (6) game forfeited before 5 innings completed; (7) player declared ineligible; (8) batter missed a base; (9) error later declared on inside the park; (10) umpire overruled by other umpires. Can you come up with any more? A number of members have sent in interesting articles. We will try to run the shorter ones as space permits. We will offer to send the longer ones to members on request. In 1957 Fran Boniar led all OB players by hitting.436 (193h/443ab) in the California League. He was a Dodger farmhand who never appeared in a major league game. Ben Mateosky played his first game in the American Association on August 18, 1957 and hit home runs on his first two times at bat. Bob Riesener, pitching for Alexandria in the Evangeline League in 1957, won twenty games and lost none. Johnny Scroggs played his first game in OB on April 22, 1954, and pitched a no-hit game for Waycross against Thomasville in the Georgia-Florida League. "Dear Abby" Committee member Gene Wood had the following letter published in the "Dear Abby" column: "Dear Abby: Morse code is not dead! I am president of the Lone Star Chapter of the Morse Telegraph Club. We have chapters in many cities in the United States and Canada. On May 28, our chapter will have a table at a train show in Fort Worth, Texas, and will demonstrate Morse code sending and receiving. Other chapters also do demonstrations. We are mostly retired railroad and Western Union telegraphers, but also have members who are ham radio operators. We welcome new members." Abby's reply, "Oops! I'm pleased to know that the announcement of the demise of Morse code was premature, that some people still use it and there is still an interest in it. P.S. How do you say "sorry" in Morse code?" This letter appeared in the April 19 edition of the Wilmington (DE) News Journal.