Maine Chapter meeting recap – 7/11/2014
The first chapter meeting of SABR’s new Maine Chapter was held at Hadlock Field, home of the Portland Sea Dogs, on July 11, 2014. Thanks to the Sea Dogs, we were able to meet in their Portland Room. Thirteen people in all attended.
Pitcher Mike McCarthy of the Portland team led off, talking about his background, his career, the team, and some of his charitable work through baseball. SABR VP Bill Nowlin gave out copies of The Fenway Project, a book produced by the Boston Chapter in 2004, and talked about SABR, fielding several questions about BioProject. We went around the room and each person introduced themselves and told a little about their interests in baseball.
Chad Finn, the sports media columnist for the Boston Globe, then spoke about his years writing about the Maine Guides of Old Orchard, Maine, and how that led to his current work for the Globe. He took a number of questions, both about the Guides and today’s Red Sox team.
Nate Stone offered a research presentation on “Pitching Change Effectiveness” which stimulated a lot of discussion. The study was an attempt to quantify what happens when the manager pulls a pitcher in mid-inning. One could see a dramatic difference in, for instance, the mid-inning pitching changes of Tony La Russa as compared to Ron Gardenhire. Nate was encouraged to press on with the project.
As the meeting came to a close, nominations were taken for a possible chapter name. Online voting by chapter members will follow in due course. There was some discussion of the chapter’s next meeting. After the meeting ended, most members were able to stay and watch the Sea Dogs game against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.”
— Bill Vigue
wvigue@gmail.com