Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter meeting recap – 8/20/2018
Nineteen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered for its monthly meeting on Monday, August 20, 2018, at the Sports Cafe, 3579 Pennridge Drive in Bridgeton, Missouri.
Chapter president Rick Zucker called the meeting to order. As is tradition at our monthly meetings, the seating is a hollow square setting and the meeting begins after everyone has introduced himself or herself.
Ed Wheatley announced that the next Browns Fan Club event would be another roundtable discussion on October 6, 2018, on the life and career of Roy Sievers. He also reported on his book readings at K.A.R.E. Camp with his latest publication “Incredible Cardinals”. Each session includes 30 to 40 kids, ages 7-14. Ed also takes a few major league game used bats and gloves for them to hold which, not surprisingly; the adults want to participate in also. He showed everyone some larger prints of the original artwork for the book.
Bob Giovanni gave a brief and positive report on a book he came across at the county library, The St. Louis Cardinals in the 1940s, by Mel Freese. Freese, who passed away in 2011, was former member of the local chapter and authored a handful of baseball books. Giovanni thought one of the more interesting facts he learned was Cardinals’ owner Sam Breadon having plans to build a new ballpark west of downtown.
Allison Levin gave an update on the Jim Rygelski Research Conference, which will be held Saturday, September 8 at Webster University. This year’s conference will have 10 oral presentations and 4 poster presentations. Register to attend at http://bit.ly/WU_Sports (case sensitive).
Allison also gave a report on attending the SaberSeminar on August 4-5 at Boston University. Some of the more interesting presentations she recalled were on checked swings, the introduction of a new statistic “Deserved Runs Created (DRC+)”, and how most pitching injuries actually occur at an early age.
Rick Zucker completed his book report on Wee Willie Sherdel, by John Coulson. He was still in the process of reading the book last month when he gave a partial report.
Items mentioned for this date in baseball history were: 1946 – Bob Feller’s fastball was clocked at 98.6 mph; 1953 – The St. Louis Browns defeat the AAA minor league Baltimore Orioles 8-2 before 11,000 in Baltimore; 1961 – The Phillies beat the Braves in the second game of a doubleheader to end their 23 game losing streak; 1974 – Nolan Ryan’s fastball is clocked at 100.9 mph; 1998 – Mark McGwire hits his 50th home run of the season, becoming the first player to do it three years in a row.
Zucker continued his series on the 50th anniversary of Bob Gibson’s record-setting 1968 season. Gibson began the month of August with a 15-5 record and a 0.96 ERA. He went 4-1 in August, with three more shutouts. His loss on August 19 ended his streak of 15 consecutive winning decisions. At the end of the month his record was 19-6 with a 1.03 ERA.
It was announced that the South Florida SABR Chapter is offering signed copies of Felipe Alou’s autobiography, Alou: My Baseball Journey, for $20 (including shipping) at sflasabr@hotmail.com
General baseball discussion included the resurgence of the St. Louis Cardinals under new manager Mike Shildt.
Bob Tiemann’s trivia quiz was “Bob Gibson in 1968”. Mark Stangl was the winner with 23 out of 27 answers and received a stadium give-away Cardinals pullover.
The Fellowship Meeting will be Wednesday, September 19 at Lester’s in Ladue beginning around 5:30 pm. Because of the research conference on September 8, the next regular monthly meeting will be Monday, October 15, 2018, at the Sports Café in Bridgeton.
— Jim Leefers