Larry Dierker Chapter meeting recap – 10/25/2021
The October meeting of the Larry Dierker Chapter was held on the fourth Monday of the month, October 25, 2021, due to the Astros being in the playoffs on the third Monday. This was a hybrid meeting with 16 people meeting in person while 12 others joined in via Zoom. Click here to watch highlights from the meeting on YouTube.
Chair Bob Dorrill noted the recent passing of long-time member Jo Russell. For many years, Jo was responsible for the annual Baseball Dinner in January and was an avid Astros fan. Chapter member Mike McCroskey was asked by her family to speak at the Memorial Service. He did a superb job of recalling how much Jo meant to him and to our Chapter.
Bob also reported on the play of the Houston Babies, our vintage baseball team, this past weekend at an area festival. Much fun was had by those who participated as players and as cranks!
The first speaker of the evening was Peter Coolbaugh, the Vice President of the Baltimore Chapter and a volunteer at the Babe Ruth Museum in that city. He provided an overview of the history of the Museum, shared some great trivia about The Babe, and described some of the plans for next summer’s Annual Conference in Baltimore.
In the second presentation, member Chris Chestnut offered a very interesting power point which he called the “Baseball Chart for Morning People.” This was a reference to his problem staying awake for the completion of games played on the West Coast. Using Retrosheet as a resource, he analyzed data from 175,000 games to predict each team’s likelihood of winning inning by inning. Great interest was shown and Chris offered to email his spreadsheets to any member who wanted to review them.
Chair Bob Dorrill provided information on SABR’s new Local Grants Program. Several very interesting ideas as to what our chapter could do were offered and a committee (Mike Acosta, Tony Cavender, and Bob McCann) was formed to pursue the matter.
Our Newsletter editor, Tony Cavender, reported that articles may still be submitted for the fall edition. Publication will follow the completion of this year’s World Series.
Thirty-five members participated in the annual contest to predict the number of Astros’s wins for the season. This year, there was a tie between Mark Hudek and Greg Moore who both guessed ninety-five wins.
The trivia contest was offered by Fred Rogers who chose the timely theme of the World Series. It was a very challenging quiz! Greg Lucas emerged the victor and will present the next trivia contest at our meeting on Monday, 15 November.
— Marsha Franty