Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter meeting recap – 10/15/2018
Nineteen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at the Sports Cafe, located at 3579 Pennridge Drive in Bridgeton on Monday, August 20, 2018.
Chapter president Rick Zucker called the meeting to order.
Ed Wheatley spoke briefly about attending the 13th Annual Film Festival at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, September 21-23. “The St. Louis Browns: The Team That Baseball Forgot” was featured on the final day of the festival. He thought that one of the more interesting items revealed was in the film “Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived” and how Williams downplayed his Hispanic heritage during his career.
Items mentioned for this date in baseball history were: 1917 – The White Sox defeat the Giants in Game 6 to win the World Series. They would eventually complain that they did not receive their full winner’s shares. 1946 – Harry Walker drives in Enos Slaughter with the eventual series-winning run in Game 7 to defeat the Red Sox. 1964 – Bob Gibson hangs on to defeat the Yankees 7-5 in Game 7 of the World Series. 1982 – Willie McGee homers twice against the Brewers in Game 3 of the World Series as the Cardinals win 6-2. 1988 – Kirk Gibson’s 9th inning homer wins Game 1 for the Dodgers over the A’s.
Zucker closed out his series on the 50th anniversary of Bob Gibson’s record-setting 1968 season. Gibson began the month of September with a 19-6 record and a 1.03 ERA. He went 3-3 in September, with two more shutouts. His 1-0 loss on September 17 to the Giants came by way of a Ron Hunt home run and Gaylord Perry’s no-hitter.
Zucker shared an e-mail from Robert Mayer (springfvr9@aol.com). Mayer collects baseball artifacts, particularly presentation bats. Several years ago he purchased a bat with an engraved plate reading, “To Jerome ‘Dizzy’ Dean” “The Gang”. Any information on this item would be greatly appreciated.
Mark Antonacci presented his proposals to enliven and enhance baseball, which includes moving the mound back 3 feet, only three balls required for a walk, and limiting teams to one pitching change in an inning. This created some lively discussion among the group. Antonacci had presented his proposals at the Webster University Sports Research Conference on September 8. A recap of the conference was given and there was some discussion on the positive and negative aspects of the conference. There were ten proposals with Scott Jensen winning the Jim Rygelski Award with his presentation, “ Winning and Modernization: Implications of the ‘New’ Chicago Cubs on Fandom, Tradition, and the Cubs as a “Promised Land”.
General baseball discussion included the end of the St. Louis Cardinals season, their needs for next year, and the current teams in the playoffs.
Ed Wheatley gave a report on the St. Louis Browns Fan Club’s recent conference on Roy Sievers. Twelve members of Roy’s family were in attendance and a crowd of over 80 people enjoyed the stories, discussion, and memorabilia relating to Roy’s career.
Bob Tiemann’s trivia quiz was “World Series Feats”. Mark Stangl was the winner with 65 out of 74 answers.
The next regular monthly meeting will be Monday, November 19, 2018 at the Sports Café in Bridgeton.
— Jim Leefers