Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter meeting recap – 12/18/2017
The Bob Broeg Chapter of SABR met at the Sports Café in Bridgeton, Missouri on December 18, 2017.
Twenty-two members were present, which represented an excellent turnout for us! The meeting came to order at 6:45 PM. There was no Old Business to discuss. In New Business, president Brian Flaspohler reminded the members that it was time to renew their SABR memberships. We also discussed our January 27 SABR Day event, the Annual Hot Stove Meeting. This will be held at Favazza’s on the Hill, same place as last year. Most of our guests are confirmed, awaiting just confirmation from a former Cardinal player. Authors Ed Wheatley and Doug Feldmann will be there to discuss their books and two representatives from the El Birdos website and podcast will represent the local media. Lunch will be at Noon and the speakers will commence after that. We will also award the Jim Rygelski Memorial Research Award and elect officers for 2018.
Today in Baseball history was briefly discussed. Bill Veeck’s purchase of the White Sox in 1975 and the Cardinals’ acquisition of Mark Mulder in 2004 were the high points (it is the off season after all)! Rich Applegate gave a brief overview of the new SABR book on Sportsman’s Park. Brian Flaspohler presented a comparison of the Cardinal’s new outfielder, Marcell Ozuna, with their 2016 outfielders. Jeff Ecker presented a Hall of Fame ballot and the members voted on their preferences. There was some confusion with blank ballots in the final tally but it appears we are predicting Chipper Jones and Trevor Hoffman to win election with Jim Thome just one vote short. Surprisingly, neither Aubrey Huff or Carlos Zambrano received votes! There was some general baseball news discussion.
Trivia was presented by Burton Boxerman. He had all the career records of pitchers who won more than 200 games who have pitched for the Cardinals. The contest was to come up with the names that went with the records. Controversy reined when it became clear Mordecai Brown, Jim Kaat, and John Smoltz records were left off the list! In the confusion, we didn’t determine a winner but a good time was had by all.
— Brian Flaspohler