Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter meeting recap – 4/24/2017
Seventeen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis on Monday, April 24, 2017.
Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. The chapter’s Baseball Location Project has been given the name “Meet Me at the Musial Statue.” Flaspohler requested that members begin to submit to the committee members all the baseball related addresses/locations in the St. Louis area that they know. Initially they are just collecting data with no limits, so many locations within a substantial radius can be submitted. Players’ homes, gravesites, locations of parks, tragedies, important events, businesses, publications, newspapers, and other sites deemed worthy are requested. The committee members are Brian Flaspohler (bkflash@charter.net), Mark Stangl (mwsbaseballdude@yahoo.com), Steve Gietschier (sgietsch@gmail.com), Jeff Ecker (eckjeffreya@gmail.com), and Craig Carter (craigscarter@charter.net).
Items noted in “Today in Baseball History”: 1894 – Lave Cross hits for the cycle as the Phillies pound the Grooms 22-5. He becomes the first player in franchise history to accomplish the feat. 1901 – The first American League game is played with the White Sox defeating the Cleveland Blues 8-2. 1956 – At Municipal Stadium in Kansas City, Frank Umont becomes the first umpire to wear glasses during a major league regular season game. He is heckled by some A’s fans. 1962 – The Houston Colt 45’s and the St. Louis Cardinals play each other for the first time. Playing in Houston, the home town crowd is split in their loyalties, because the Cardinals had a AA farm team there for many years.
Barbara Sheinbein gave a report on the newest book in the SABR Digital Library, The SABR Book on Umpires and Umpiring. She gave the book a very positive review and it created quite a bit of discussion on umpires in general which was very interesting.
Flaspohler mentioned that due to some scheduling conflicts, the 3rd Annual Bob Broeg SABR Chapter Research Conference will now be on Saturday, August 26, 2017, from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the St. Louis County Library at 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd. Additional topics of discussion was the disappointing early play of the Cardinals and the surprising start of the Milwaukee Brewers’ Eric Thames, who happened to hit two more homes runs that very evening against the Reds.
Bob Tiemann’s trivia topic was “New Seasons in Old St. Lou.” Mark Stangl was the winner with a perfect score of 32 out of 32.
The Baseball First Wednesday Meeting will be at the Sports Café in Bridgeton Wednesday, May 3, 2017 starting at 5:30. The next regular monthly meeting will be May 22, 2017 at Crusoe’s.
— Jim Leefers