Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter meeting recap – 6/10/2021
The Bob Broeg St. Louis SABR Chapter held its first in-person/zoom meeting on Thursday, June 10, 2021, with 15 members and guests in-person at The Sports Café, located at 3579 Pennridge Drive in Bridgeton and 7 members and guests via Zoom.
This was the first time since March 2, 2020, that the chapter had come together in person. We have been having monthly zoom meetings since June 2020.
The guest speakers for the evening were John Coulson, author of “Wee Willie Sherdel: Cardinals Winningest Left-Hander”, and his co-author John Sherdel, who is Willie’s grandson. They presented a wonderful slide presentation of how the Cardinals built their dynasty in the early 1920’s, culminating in their first World Series championship in 1926 against the powerful Yankees. Willie compiled a 153-131 record in his 14 years with the Cardinals. His grandson also showed some of Willie’s artifacts including his 1926 World Series ring, his 1927 warm-up jacket, a pocket watch given to him by Cardinals fans in 1926, his glove, and a plaster cast of Willie’s hand showing the grip of his outstanding change-up.
Items mentioned in our Today in Baseball History segment: 1890–Browns pitcher Jack Stivetts hits 2 HRs and Ks 10 to beat Toledo 9-8, 1892–Wilbert Robinson goes 7 for 7 as Baltimore defeats St. Louis 25-4, 1944-Joe Nuxhall, age 15 pitches 2/3 inning in Reds 18-0 loss to St. Louis, 1952-Bill Veeck fires Browns manager Rogers Hornsby and hires Marty Marion, and 1966-Bayless High (St. Louis, Mo.) grad Sonny Siebert no-hits Washington in a 2-0 for Cleveland.
Steve Gietschier promoted the St. Louis BBWAA podcast entitled “St. Louis Baseball Writers’ Ball Talk”. Subscription donations help the St. Louis BBWAA to fund sports journalism scholarships at regional universities like the University of Missouri and St. Louis University. The link is https://stlouisbbwaa.brushfire.com/balltalk1pt2/506180 .
The trivia quiz was presented by Clem Hamilton and was titled, “ 101 Years of Managers, 1920-2020.” Jim Leefers was the winner of the contest with 25/50, and Morris Buenemann was second with 23/50. Prizes awarded were winners choice between two 1950s books by Ira L. Smith, “Baseball’s Famous First Basemen” and “Baseball’s Famous Pitchers”.
The next regular monthly meeting will be Monday July 12, 2021 at The Sports Café in Bridgeton. The next fellowship meeting will be Wednesday, July 7, 2021 with the location yet to be determined.