Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter meeting recap – 6/20/2017
Ten members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at The Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis on Tuesday, June 20, 2017.
Chapter president Brian Flaspohler called the meeting to order. He announced that, for those who were interested, SABR’s annual report was now available online. He has also been pleased to receive several Membership Surveys that the chapter sent out a few weeks ago.
Items noted in “Today in Baseball History”: 1948 – The Cleveland Indians draw 82,781 for a doubleheader, a major league record for a regular season game that will be broken by the Indians in 1954. 1973 – Bobby Bonds leads off with a home run, but the Giants lose 7-5 to the Reds. It is Bonds’s 22nd lead-off home run, breaking Lou Brock’s N.L. record. 1982 – Pete Rose plays in his 3,000th major league game joining Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, and Carl Yastrzemski as the the only players to reach that plateau at the time.
Rich Applegate gave a book report on John Klima’s The Game Must Go On: Hank Greenberg, Pete Gray, and the Great Days of Baseball on the Homefront in WWII. Rich spoke very positively of the book and there was quite a bit of discussion on baseball during WWII, including extra doubleheaders, transportation issues, war benefit games, and the players returning home. Included in the book was a very poignant letter written by Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Larry French, who was in the Navy, to teammate Augie Galan back home.
Also discussed was Joe Sheehan’s recent manager rankings, which placed Mike Matheny last among the 30 current managers, and Tom Verducci’s Sports Illustrated article “What Happened to Baseball?” which focuses on the proliferation of home runs and strikeouts in today’s game.
Additional topics of discussion were the sorry NL Central Division and Aaron Judge.
Bob Tiemann’s trivia topic was “Whitey’s Last Pennant: 1987 Trivia”. Jim Leefers was the winner with a score of 35 out of 40.
The Baseball First Wednesday Meeting will be at the Sports Café in Bridgeton on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 starting at 5:30. The next regular monthly meeting will be July 18, 2017, with the location to be determined.
— Jim Leefers