Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter meeting recap – 7/23/2018
Seventeen members and guests of the Bob Broeg St. Louis Chapter gathered at the Sports Cafe, located at 3579 Pennridge Drive in Bridgeton on Monday, July 23, 2018.
Chapter president Rick Zucker called the meeting to order. He announced that the meeting dates for the remainder of the year are as follows: Monday August 20, Monday October 15, Monday November 19, and Tuesday December 11. The meetings will all be held at the Sports Café. The Jim Rygelski Research Conference will be held Saturday, September 8 at Webster University.
Allison Levin was on hand to present more information about this year’s research conference. The conference will be expanded to include poster presentations along with the traditional oral presentations. The oral presentations will continue to be strictly on baseball research while the poster proposals are open to research on any sport or sports related topic. The deadline to submit an abstract is August 15 at 11:59 p.m. CDT. The registration deadline is August 31 at 11:59 p.m. CDT. Submit Abstracts and Register at http://bit.ly/WU_Sports (case sensitive).
Rick Zucker gave a book report on “Wee Willie Sherdel” by John Coulson. While he was still in the process of reading the book, his assessment to this point was very positive saying it gives great insight into 1920s baseball.
Items mentioned for this date in baseball history were: The 100th birthday of Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese born in 1918. 1925–Lou Gehrig hits the first of his 23 career grand slams. 1990–Cardinals lefty Ricky Horton makes his last major league appearance. 2000-Andy Benes surrenders 4 home runs in one inning vs. Houston. 2009-Mark Buehrle pitches MLB’s 18th perfect game.
Zucker continued his series on the 50th anniversary of Bob Gibson’s record-setting 1968 season. Gibson began the month of July with a 9-5 record and a consecutive inning scoreless streak of 48. The streak came to an end in the first inning of his first start in July against the Dodgers, however, he went 6-0 in July, while giving up just three runs total in six complete games, including three shutouts. At the end of the month his record was 15-5 with a 0.96 ERA.
Rich Applegate and Carl Riechers both spoke about SABR 48 in Pittsburgh. Rich thought that the Pirates organization was very receptive and accommodating to SABR and Carl really enjoyed the ballpark presentations.
General baseball discussion began with the recent firing of Cardinals manager Mike Matheny and his possible replacement. Names thrown out included the interim manager, Mike Shildt, Joe Girardi, Yadier Molina (player/manager?), Stubby Clapp, and Terry Pendleton. Discussion also centered on the continuing problems of the Cardinals: upper management, clubhouse problems, offensive and defensive woes, and the bullpen.
The chapter’s monthly Fellowship Meeting will be Wednesday, August 1 at Lester’s in Ladue beginning around 5:30 pm. The next regular monthly meeting will be Monday, August 20, 2018 at the Sports Café in Bridgeton.
— Jim Leefers