Cliff Kachline Chapter meeting recap – 7/22/2012
Twenty strong came out for the SABR Cliff Kachline Chapter’s annual Hall of Fame Induction Weekend meeting at Tillapaugh’s Funeral Home in Cooperstown, New York. It is believed that this chapter has met at Tillapaugh’s on every Induction Day since 1973.
Jeff Katz, Chapter president, sent apologies from Ted Spencer, former curator at the Hall of Fame, who regrettably had to cancel. After a few of us shared our weekend highlights, with John Thorn, official MLB historian, citing Vicki Santo’s wonderful speech, we got to the presentations.
Michael Piazzi continued his research into Harry Pulliam, sharing some of Pulliam’s floral sports writing. Bruce Markusen did an entertaining PowerPoint presentation on the historic 1972 Topps baseball card set, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. A wonderful discussion on the history of facial hair sprouted with Bruce, Bill Deane, Gabe Schechter and John Thorn providing the minutiae.
Continuing the celebration, our chapter surprised Bruce by presenting him with an engraved bat as the 2012 winner of the Cliff Kachline Award, given to an active member who is dedicated to research.
Gabe then regaled us with 20 bios of obscure players from the Conlon Collection. Gabe has written 1800 bios, which can be seen here https://www.theconloncollection.com/products.html
Ron Visco finished us off with a fascinating look into the unique quality of line scores. Ron has written two articles on the subject for SABR Baseball Research Journal.
Our next meeting will be sometime around the World Series.
— Jeff Katz