Halsey Hall Chapter meeting recap – 11/2/2013

Twins broadcaster Cory Provus was the featured speaker at the Halsey Hall Chapter fall meeting on November 2. Cory grew up as a Cubs fan outside Chicago and attended the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. His first job after college was in Blacksburg, Virginia, doing play-by-play for Virgina Tech and doing 35 sportscasts a day. He eventually went to the University of Alabama, Birmingham before joining WGN for Cubs broadcasts in 2007. He worked two years with the Cubs and three for the Milwaukee Brewers before being hired by the Twins after the 2011 season to succeed John Gordon.

Thirty-one members and guests—Brenda Himrich, Bob Tholkes, Art Mugalian, Howard Luloff, Rich Arpi, Jed Levitt, I.P. Dailey, Bob Komoroski, John Swol, Joe O’Connell, Doug Skipper, John Gallo, Scott Cummings, Doug Ernst, Doug Kenison, Caleb Helmen, Dave Jensen, Tom Flynn, Lee Temanson, Roger Godin, John Rosengren, Josh Ostergaard, Larry Von Kurtze, Gene Zavadil, Dan Levitt. Fred Buckland, Sarah Johnson, George Rekela, Dana Marshall, and Brian Madigan—attended, ably organized by Scott Cummings, and Gary DeSmith showed up from Cokato long enough to drop off soda pop before heading back for a wedding his wife told him about that morning.

Research presentations:

  • John Rosengren, author of Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes, talked of how ethnicity is not as significant in baseball today and the anti-Semitism of the years when Greenberg played.
  • Bob Tholkes had slides and stories of from former spring-training sites in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which now has 26 plaques after the city created the Hot Springs Historic Baseball Trail. : The Hot Springs Historic Baseball Trail
  • Josh Ostergaard talked about and did readings from his forthcoming book, The Devil’s Snake Curve: A Fan’s Notes from Left Field, a history of baseball back to the 1880s with emphasis on war, religion, and facial hair.
  • Stew Thornley led the group in an exercise to reconstruct the play-by-play for a 1949 Browns-White Sox baseball game as part of a Retrosheet project.
  • Doug Skipper showed numerous photos and provided a great deal of history of Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

— Stew Thornley