Houston/Larry Dierker Chapter meeting recap – 2/10/2012
This past weekend was a busy one for the Larry Dierker SABR Chapter. On Friday evening, February 10, 26 SABR members and friends attended the 2012 Houston Astros Baseball Dinner which began with Mike McCroskey singing the National Anrthem to the 800 people in attendance. During the dinner two SABR members, Jo Russell and Zachery Levine, presented awards to deserving honorees while two additional SABR members, Larry Dierker and Jimmy Wynn, were recognized as former Houston Astros Most Valuable Players. The culmination of the meeting, at least for us, was when our own Bill Brown received the Fred Hartman Long and Meritorious Service Award as voted by the Houston BBWAA for his 25 years as a Astros broadcaster.
On Saturday, members were busy with more activities. The first was attending and participating in the Astros’ annual FanFest, where we had a table and spoke to many prospects about joining SABR. Seventeen members manned the table during the 8-hour festival, working in two-hour shifts. Three trivia contests were conducted during this time and lots of SABR postcards and applications distributed. Interestingly, during the last trivia contest, four individuals tied for the correct number of answers. We had an extra contest available, in case of a tie, and once again all four had the same score. We finally determined a winner when Joe Thompson suggested each contestant try to name all of the players on the 2005 Houston Astros World Series roster. Lots of fun was had and Erika Everett took the honors.
Also on Saturday, 14 researchers gathered at the downtown library to report on their progress on the SABR chapter project of writing the history of Houston baseball. We were blown away by individual reports and especially the original color sketches of 19th century Houston ballparks drawn by Patrick Lopez. Editor Bill McCurdy has done a superior job in defining the task and achieving terrific results from his team. Our next meeting will be in July, when first drafts of each chapter will be presented.
— Bob Dorrill