SABR 52: Featured Speakers
Learn more about our featured speakers and panelists at SABR 52 below.
Kris Atteberry is the lead radio play-by-play voice for the Minnesota Twins. He joined the Twins Radio Network in 2007 and spent 17 seasons hosting pregame and postgame shows, as well as providing play-by-play and analysis for select games. He has also called men’s and women’s college basketball on CBS Sports Network and he is a graduate of Stanford University.
Sierra Bailey is Vice President and Assistant General Manager of the St. Paul Saints. She began her baseball career as a Saints game-day intern in 2009 while attending the University of Minnesota, where she earned her degree in Sport Management. From there, she went on to work for the Minnesota Twins, Timberwolves, and Lynx before making her way back to the Saints in 2013.
Bert Blyleven became the first Dutch-born player elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011. Armed with one of the greatest curveballs in baseball history, he won 287 games and ranks fifth all-time with 3,701 career strikeouts. He was part of two World Series championship teams with the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates and 1987 Minnesota Twins, and he spent 22 seasons in the Twins broadcast booth from 1996 to 2020. He has also served as a pitching coach for the Netherlands baseball team in the World Baseball Classic since 2009.
Rod Carew was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991. He recorded 3,053 hits in his 19-year major-league career, and he was a seven-time batting champion with one of the sweetest left-handed swings in baseball. In 1977, he flirted with a .400 average all season, finishing at .388, and earned American League MVP honors. He was also recognized as the AL Rookie of the Year in 1967.
Emma Charlesworth-Seiler spent six seasons as a professional umpire. She attended the Minor League Baseball Umpire Academy in 2017 and began her professional career the same year. She worked in the Gulf Coast Rookie League, Florida Instructional League, Florida Spring Training, Arizona Spring Training, Northwest League, and Midwest League. She also taught with Major League Baseball Umpire Camps and was an academy instructor for three years before retiring following the 2022 season.
Evan Drellich is a senior writer for The Athletic where he covers the business of baseball. He is the author of Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess. He previously covered baseball at the Houston Chronicle, Boston Herald, MassLive, NBC Sports Boston, and MLB.com.
Derek Falvey is the President of Baseball Operations for the Minnesota Twins. Since joining the team in October 2016, the Twins have won three American League Central Division titles and qualified for four postseason appearances. The team also set a single-season major league record with 307 home runs in 2019 when they won 101 games. He began his front office career in 2007 and spent nine seasons in the Cleveland Guardians front office, including as an Assistant General Manager in 2016 when they won the American League pennant. He played baseball and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Trinity College in Connecticut.
Liz Fedor is Senior Editor for Twin Cities Business magazine. She oversees the magazine’s Trending sections, which provide business leaders with the latest information on specific industries. She spent 11 years at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporting on the airline industry, housing market, agriculture, and consumer issues. She previously worked as the editorial page editor, reporter, and columnist at the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota.
Pete Gorton is the founder of The Donaldson Network, a group of hundreds of researchers, authors, and historians dedicated to the rediscovery of Negro Leagues great John Donaldson. He was honored by SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee with the Tweed Webb Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.
LaTroy Hawkins is a Special Assistant to Baseball Operations and television analyst with the Minnesota Twins. He played for 21 seasons in the major leagues with 11 different teams, including the Twins from 1995 to 2003. He ranks 10th all-time in major-league history with 1,042 appearances and is one of a handful of relievers to record a save against all 30 MLB teams.
Rob Hubbard is President and Chief Executive Officer of Hubbard Television Group and Vice President of Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc. He is among the third generation of broadcasters at Hubbard Broadcasting, which owns and operates more than 50 media stations from Minnesota to Florida, including KSTP TV and radio in the Twin Cities. He will be inducted into the Minnesota Broadcasters Hall of Fame in the fall of 2024, along with his siblings Stan, Ginny, and Kari.
Jim Kaat was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 following a decorated 25-year major-league career spent mostly with the Minnesota Twins. He won 283 games, 16 Gold Glove Awards, and a World Series championship with the 1982 St. Louis Cardinals. He has worked as an Emmy Award-winning broadcaster on MLB Network since 2009 and has also called games for the Twins, New York Yankees, and ESPN since the early 1980s. He is the author of Good As Gold: My Eight Decades in Baseball.
Josh Kalk is Vice President, Baseball Operations Strategy & Innovation, with the Minnesota Twins. This is his seventh season with the Twins, where he leads the advance scouting team and assists the major league staff and player development personnel with unique information and ball-tracking data. Prior to joining the Twins in 2017, he spent nine seasons in the Tampa Bay Rays front office. He holds a Master of Science degree in Physics from Michigan State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
Thad Levine is the Senior Vice President, General Manager of the Minnesota Twins. Since his hiring in November 2016, the Twins have won three American League Central Division titles and qualified for four postseason appearances. The team also set a single-season major league record with 307 home runs in 2019 when they won 101 games. Previously, he spent 11 seasons as an Assistant General Manager for the Texas Rangers, a period that included two World Series runs. He has also worked with the Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Jeff Nelson was a major-league umpire for 26 years from 1997 to 2023. He called four World Series, nine League Championship Series, and two All-Star Games during his professional career. He served as a crew chief from 2014 until his retirement. He attended the Joe Brinkman Umpire School in Florida in 1989 before making his debut as a National League umpire in 1997.
Bill Nowlin is a prolific historian of the Boston Red Sox and a member of SABR’s Board of Directors since 2004. He is the author of Working a “Perfect Game”: Conversations With Umpires and more than 75 other baseball books, including dozens published by the SABR Digital Library. He has contributed hundreds of articles to SABR’s BioProject. He is also one of three founders of Rounder Records, one of America’s most successful independent record labels and a member of the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. He was the 2011 winner of the Bob Davids Award, SABR’s highest honor.
Tony Oliva was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022. The Cuban star excelled in all aspects of the game, winning three batting titles and 1964 American League Rookie of the Year honors. He helped lead the team to the 1965 World Series and batted .304 over his 15-year career, all spent with the Twins. Since 1976, he has served as a coach, scout, and Spanish-language radio analyst in the Twins organization. In 2010, he was named one of the “50 Greatest Twins.”
Glen Perkins is a radio and television analyst for the Minnesota Twins. He spent his entire 12-year major-league career as a pitcher with the Twins after he was selected in the first round of the 2004 amateur draft out of the University of Minnesota. He was a three-time All-Star and earned the save for the American League in the 2014 All-Star Game at Target Field. He ranks in the Twins’ top five all-time in saves and games finished.
Todd Peterson is a visual artist, historian, and teacher who lives in Overland Park, Kansas. He is the co-chair of SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee and a two-time winner of the Tweed Webb Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding research. His books include The Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues in 2019 and Early Black Baseball in Minnesota in 2010.
Adam Platt is Executive Editor at Twin Cities Business magazine, a position he has held since 2011. He attended Macalester College in St. Paul and previously worked as a writer and editor at the Twin Cities Reader, Casino Executive, and Mpls.St.Paul magazine.
Jeremy Raadt is Vice President, Baseball Systems, for the Minnesota Twins. He joined the Twins in 2014 as the club’s first baseball systems developer. His responsibilities include leading the baseball systems team as they develop applications and software for use across all areas of the baseball operations department, from player development and scouting to analytics. Previously, he worked at MinuteBids, Access Genetics, and at his alma mater, Bethel University, where he graduated with degrees in computer science, business finance and small business management.
Carl Rogan is the grandson of Wilber “Bullet Joe” Rogan, a two-way star with the Kansas City Monarchs who was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1998. Carl was a three-sport star at Minneapolis Central High School who has spent a lifetime playing and coaching sports. He spent 30 years working for 3M in the laboratory and in sales and marketing before his retirement.
Josh Ruffin is the Assistant Director of Player Development Research for the Minnesota Twins, where he works closely with the affiliate coaching staffs to develop minor league prospects. He joined the organization in 2019 as an Advance Scouting Analyst in the major league clubhouse. A former pitcher for Duke University, he graduated with a degree in Statistical Science in 2014, and earned his Master’s degree in Data Analytics Engineering from George Mason University. He has also served as a Data Analyst in numerous efforts supporting the United States Government, including the US Army, Navy, and Department of Agriculture.
Dave St. Peter is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Minnesota Twins. This year is his 35th season with the Twins organization; he was named the fourth president in Twins history in 2002 and added the CEO title in 2016. He played a central role in the approval, design, and construction of Target Field, which opened in 2010 and has hosted the MLB All-Star Game, NHL Winter Classic, and many other major events. During his tenure as team president, the Twins have won nine American League Central Division titles and have twice been named Organization of the Year by Baseball America.
Derek Sharrer is Executive Vice President and General Manager of the St. Paul Saints. He has been with the organization since 2004. He received Executive of the Year honors in the American Association for three consecutive seasons from 2015 to 2017. He oversaw the opening of CHS Field in 2015. He previously worked for the Charleston RiverDogs and Fort Myers Miracle, and his teams have set attendance records and drawn national attention for their creative promotions throughout his career.
Tom Shieber is Senior Curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and a member of the SABR Board of Directors. He is also the founder of SABR’s Pictorial History Committee and a 2018 Henry Chadwick Award honoree. An expert in 19th-century baseball, among many other areas, he is responsible for locating and correctly identifying the oldest team photograph: that of the New York Gotham club of 1855. His Baseball Researcher blog is a delight for anyone interested in the microscopic details of baseball. Tom is a native of Missouri and a one-time solar physicist at Mt. Wilson, California.
Benson Taylor is the Global Editor-in-Chief of The Sporting News. He has been a part of TSN for more than 25 years, and now oversees the content strategy for digital editions in 12 countries and six languages. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, home of TSN’s North American operations.
Stew Thornley is Minnesota’s foremost baseball historian and the inaugural president of SABR’s Halsey Hall Chapter. He is the author of many articles and books on Minnesota baseball history, including the award-winning On to Nicollet: The Glory and Fame of the Minneapolis Millers, The St. Paul Saints: Baseball in the Capital City, Holy Cow! the Life and Times of Halsey Hall, Minnesota Twins Baseball: Hardball History on the Prairie, and SABR’s Minnesotans in Baseball.
Tom Whaley is Executive Vice President of the St. Paul Saints, a position he has held since 2002. He is responsible for the team’s business development and he was one of the instrumental people in making CHS Field a reality. He previously worked for the Tampa Bay Rays and the Brockton Rox, and also spent six seasons with the Saints from 1993 to 1998 as Director of Operations and Assistant General Manager.
Frank M. White is an author, historian, exhibit curator, and SABR member. He is the author of They Played for the Love of the Game and several articles on Black baseball in Minnesota. He is also a retired athlete, coach, official, and sports administrator. He has coordinated the RBI program for the Minnesota Twins and served as a board member for the Minnesota State High School League.
For more information on SABR 52, visit SABR.org/convention.