SABR 41 – Society for American Baseball Research https://sabr.org Mon, 27 Jul 2020 23:54:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 SABR 41: Recapping the Long Beach Convention https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-recapping-the-long-beach-convention/ Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:01:47 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-recapping-the-long-beach-convention/ LONG BEACH — Here’s a compilation of recaps from SABR 41 this week:

We drank, cracked jokes about each other, and argued about stuff like the Negro Leagues and Major League Equivalencies in what I’d more or less describe as a perfect few hours. It’s tough to beat baseball, beer, friends, and 75-degree weather from a 14th-floor balcony overlooking California and the night was such a perfect representation of why I come to SABR conventions that it had me quoting Snoop Dogg on Twitter after finally going to my room at 4:15 a.m.

Heard notorious sports agent Scott Boras address (and actually charm) a packed ballroom of baseball fans and media about his early playing days. Heard a presentation called Fielder Jones, the Offensive Efficiency Paradox of His Hitless Wonders, and How They Stunned the Cubs in the 1906 World Series By Playing Against Type. Heard a convincing talk by Daryl Grigsby about how opposition to integration hurt the Washington Senators during the 1940s and ’50s. Enjoyed an hour-long media panel with Sean Forman, creator of Baseball Reference, Dave Cameron of Fan Graphs, Bill Squadron of Bloomberg Sports and Russ Stanton of the Los Angeles Times about how we willl get our baseball information in 10 years. Browsed through a vendor room that featured a table selling programs and scorecards from the old Pacific Coast League, along with a fabulous collection of small press baseball books I’d never seen, with titles like A History of Double Headers, Death at the Ballpark: A Comprehensive Study of Game-Related Fatalities, and Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix.

And that was all before dinnertime.

Afterwards I took in a superlative FanGraphs panel moderated by author/bloggers Jonah Keri, Rob Neyer, and Carson Cistulli that featured, among others, Rich Lederer of Baseball Analysts, who was largely responsible for Bert Blyleven making the Hall of Fame. The event lasted three hours but was so engrossing it felt like one.

Polman also wrote a separate recap for Seamheads.com: http://seamheads.com/2011/07/12/talking-baseball%E2%80%A6a-lot-of-it/

The overall quality of the presentations really was very good. It might be the best group I’ve seen at a SABR convention so far. With one exception that shall remain nameless, I really liked them. Treder and Giacalone gave a great tag-team presentation on the 1965 NL pennant race, Mark Pankin (one of the men behind Retrosheet) gave a nice talk about whether the lack of lights hurt the Cubs for decades, Phil Birnbaum gave a great talk on home field advantage, and Adrian Burgos, Jr. gave an illuminating talk on Hall of Famer Alex Pompez.

Herm Krabbenhoft can prove one of major-league baseball’s longest standing records is wrong. … Like a prosecutor, he can walk a jury of his baseball-loving peers through physical and circumstantial proof and lead them to his conclusion: The American League’s single-season RBI record should not belong solely to Lou Gehrig, but rather should be shared with Hank Greenberg.

Managing editor of SABR’s The National Pastime publication, which was released during the SABR 41 convention, wrote a live blog for each day of the convention. She included quick transcripts of the panel discussions and Scott Boras’ keynote speech.

On Sunday, after breakfast, I got to hear former Dodgers Tommy Davis and Al Ferrara (who also was an original member of the Padres) tell stories. They grew up in Brooklyn together (the sense of place East Coast folks seem to feel is something I’ve always envied a bit) and were a treat. Ferrara talked about the differences between the Dodgers and the Padres at that time (hint: one organization had more money than the other) and mentioned his appearances in such fine films as Dracula’s Dog, Mansion of the Doomed, and Riot on Sunset Strip.

Ferrara also had nice things to say about his manager in San Diego, the late Preston Gomez. And he shared a fun anecdote about his third base coach on that same team, the late Sparky Anderson. While playing under Anderson in Cincinnati, Ferrara misplayed a fly ball to left field and Anderson stared him down as he returned to the dugout after the inning. Ferrara, who had been acquired from the Padres for the immortal Angel Bravo, quipped to his skipper: “What did you want for Bravo, Willie Mays?”

I could have listened to those two talk all day.

At this week’s convention, present-day medical issues were also explored with candor. Serving on a panel Wednesday night were Ned Bergert, former Angels head trainer, Neal ElAttrache, the Dodgers’ team physician and Dr. Kevin Wilk of Champions Sports. Their panel was moderated by Will Carroll of SI.com. … ElAttrache was curious about the audience’s view on PRP and performance-enhancing drugs.

“That’s something I do need to be concerned about because I take care of people of all ages and what kind of effect is that going to have, socially, on the young athletes that we take care of,” he said.

“Because, believe me, I see high school kids and junior high school kids that are dabbling in steroids and HGH [human growth hormone]. It’s amazing what happens. And their parents know it. Including girls, by the way, especially girls.

“Girls’ soccer is rife with anabolic steroid use. It’s amazing.”

The Society of American Baseball Research is in the midst of their 41st gathering and by all accounts it has been an excellent exercise of baseball thought. FanGraphs presented a panel at the conference on Thursday night, and this totally unbiased opinion had the night at around the “pretty sweet” level.

Coming together on the first squaretable were Rich Lederer of Baseball Analysts (or “the first stathead to induct someone into the Hall of Fame” as moderator Jonah Keri put it), Sam Miller of the Orange County Register, Eric Stephen of True Blue LA and Jon Weisman of Dodger Talk.

Scott Boras’ success as an agent has made him feared, resented or loathed by many fans of the game. But in a long keynote speech at the annual conference for the Society for American Baseball Research today, Boras stressed his love for the game as his motivation for representing players.

“Baseball gave me a platform,” he said at the Long Beach Hilton. “It gave me something in life I still to this day consider the greatest of privileges. I wake up in the morning, run along the ocean go watch a day game in Anaheim, go watch a night game in Dodger Stadium, go home and talk to my sons who play baseball, and lay my head on the table and thank God for everything.”

After the [keynote] speech, I talked with Scott Boras and asked him about two of his star clients – we’ll start first with Bryce Harper, the 18 year old phenom who’s considered by many scouts and seasoned baseball experts to be the top prospect in all of Major League Baseball. He’s moving up fast in the minors – he was hitting .314 in single A ball with 14 HRs and 46 RBI – but will soon be playing for the Washington Nationals – perhaps as early as next year. Here’s the transcript of my one-on-one interview with Scott Boras.

I have to give my fellow attendees, the staff and the leadership a sold A+. SABR is an open, friendly, sharing group. No matter where you sat down – lunch, the hotel bar, any meeting room, at the two baseball games we took in – you fell into conversation and it was always about baseball. What a treat to be among about 400 strangers (well 398, I knew one or two from the AFL outings) all of whom like baseball, knew baseball and were willing to swap baseball stories. The slogan could be, “There are No Strangers at a SABR Event.” The First Time Attendee sticker got me a lot of “welcome to SABR” greetings and that was cool too. People care about this organization — a strong sign of health.

I was invited by Cameron to participate in FanGraphs Live in the main ballroom on Thursday night. … [Jonah] Keri introduced me as “the first stathead to induct someone into the Hall of Fame.” … The moderators and members of the audience asked me about the Angels and Dodgers, Bert Blyleven, the Hall of Fame, Jered Weaver, and Bryce Harper, among other topics. Cameron reminded me that I mentioned my disgust about the Vernon Wells signing more than once (or was it three times?). Of note, on the night before the Angels called up Mike Trout, I suggested that the team would have been better off locking him up for ten years rather than giving even more money to Wells for a shorter period. My son Joe, who attended the event along with my son-in-law Joel and brother Tom, informed me bright and early the following morning that the Angels promoted Trout from Double-A to the majors. I went to the Angels-Mariners game that evening and saw the 19-year-old prospect’s MLB debut. He went 0-for-3 at the plate but made an outstanding running catch at the warning track in right-center field to record the final out in the top of the ninth inning.

Here are some other recaps from local media outlets who were at SABR 41:

Hope to see you all in Minneapolis for SABR 42 next summer!

For more stories from SABR 41, click here.

— Jacob Pomrenke

]]> SABR 41: Krabbenhoft Driven to Set Record Straight https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-krabbenhoft-driven-to-set-record-straight/ Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:42:28 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-krabbenhoft-driven-to-set-record-straight/ From the Albany Times Union on July 11:

Herm Krabbenhoft can prove one of major-league baseball’s longest standing records is wrong.

He has spent five years accumulating evidence, logging hour after tedious hour combing through library archives, newspaper stories, box scores and official stats.

Like a prosecutor, he can walk a jury of his baseball-loving peers through physical and circumstantial proof and lead them to his conclusion:

The American League’s single-season RBI record should not belong solely to Lou Gehrig, but rather should be shared with Hank Greenberg.

Krabbenhoft, a 66-year-old retired research chemist who owns a home in Schenectady, is a longtime member of the Society for American Baseball Research, better known as SABR.

He grew up a Detroit Tigers fan, but his quest to see the record changed has little to do with his favorite team, his passion for statistics or even baseball at all.

His only interest, he said, is righting a wrong.

“If you make a mistake, you have to get it right,” he says. “You don’t just leave it out there. It’s not out of any loyalty to the Tigers or Hank Greenberg or baseball. It’s about loyalty to accuracy. If I found an error, it should be corrected.”

Read the full article here: http://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/Man-driven-to-set-the-record-straight-1459689.php#ixzz1S87IRpD5

Krabbenhoft delivered his research presentation on July 7 at the 41st annual SABR convention in Long Beach, California. For more stories from SABR 41, click here.

]]> SABR 41: An Eclectic Ensemble of Apparel https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-an-eclectic-ensemble-of-apparel/ Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:38:13 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-an-eclectic-ensemble-of-apparel/ LONG BEACH — A GQ photo shoot, we can assure you, this is not. But in between all the groundbreaking research presentations, panel discussions, ballgames and Hall of Fame arguments at the bar, one of the most entertaining highlights of any SABR convention is to see which obscure team jerseys, hats and other apparel will make an appearance in the hotel or at the ballpark.

Longtime attendees may not feel like they’re at a real SABR convention until they see Dave Smith in a Brooklyn Dodgers jersey or Maxwell Kates in a Detroit Tigers hat.

We noticed quite a few teams from all levels and eras represented this year at SABR 41, from the Lake Elsinore Storm to the Philadelphia A’s to the Yomiuri Giants to the Dodgers and Angels.

Check out a photo gallery of some of our favorites from all week in Long Beach:

For more stories from SABR 41, click here.

— Jacob Pomrenke

]]> SABR 41: Top Tweets From Long Beach https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-top-tweets-from-long-beach/ Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:37:17 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-top-tweets-from-long-beach/ LONG BEACH — As part of our ongoing coverage from SABR 41 last week in Long Beach, we set up a Twitter widget on the SABR.org home page by which convention attendees could post live updates from every presentation, panel and ballgame.

Here are some of the top tweets from SABR 41:

  • @aarongleeman: Final verdict on #SABR41  in California: Any of y’all who don’t come to #SABR42 in Minnesota next year ought to be ashamed of yourself.
  • @robneyer: In a room filled with Baseball Primates. If you don’t see another Tweet from me by Monday, please send help. #SABR41
  • @DanEvans108: Had good time today at SABR41 convention in Long Beach; GM panel member with Fred Claire & Jed Hoyer. #SABR41 http://twitpic.com/5nx4yg
  • @aarongleeman: “Your Rally Monkey is getting in my beer.” – @cwyers #SABR41
  • @wezen_ball: Talking regrettable trades, Dan Evans tells us about regretfully trading for Todd Hundle. Fred Claire 10-ups him w/Pedro trade #sabr41
  • @ducksnorts: Fascinating presentation at #SABR41 on whether veterans get breaks from umpires. Older pitchers get more false strike calls.
  • @bobtimmermann: At the site of the old Wrigley Field for #sabr41 twitpic.com/5nm9er
  • @baseball_ref: Free B-R t shirts in vendor room at #Sabr41
  • @buckweaver: Yes, that would be our Black Sox committee meeting in the lede of this LAT article on #SABR41 today: http://lat.ms/nyfywV
  • @robneyer: I think I prefer this new, crowd-free version of Dodger Stadium. #sabr41
  • @gmartinez51: Dodger Stadium is very nice. Going to be a great evening of baseball with my #SABR41 buddies. Bought a nice Valenzuela jersey/t-shirt.
  • @BarryID: Funniest line at #SABR41 — Speaker: what can I add to this meeting? Wife: 30 minutes. Fact: It was 45 including a magic trick. Fun.
  • @MWEinNC: #SABR41 Giacalone: To be able to pitch through the arthritis in his elbow Koufax junked his entire repertoire except for FB and curve.
  • @gmartinez51: J. Thorn: When will we have a woman baseball player? No reason they can’t play competitive baseball. #SABR41 I agree!
  • @PatrickSull: You’re not gonna believe this, but @d_a_cameron isn’t really holding back at #sabr41 on the Fangraphs panel.
  • @joedimino: About to go to In-n-Out burger for the first time. Am I going to be harassed for not wanting the sauce? #SABR41
  • @merknits: Had dinner with MLB’s VP of Stats. Fun guy, predilection for Hawaiian shirts. #SABR41 is proving even cooler than I expected. 🙂
  • @crzblue: Impromptu session outside the corridor when #SABR41 attendees stopped Wes Parker to chat. He still talking ! Have some in video @Dodgers
  • @sean_forman: Why is @OldHossRadbourn busting on #SABR41. Does he realize people only know of him because of SABR members?
  • @SBarzilla: Sold two books so far. I can now afford dinner. #SABR41
  • @braggers41: Stat wizard John Dewan crushing it at #SABR41 panel. Seconds Rich Lederer’s nomination of Bill James for the Hall of Fame. I third it.

Thanks to all the convention attendees who helped us let the world know what was going on during SABR 41! We hope you’ll join us next summer for SABR 42 in Minneapolis.

Follow us on Twitter all year long at @SABR.

If you’re a SABR member and not on our list here, send us a reply on Twitter so we can add you.

— Jacob Pomrenke

]]> SABR 41: L.A. Ballparks Saw Much Success in Coast League Days https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-l-a-ballparks-saw-much-success-in-coast-league-days/ Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:31:09 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-l-a-ballparks-saw-much-success-in-coast-league-days/ LONG BEACH — On Saturday, July 9, more than 100 SABR members and guests boarded two deluxe Gold Coast Tour buses to see and to hear about five historical ballpark sites where baseball used to be played in Los Angeles.

Photos: A slideshow of the SABR 41 Historical Ballparks Tour can be viewed at ACAphotos.com

We first visited the city of Vernon, where the Vernon Tigers played from 1909 through 1920, with a change of venue from 1913 through mid-1915, when they constructed a ballpark in Venice, California. Two parks existed in Vernon: an expansion of Southside Park, called Vernon Park I. It seated about 4,000 people and was a relatively small park. For the 1913 season a park was built by owner Ed Maier and the city of Venice, and the team became known as the Venice Tigers. For the 1916 season, the team moved back to Vernon, taking their park with them, board by numbered board. The park was expanded when more land was purchased, now seating about 10,000 people. The bigger park cut down tremendously on home runs. (Only Sunday morning games, with an occasional weekday game, were played in Vernon by the Los Angeles team or the Vernon team, whomever was in town. This arrangement lasted until 1920, when the Vernon Tigers moved to Los Angeles’ Washington Park for all their games.) In 1925, the Vernon club was sold to San Francisco interests and became the San Francisco Missions. The site of the Vernon ballpark is now occupied by Hannibal Industries, which produces industrial shelving, as well as 16.5 additional acres. Al Parnis, Vice President of SABR’s Allan Roth Chapter conducted this segment of the tour.

The next stop was L.A.’s Wrigley Field. The Los Angeles Angels played there from September 29, 1925, through the end of the 1957 season. Lights were installed in 1931. The park has the distinction of being known as the best minor league park in the country in its day. It was double-decked and seated approximately 20,500 people. Its best team was most likely the 1934 Los Angeles Angels, who won 137 games while losing only 50. Many say the most exciting game ever played there was a 1947 playoff game between the Angels and the San Francisco Seals. A pitiching duel for seven and a half innings, the game was won by an Angels grand slam followed by a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth inning to make Los Angeles the 1947 Pacific Coast League champions. The park was demolished in the late 1960s to make way for the King-Drew Medical Facility, as well as recreation areas where soccer and baseball are now played. Chuck Carey, past president of the Allan Roth Chapter, conducted this segment of the tour.

The third stop on our tour was the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, home to the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1958 through 1961. Fitting a diamond-shaped ballpark into an oval-shaped stadium was no easy task. But the Dodgers won the 1959 World Series and thousands came out to watch their games on a regular basis. Los Angeles had never before seen regular-season major league baseball, and World Series attendance records were set that will probably never be broken. Players were not happy with the stadium, but team management enjoyed the extra revenue that came from their visits to Los Angeles. The stadium, which opened in 1923, is still in use with large crowds for University of Southern California football games and concerts. Bob Timmerman, Vice President of the Allan Roth Chapter, conducted this segment of the tour.

The fourth stop was Washington Park, right in the heart of Los Angeles, not far from downtown. The Los Angeles Angels and Vernon Tigers jointly owned the park and played the majority of their games there. It seated between 10,000 to 12,000 people. The L.A. team was more sucessful than the Vernon team, although Vernon won pennants i n1918,1919, and 1920, when Hollywood actor Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was a stockholder and had a good bit to do wiith obtaining quality players. The park was in use from 1911 through 1925, when the Angels moved to Wrigley Field and the Tigers moved to San Francisco to become the San Francisco Missions. The site is currently home to the Los Angeles Furniture Mart. Rick Smith, longtime SABR member and former general manager of the California League’s Bakersfield Blaze, conducted this segment of the tour.

The fifth and final stop on our tour was to the site of Gilmore Field, home to the Hollywood Stars from 1939 through 1957. The park held about 15,000 people and was very fan-friendly. Any seat in Gilmore Field was a good seat, as the stands were very close to the field. The Stars struggled in the early Gilmore years, but hit their stride in 1949 with their first pennant at Gilmore Field. This was followed by pennants in 1952 and 1953, with first-division finishes the other six seasons before the park closed. Many Hollywood celebrities and movie stars were stockholders in the ballclub. Bob Cobb, who owned the Brown Derby restaurants, was the force behind the club, with movie stars such as Gary Cooper, George Raft, Robert Taylor, Cecil B. DeMille, Barbara Stanwyck and Bing Crosby holding significant shares of stock. The first thing many fans would do when they came into the park was look to see which movie stars were there that night, as their names were written on back of their box-seat locations. The site is the current home of CBS Television City, which occupies the park site plus additional acreage. Jerry Mezetow, longtime Allan Roth Chapter member and SABR researcher, conducted this segment of the tour.

— Al Parnis

View more photos from the SABR 41 Historical Ballparks Tour below (courtesy of Maxwell Kates):

]]> SABR 41: Distinguished Panel Discusses Changes Over SABR’s Four Decades https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-distinguished-panel-discusses-changes-over-sabrs-four-decades/ Thu, 14 Jul 2011 02:25:24 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-distinguished-panel-discusses-changes-over-sabrs-four-decades/ LONG BEACH — When SABR was founded on August 10, 1971, there were no designated hitters or free agents, Ty Cobb’s career hit total was still thought to be 4,191, and the term “sabermetrics” wasn’t even in Bill James’ vocabulary yet. A lot has changed in baseball over the previous four decades, and a distinguished panel of experts came together on Friday at the 41st annual SABR convention in Long Beach to discuss the impact of that progress.

Moderated by Tom Hufford, one of SABR’s 16 founding members who now serves on its Board of Directors, the hour-long talk (which could have been twice as long!) included digressions on the possibility of female major league players, the emergence of statistical analysis in MLB front offices and many other subjects.

The featured panelists included MLB Official Historian John Thorn; John Dewan, a founder of STATS, Inc., and Baseball Info Solutions; Roland Hemond, three-time winner of MLB’s Executive of the Year Award; Wes Parker, former Dodgers Gold Glove first baseman and the team’s player representative in 1971 when SABR was founded; and Dennis Gilbert, one of baseball’s top player agents during the 1990s and a longtime benefactor of scouts.

Audio: Listen to the “40 Years of SABR” panel

Related link: Click here for Cecilia Tan’s live blog with a partial transcript of the discussion

Hemond — the 2011 recipient of the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award — noted that, warts and all, “baseball’s good ol’ days are now.”

Added Thorn, “When Albert Spalding brought two all-star teams of major league players on a round-the-world tour (in 1888-89) to make the national pastime the international pastime … I think he had the right motives, but I think he was off by about 125 years. I think the international pastime is what baseball is becoming. This is the great growth area for baseball.”

Thorn, whose book Baseball in the Garden of Eden on the subject of the game’s origins was released in March, also made the case that the story of diversity in baseball cannot be told without representation by female players.

“It seems to me that a woman relief pitcher, a woman second baseman, is not implausible (in the major leagues),” he said. “The rise of women in baseball is a tremendously interesting field. … It is to young girls and women (who played in 1740s England) that we owe the very game of baseball.”

Dewan, author of the influential The Fielding Bible, detailed how advanced metrics have changed the way baseball people study the game.

“I was a closet statistician. I was playing Strat-O-Matic baseball and drafting my team on batting average and I was getting clobbered! The guys who were picking lineups based on walks were beating me. But in the 1970s, batting average was all we had. Then in the 1980s we started to get more,” Dewan said. “If you haven’t read The Hidden Game of Baseball, go read it, and if you have, go read it again. OPS came out of that for me.”

“And then there was Bill James. It took a while but soon his books were stacked up in bookstores,” said Dewan, who strongly advocated for the pioneer of statistical analysis to be enshrined as a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. “I joined SABR because he encouraged so much of us to do so, and when he started Project Scoresheet I looked him up in directory assistance and called him up and the next thing you know I was the director of Project Scoresheet. Later that grew into David Smith’s Retrosheet and I started Baseball Info Solutions. We were providing stats and analytical data to news organizations. And from there it just explodes, with Baseball Prospectus, and all the other great sites, and now you don’t have to be in the closet about being a statistician. Now every team has a stats guy or a stats staff, and they can use BATS (a video software analysis program). And fan communities spring up; at Fangraphs, you have incredibly deep information. And then you have all the things like (mobile) apps and MLB.com Gameday and the At-Bat app, which is incredible.”

For more stories from SABR 41, click here.

— Jacob Pomrenke

]]> SABR 41: Los Angeles Area All-Time All-Stars Revealed https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-los-angeles-area-all-time-all-stars-revealed/ Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:09:02 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-los-angeles-area-all-time-all-stars-revealed/ LONG BEACH — Since the National Association was first formed in 1871, the state of California has produced nearly 2,000 major league players, by far the most among any state. As of 2011, the only other states to produce more than 1,000 MLB players are New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

So selecting an all-time all-star team of the best players hailing from Los Angeles and surrounding vicinities was bound to be one of the most competitive in the nation.

Traditionally, local SABR convention organizers have chosen an all-time all-star team of players from their region and revealed the list. This year, organizers opened the ballot to everyone after a ballot was carefully prepared by members of the Allan Roth Chapter. A total of 268 votes were received, and the results were revealed by outgoing SABR President Andy McCue — chair of the SABR 41 convention committee — during the Awards Luncheon on Saturday at the Long Beach Hilton.

The criteria for this year’s team was that the player had to attend high school in the Los Angeles area.

To see the complete voting summary for the team, click here.

Los Angeles Area All-Time All-Star Team (high school attended in parentheses)

  • C: Gary Carter (Fullerton Sunny Hills)
  • 1B: Eddie Murray (Los Angeles Locke)
  • 2B: Jackie Robinson (Pasadena Muir Tech)
  • 3B: George Brett (El Segundo)
  • SS: Ozzie Smith (Los Angeles Locke)
  • UT: Ron Fairly (Long Beach Jordan)
  • OF: Tony Gwynn (Long Beach Poly)
  • OF: Duke Snider (Compton)
  • OF: Ralph Kiner (Alhambra)
  • SP: Walter Johnson (Fullerton)
  • SP: Don Drysdale (Van Nuys)
  • RP: Rollie Fingers (Upland)
  • MGR: Sparky Anderson (Los Angeles Dorsey)
  • UMP: Emmett Ashford (Los Angeles Jefferson)

Almost every position included at least one Hall of Fame player — some had as many as five, depending on how active players fare in future elections — which led to some noteworthy omissions. Milwaukee Brewers great Robin Yount, who was on the ballot as a shortstop and outfielder, finished as a runner-up at both positions, trailing four different Hall of Famers. Bob Lemon, who won 20 games seven times for the Cleveland Indians, couldn’t even make the top three at starting pitcher, finishing behind Walter Johnson, Don Drysdale and 2011 HOF inductee Bert Blyleven.

The only player selected who is not currently in the Hall of Fame was All-Star outfielder Ron Fairly, who won three World Series with the Dodgers and hit 215 home runs over a 21-season career. He received 32.3 percent, beating out Brian Downing (22.7%), Don Buford (16.9%) and Todd Zeile (12.3%).

Jackie Robinson received the highest percentage of the vote at any playing position, garnering 70.0 percent over Bobby Doerr (12.4%), Bobby Grich (8.6%), Jeff Kent (4.5%) and Chase Utley (2.2%).

Other top vote-getters were catcher Gary Carter (65.8% over Lance Parrish and Mickey Owen); and first baseman Eddie Murray (61.7% over Mark McGwire, Mark Grace and Gavvy Cravath).

George Brett held off Eddie Mathews at the hot corner, earning 56.2 percent of the vote at third base. Shortstop was a three-way battle won by Ozzie Smith (45.5% over Yount and Arky Vaughan).

In the outfield, Tony Gwynn (74.3%) and Duke Snider (73.5%) were runaway winners, while Ralph Kiner (34.3%) edged out Yount, Fred Lynn and Bobby Bonds for the final spot.

At 46.4 percent, Rollie Fingers won the vote for the relief pitcher, topping Trevor Hoffman by nearly 50 votes.

Manager Sparky Anderson received the most votes overall (192, 72.2%), to beat out Dick Williams and Gene Mauch.

The major leagues’ first black umpire, Emmett Ashford, was picked to be the representative for that spot, squeezing past longtime National League arbiter Beans Reardon by 13 votes.

For more stories from SABR 41, click here.

— Jacob Pomrenke

Related: Check out the Magnolia Chapter’s All-Time Georgia-Born All-Star Team, as revealed at SABR 40 in Atlanta in August 2010.

]]> SABR 41: General Managers’ Role Takes ‘Total Dedication’ https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-general-managers-role-takes-total-dedication/ Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:41:36 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-general-managers-role-takes-total-dedication/ LONG BEACH — Past and current general managers from the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres discussed the pressures they face in that job and the growing responsibility they feel as baseball has become a year-round sport.

SABR member Rob Neyer, the baseball editor of SB Nation, moderated an hour-long panel with former Dodgers GMs Fred Claire and Dan Evans, and current Padres GM Jed Hoyer on Saturday afternoon during the SABR 41 convention at the Long Beach Hilton.

Audio: Listen to the SABR 41 General Managers Panel here

As Hoyer’s Padres were attempting to no-hit the Dodgers about 20 miles away in Los Angeles — eventually losing their bid in the ninth inning and losing the game 1-0 — the 37-year-old spoke of the day-to-day issues that every general manager in the game deals with. 

“Every night you want to win; I mean, I’ve broken my share of phones,” said Hoyer, who was hired by the Padres in October 2009 after working as an assistant GM with the Boston Red Sox for eight seasons. “But you can’t go up and down with your team every day; it’s like watching individual stocks. … It’s not an effective way to manage. You can’t make decisions that way. … I like to look back in 10-game increments or in 30-game increments. That way, you don’t go up and down.”

Evans, who was the Dodgers’ GM from 2001-04 after serving 20 years in various roles in the White Sox organization, said he felt “a distinct responsibility” to live up to the historical success of the franchise.

“I had heard some great things about the Dodgers for years, about how they were a model organization,” Evans said. “I felt I had to come in and kind of go back to the way that people like Fred (Claire), Al Campanis, Branch Rickey (had made that organization what it was).”

Claire, who took over as Dodgers’ GM after Campanis resigned in the wake of his controversial comments on the Nightline television show in 1987, echoed the other panelists’ comments that a general manager’s job is a 24-7 role.

“The blinking red light in your hotel room is never off,” said Claire, who admitted that his greatest regret was trading away three-time Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez to the Montreal Expos in 1994. “It does not decease in the offseason. It is all year-round, every day. You have to be consumed by it. … You have to be totally dedicated to it.”

For more stories from SABR 41, click here.

— Jacob Pomrenke

]]> SABR 41: Former Dodgers Davis, Ferrara Close Convention With Stories of Playing, Acting https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-former-dodgers-davis-ferrara-close-convention-stories/ Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:36:03 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-former-dodgers-davis-ferrara-close-convention-with-stories-of-playing-acting/ LIVE FROM LONG BEACH — Former Dodgers Tommy Davis and Al Ferrara closed out the weeklong SABR 41 convention with an entertaining discussion of their careers during the SABR 41 Player Panel, moderated by Barry Mednick, on Sunday morning.

Both born in Brooklyn in 1938, Davis and Ferrara talked of playing sandlot ball in the borough as kids, watching Jackie Robinson break the color line with the Dodgers, and their days in the major leagues. In addition, Ferrara told stories about playing Carnegie Hall as a classical pianist and his days as an actor in Hollywood — in response to a “Ginger or Mary Ann?” question from the audience, Ferrara, who appeared on an episode of “Gilligan’s Island” in 1967, quipped, “Well, Bo Belinsky dated Ginger, so I guess I get Mary Ann.”

Audio: Listen to the SABR 41 Player Panel here

Related link: Read Cecilia Tan’s live blog with a partial transcript of the panel

One of Davis’ most compelling stories was about hoping to play for the New York Yankees after a tryout with Mickey Mantle and Moose Skowron as a 17-year-old in the mid-1950s:

But (Dodgers scout) Al Campanis kept coming to the house and saying they were still interested. And he had Jackie Robinson call me the Tuesday before the weekend I was supposed to sign. He called the house and I thought it was one of my friends playing a joke. “Who the hell is this?” And you remember he had that kind of high voice, and he said, “It’s Jackie Robinson.” I told my mother, “It’s really Jackie Robinson!” She said, “Well, you better talk to him!” And the result was I signed with the Dodgers that Tuesday.

Former Braves catcher Del Crandall was originally scheduled to appear on the panel, but was unavailable due to a family medical situation.

For more from the SABR 41 convention, visit http://sabr.org/convention.

— Jacob Pomrenke

]]> SABR 41: Wes Parker Talks With SABR Members on Gehrig, Marichal, McCourt, Steroids https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-wes-parker-talks-with-sabr-members-on-gehrig-marichal-mccourt-steroids/ Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:55:22 +0000 http://dev.sabr.org/latest/sabr-41-wes-parker-talks-with-sabr-members-on-gehrig-marichal-mccourt-steroids/ LIVE FROM LONG BEACH — Former Dodgers Gold Glove first baseman Wes Parker didn’t hold back in an informal discussion with SABR members following the “Evolution of Baseball over SABR’s Four Decades” panel on Friday morning at SABR 41.

In a varied and entertaining session with about a dozen SABR members outside the Catalina Room at the Long Beach Hilton, Parker answered questions about Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, performance-enhancing drugs, the 1965 Juan Marichal-Johnny Roseboro bat incident, and many other topics.

Watch a portion of the discussion below:

For more information on the SABR 41 convention, visit http://sabr.org/convention.

— Jacob Pomrenke

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