Eight members assembled at Third Base in Austin for the November meeting of the Rogers Hornsby chapter. Monte Cely presented Jan Larson with a major award for winning Monte's annual Cy Young prediction contest.
Michael Bass had prepared a trivia quiz on the decade of the 1960s. Unfortunately a conflict prevented Michael from presenting the quiz but he did leave the answers in a hermetically sealed envelope with Tom Wancho who handled administration duties. Dan Walsh edged Jim Baker for the win by a score of 13-12 with the other contestants relegated to also-ran status.
Tom Wancho also served in an administrative capacity as the members conducted a vote on the upcoming Hall of Fame managers/umpires and executive candidates. Applying the same standards as the Hall of Fame, specifically requiring 75% of the votes cast for an individual to be elected, the chapter elected only one candidate - Marvin Miller, former executive director of the Major League Players Association.
The planning committee for the Hornsby Chapter Winter Meeting put together a preliminary agenda for that meeting which will be held on January 16. Details will be finalized at a later date.
Discussion centered on the recently completed post-season and the traditional off-season "hot stove" topics.
The next monthly meeting was scheduled for Thursday, December 17 also at Third Base.
The monthly meeting of the Rogers Hornsby chapter will be held on Thursday, December 17 beginning at 6:00 p.m. at Third Base located at 1717 West 6th Street in Austin. More details to be forthcoming.
Eight members and four guests enjoyed the first-ever Rogers Hornsby Chapter Playoff Watch Party and Cookout on Saturday at the home of Gilbert and Raeanne Martinez.
The only disappointment – aside from the lackluster performance by the St. Louis Cardinals – was the postponement of the late game between the Rockies and the Phillies due to snow in Denver.
The jalapeño-onion burgers were popular, as were the raspberry-filled cupcakes with icing designed to look like baseballs (the cupcakes were courtesy Lucila Martinez, Gilbert Martinez’s sister-in-law).
There was no quiz, but the group grappled with some baseball trivia. Norman Macht pondered how many Hall of Famers (as a player or manager) had won exactly one World Series. He didn’t know how many there have been, but one candidate would be Earl Weaver. Are there others?
Gilbert Martinez repeated a question he asked on the list-serve – Which is the only team, since 1930, that had four players each with 200 or more hits in a season?
With barely a pause, Bill Gilbert named the team: the 1937 Detroit Tigers. The group came up with the four players: G. Walker (213), C. Gehringer (209), P. Fox (208) and H. Greenberg (200).
Gilbert Martinez also shared that a team with three players with 200+ hits each has occurred a handful of times. They are the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs in 1930, the ’35 N.Y. Giants, the ’63 Cardinals, the ’82 Brewers and the ’91 Rangers.
There was some discussion about a fair flyball by Joe Mauer that had been mistakenly called a foul ball in the Yankees-Twins game the night before. There was also some discussion about who the Astros should hire as their next manager. Both Bill Gilbert and Gilbert Martinez said they hoped it would be Tim Bogar, first base coach for the Boston Red Sox, and former Astros player. Bill joked that Bogar’s schedule was about to be wide open (for interview purposes) because the Angels had the Red Sox on the brink of elimination (And Bill was right – the Angels eliminated the Red Sox at Fenway with a dramatic 9th inning come-back the following day).
The next meeting has not yet been scheduled, but will probably be in early November.
Cy examines how "close and late" batting average and isolated power numbers vary as compared to "non-close and late" numbers over the period from 1952-2008. Could this be due to increased relief specialization?
Mike Capps, the radio voice of the Round Rock Express, was a guest at the meeting. He gave us some insights on the Round Rock players that will be competing for positions with the Astros next year. Mike has been selected to be the play-by-play announcer for the Triple-A Championship game in Oklahoma City next Tuesday which will be telecast on one of the ESPN channels. Chris Chambliss will be working with Mike at the game.
Capitalizing on the excitement earlier this week when Roy Oswalt broke the Club record with 16 no-decisions for the Astros, Gilbert Martinez did some quick research to determine that Bert Blyleven holds the major league record for no-decisions in one season with 20 for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979 when he was 12-5 in 37 starts.
The trivia contest this month required the identification of the career leaders in hits and home runs for the 14 American League franchises. Dan Walsh blew away the competition by getting 23 of 28 but he didn't know that Aubrey Huff is Tampa Bay's career home run leader. He won a coupon that paid for his dinner.
The date for the October meeting will be announced in the next few days. Plans are to schedule it in conjunction with one or two Division Series games.
