The Northwest chapter had another busy and successful year. We improved the quality of our service and our meetings by using last year’s membership survey as a guide.

Chapter officers John Henshell (president), Rick Solomon (vice-president), and Tim Herlich (treasurer) continue in their roles throughout 2012. Mark Brunke succeeded Mary Groebner as chapter secretary in February.

The presidency and vice-presidency alternate between Washington and Oregon residents with the chapter leader responsible for planning meetings and events in his state. Mark documents meetings and is Webmaster. Tim manages finances. Our chapter currently has about $100, including funds raised through a book exchange in November.

We published a newsletter in July. You can download it from the SABR Website. The newsletter promoted our August meetings, included our survey results and action plan, and included maps showing the geographic breakdown of our vast chapter.

We conducted four member polls. “Past and present changes in baseball” drew 99 responses. A statistics poll received 48 responses. We added a list of FAQs and answers to our Website. We purchased a used projector with funds for meetings from the national office. It will save us time, money, and risk; and increase flexibility in getting meeting spaces.

Meetings

August 6 at PK Park in Eugene.

Attendance: 15

Guest speakers: Matt Dompe and Onalee Carson of the Eugene Emeralds

Presentations:

Jim Watson “Civic Stadium and ballpark history”

Dan Schlewitz “player movement and roster churn”

Activity: Emeralds game

August 27 at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver, B.C.

Attendance: 39

Guest speakers: former AAA players Simon Pond (who played briefly for Toronto) and Brent Crowther

Activities: party hosted by Max Weder and Jennifer Ettinger, Canadians game

November 5 in Seattle

Attendance: 35

Guest speaker: Jon Wells, publisher of Grand Salami

Presentations:

Bill Woodward “review of John Thorn’s ‘Baseball in the Garden of Eden’”

Steve Steinberg “Phillies owner Horace Fogel”

Rob Garrett “Giants move to San Francisco/Horace Stoneham”

Stan Opdyke “audio recordings made by Pat Rispole”

January 28 at Safeco Field in Seattle

Attendance: 35

Guest speakers: Jack Zduriencik, Eric Wedge, Tony Blengino, Tom McNamara, and Jeff Kingston of the Mariners

We staffed an informational booth at the Mariners FanFest that entire weekend.

February 18 in Portland

Attendance: 36

Guest speaker: Ben Petrick, former Colorado Rockies catcher

Presentations:

Dan Schlewitz “defensive innings by position”

Greg Rybarczyk “ESPN Home Run Tracker”

David Alvarez "Let's Truly Realign MLB”

Mike Rice “Mariners roundtable”

The Northwest Chapter of SABR held a meeting February 18, 2012 at the Multnomah County Library in the Hillsdale neighborhood in southwest Portland. The library is a block away from Wilson High School, where two-time NL MVP Dale Murphy, Wayne Twitchell, and former NBA point guard Damon Stoudamire attended.

Our guest speaker was former Colorado Rockies catcher Ben Petrick. Ben starred at Glencoe High School in Hillsboro, about 20 miles west of Portland. He was drafted in the second round by Colorado in 1995, and progressed to the big leagues for 19 games in 1999. During that stretch, Ben hit .323 and slugged .565. He did as well in half a major league season in 2000. Ben detailed how before that season he went to the Arizona

Fall League and began to notice problems with his left hand. Shortly thereafter he was diagnosed with Parkinsonism symptoms at the unusually young age of 22. His father, age 54 at the time, had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease only seven months earlier.

The Rockies did not realize that Ben had Parkinson’s disease, but it progressively hindered his playing ability. Ben’s story is compelling and his recounting was inspirational. He talked about the remainder of his baseball career and his life today. He answered many questions, including the type of support he had in baseball regarding his condition, how pitching and hitting at Coors Field is different than elsewhere, and the Buster Posey injury. Ben has a website, http://www.benpetrick.com/and a book about his life and work, Forty Thousand To One.

You may be asking yourself, “Did Ben Petrick catch more innings than Miguel Olivo for the Colorado Rockies?” The answer is yes. Petrick’s 1,246.7 innings is seventh all-time for the Rockies, while Olivo is tenth on their list. Olivo is, however, seventh all-time for the Mariners. We learned this from the presentation, “Defensive innings by position players from 1955-2011” by Dan Schlewitz. This was an extension of his meticulously researched and enlightening study of team stability and player mobility.

Dan delivered much of his information in trivia-quiz format, as we guessed leaders for various teams. Dan presented graphs showing the top 10 players for each team at each position as a percentage of cumulative defensive innings, and gave a handout showing the top 10 players by defensive inning and position for every major league team for the period covered by the study.

Greg Rybarczyk made a presentation about his invention that measures the distance of home runs, which is now known as the ESPN Home Run Tracker. Greg described his background as a Red Sox fan and his experience in the U.S. Navy with navigation and projectile analysis and teaching physics. His inspiration for developing the Home Run Tracker came from watching video of Manny Ramirez hitting a home run over the left field lights at Fenway Park that was “officially” announced as being 451 feet, an announcement he found curiously one foot

short of Ted Williams’ 452 foot shot to the now famous red seat. Greg analyzed the flaws with the “IBM tale of the tape,” and explained his invention and the models it uses to measure home run length. He further developed his aerodynamic model.

The ESPN Home Run Tracker now has information for every home run since 2006. You can sort the information by hitter, pitcher, and ballpark; as well as see a scatter plot of each player’s home runs. Greg further demonstrated his expertise and the depth of his preparation while answering our many questions.

We briefly discussed several items of chapter business. Mark Brunke has accepted the Secretary position. A new Vice President/President-elect (preferably from Oregon) will be needed next year. Contact Rick or John with nominations or questions. We didn’t settle on a date for our spring/summer meeting in Seattle, but narrowed it to May 5 or June 16. Send your vote to Rick. Interest in a summer meeting in Oregon was inconclusive. John will poll members with options.

David Alvarez followed with a provocative proposal entitled, "Let's Truly Realign MLB." David’s inspiration was other realignment proposals from the past 20 years and Houston’s impending move to the AL West.

David provided a handout for the presentation and discussion. His idea is to realign teams into three leagues with no divisions. The leagues would be geographically organized with a shorter, albeit more balanced schedule of 146 games. Playoffs for eight teams in each league would begin in mid-September with a World Series ending in October. The three league champions would play each other in a round-robin tournament. David acknowledged flaws in his proposal, including its complexity, and reasons why it would not be implemented by the owners. Still, audience response was favorable.

The final presentation was Mike Rice’s eagerly anticipated annual Mariners roundtable discussion. Mike provided an overview of the Mariners roster and off-season moves and looked at some of the big issues facing the Mariners, such as producing more runs and where is Ichiro going to hit.

Mike analyzed the trade of Michael Pineda for Jesus Montero, and the possibility of Montero becoming a productive hitter. Mike and others concurred that the Mariners were hurt long-term by the two winning seasons they had in recent years.

Mike concluded by having everyone guess the Mariners win total this year. Our predictions ranged from 59 to 77. The median, 72, was pretty close to the average, 71.12 wins. We’ll see.

John Henshell concluded the meeting by awarding baseball books to members who volunteered at Mariners FanFest 2012, traveled a long way to the meeting, and correctly answered trivia questions.

By Mark Brunke

The Northwest chapter of SABR (NWSABR) held its first meeting of 2012 at Safeco Field from 12 PM to 3 PM on SABR day, Saturday, January 28. This was the fifth year in a row the Seattle Mariners played host to the chapter meeting.

In addition to the meeting, NWSABR members staffed an informational booth for Fan Fest. This year, volunteers for the booth included Mike Rice, Tim Jenkins, Anthony Salazar, David Alvarez, Mark Brunke, Bob Webster, Tip Wonhoff, John Henshell, and Rick Solomon.

We thank Mandy Lincoln, Kevin Martinez, and the Mariners for providing both the facility and an excellent group of speakers: Jack Zduriencik, Eric Wedge, Tony Blengino, Tom McNamara, and Jeff Kingston. Thirty-five members from around the Pacific Northwest made their way to Safeco for the meeting.

The informal themes of the day were young talent and the Michael Pineda trade (inclusive of discussions of Jose Campos, Jesus Montero, and Hector Noesi). The method of discussion with each of the speakers was a refreshing and forthcoming Q and A format.

The first speaker of the day was Special Assistant to the GM Tony Blengino. Tony fielded questions about many of the young players who made it to Seattle last year, as well as some players throughout the minor league system he thought fans could expect to see before the end of this year. Tony answered SABR member’s questions about specific players, including Michael Saunders, Adam Moore, and Carlos Peguero. He also said he expects fans will get to see a solid season out of Justin Smoak, who’s coming off a tough year, but is healthy and in good shape.

Tony said although he would love to go with the Mariners to start the season in Japan, he was glad to stay behind and observe the players staying in Arizona for that extra nine days. Tony said having all of the young talent together in Arizona allows him to do about the same amount of observation as it would in a month of travelling throughout the minor league system. One thing Tony didn’t divulge is how he did on the trivia show Baseball IQ.

Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik began his comments by wishing everyone a happy SABR day. Jack fielded questions about the young talent the club has acquired, and discussed how difficult the Pineda trade was to make. He shared that the trade was initially broached when he asked fellow former second baseman Brian Cashman at the winter meetings if Montero would be available. Many calls, e-mails, and names were discussed before the trade was finalized. Jack implied that the Mariners are expecting Noesi to be a fourth or fifth starter this year.

Jack and others mentioned Vinnie Catricala, who spent last season between playing in California with the High Desert Mavericks before moving up to the AA Jackson Generals of the Southern League. Vinnie had actually improved his numbers in spite of going to the more balanced Southern League. He seems to fit a mold the Mariners are developing: players who can man several positions. Jack also discussed new rules that have been passed for the draft budget, and how that will affect the way teams approach the draft and signing players. He said the MLB draft has always been more about “signability” than talent, but with the new rules, it may lean toward “talent.”

Manager Eric Wedge spoke next. Whereas Blengino provided great information about hitters coming up through the system, and Zduriencik talked about the budget and draft appr

oaches, Wedge spoke about putting expectations upon the players and motivating them to win. He stated he recently had the following position players to his house in mid-January: Dustin Ackley, Casper Wells, Kyle Seager, Miguel Olivo, John Jaso, Justin Smoak, Chone Figgins, Franklin Gutierrez, and Brendan Ryan.

Wedge also stated he’s going to be mixing up the lineup this year, and that such an approach has to happen with young players. Regarding Figgins, Wedge said he thought Figgins had a great difficulty hitting behind Ichiro, and that he still thought Figgins could be a productive leadoff hitter and third baseman. Ichiro was mentioned in this context, and I believe that was the only mention of him during the meeting. Everyone apparently realizes that the youth movement is here. Wedge’s main point about Ichiro was more about how he felt Ichiro has too much impact on the hitters around him, and that had a negative impact on Figgins performance as a Mariner.

The last two speakers were Director of Scouting Tom McNamara and Assistant GM Jeff Kingston. Jeff was asked how he got a front office job and what someone should do to get such a position. He stated with an internship in San Diego under Theo Epstein. From there, he was able to get a lower level position doing odd, menial tasks needed to make a baseball team run, but eventually was able to build a relationship with Theo that allowed him to move closer to his goals.

Jeff also fielded questions about players coming up through the system. A player he highlighted with a bright future is 21-year-old Francisco Martinez, who shared time at third base in Jackson after he arrived in the Doug Fister trade. Regardless of how third base works out with Kyle Seager, Alex Liddi and others, Martinez may end up being the answer in the not too distant future.

Tom McNamara talked about his general approach to the draft, how the Mariners set up and organize their draft “war room,” and discussed some prospects fans could expect to start creating a buzz as the MLB draft a

pproaches. In response to a member question, he addressed the Virginia/Carolina pipeline the Mariners seem to have developed. In each case, many trips to see a single player (Hultzen and Ackley) led them to noticing the other players. The Mariners drafting three players from those schools in the last two years was nonetheless mostly coincidental.

Tom McNamara, Jeff Kingston, and all the speakers are confident that the Mariners minor league system is finally going to start producing hitters. Aside from a brief mention of Ichiro, the only discussion of veterans was the utility of Brendan Ryan, the mind of Chone Figgins, the health of Franklin Gutierrez, and the time frame of Felix Hernandez. The youth discussed should provide opportunity for plenty of speculation at the annual NWSABR Mariner’s Round Table during the February 18 chapter meeting in Portland.

The Northwest Chapter of SABR met on Saturday November 5, 2011 from noon to 5 at the Seattle Pacific University library. Attendance ranged from 25-35 members and guests throughout the meeting.

Chapter vice president Rick Solomon discussed planning and scheduling the late spring Seattle meeting that we try to coordinate with a Mariners home game. Chapter treasurer Tim Herlich noted that the chapter currently has $116 in the bank, and that proceeds from a book sale (books donated by chapter members to be sold at 20% of cover price during meeting breaks) would go into the treasury.  Tim thanked those who donated. 

Bill Woodward, discussing John Thorn's recent book: 'Baseball in the Garden of Eden'

SABR member and meeting host Bill Woodward made the first presentation.  Bill is a professor at Seattle Pacific University and is teaching a course in the history of baseball for the twelfth consecutive year. This meeting was an official session of the course; many of Bill’s students attended all or part of the meeting.  Bill reviewed and discussed John Thorn’s recent book “Baseball in the Garden of Eden.” He credited Mark Armour, who in a prior chapter meeting had noted that stories are told for many reasons, not just historical accuracy.  Thorn’s book addressed some of the stories that were about the competing creation myths of the game of baseball (e.g. Abner Doubleday, Alexander Cartwright) and their relationship to the larger narrative of baseball history. Bill noted that Thorn unearthed stories that were previously suppressed, specifically the embracing of baseball by the working class, who played it in an "ungentlemanly" manner.  As with any work by John Thorn, Bill noted that the book is tremendously well-researched and documented, with such gems as the original 20 rules of baseball written down by the Knickerbockers.  Thorn merged the true stories with the ones that are told for other reasons. Bill discussed how we need creation myths and how baseball’s creation myth (Doubleday) served a larger purpose, establishing that baseball was a truly American game invented by a true American hero. 

Bill then compared the myth with the actual reality, which was also exaggerated as an "urban adult innovation." Bill said the three steps  of the creation and evolution of baseball were:  1) writing down the rules in 1845, which was the actual Knickerbockers contribution to the game;  2) The "N.Y. game" spreads, helped along by Civil War soldiers from the North playing the game ane introducing it to others; and 3) enclosing the fields, which made charging for admission possible. The written rules established foul territory, nine players, and nine innings. Cartwright’s actual contribution was that he was the scribe and organizer, but Bill noted that there were really four founding fathers of baseball.  These were William Wheaton (who wrote the rules based on an earlier set he had written for the Gotham club), Doc Adams (revising the rules to create nine innings), William Tucker (who assisted Wheaton), and Louis Wadsworth (set on nine innings and nine players, while the Knickerbockers wanted seven and seven).  Bill concluded that "history changes all the time" because it is based on our analysis of the available evidence.