§        Summer Regional Meeting Coming Up

Ø      Saturday, July 20^th -- 9:30 a.m. -- Qualcomm Stadium

§        Martha Aquilar Wins 1^st Annual Boynton Research Award

§        2002 Baseball Reliquary in Pasadena July 28th

§        TBI – “The Baseball Index” Now on the Web

§        Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith Promotes the BRC

§        “Join the Major Leagues @ your library™"

§        Library/BRC New Acquisitions

 

Date, Time, and Location:  Our Chapter’s traditional summer regional meeting will held again at the Qualcomm Stadium Press Box:

§        Saturday, July 20th

§        9:30 a.m. until about 1:30 p.m.+/-

 

Directions:  Drive or use the trolley to Qualcomm Stadium and enter at Gate A.  Then, walk up to the Press level, and around to the home plate area where the Press Box is located.  Plan on about 10-15 minutes to get from your parking space or trolley station to our meeting location.

 

Program:  We have a loaded line-up for you that includes:

·        a report on the contributions of the Negro Leagues (by our Boynton Baseball Research Award winner)

·        a presentation on the “language of baseball” by an expert in the English language

·        a batboy’s recollections about a winter all-star game involving Pete Gray

·        a beat writer’s perspective on the D-backs and baseball in general

·        a first hand report on our Padres from their bench coach

·        plus, a book sale and raffle.

 

Program Details.  Richard Lederer will join us and talk on the subject of “The Language of Baseball.”  (Note: in our last e-News we mentioned Charles Harrington Elster was to appear…a conflict came up in his schedule and we were fortunate to be able to have his co-host join us).  Dr. Lederer is the author of more than 3,000 books and articles about language and humor, including his Anguished English series.  His syndicated column, "Looking at Language," appears in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States.  He has been elected International Punster of the Year and been profiled in magazines as diverse as The New Yorker, People, and the National Enquirer.  He is language columnist for The Toastmaster, Scientific American, Pages, and the Farmers' Almanac.  He appears regularly on "Weekend All Things Considered" on national public radio and hosts a weekly show, "A Way With Words," on San Diego KPBS.  Recently Toastmasters International awarded Richard its 2002 Golden Gavel.  He also will bring some of his books for signing and inscribing.

 

We also will have our 1^st annual Boynton Baseball Research Award student winner, Martha Aquilar, present her paper “A Look at the Creation of Modern Baseball, The Formation and Contributions of the Negro Leagues.”

 

Former Oakland and Milwaukee infielder (1977-1985), and current Padres Bench Coach, Rob Picciolo, will be on our program, too.  Come prepared with questions about some of the young Padres that we are seeing this year at Qualcomm Stadium. 

 

Chuck Symonds will recall his experience as batboy for a game between “Pete Gray’s All-Stars” and the “Barnstorming Colored Giants” played in the winter 1945.  Pete Gray was a one-armed outfielder who played for the St. Louis Browns for a short time in 1945 after a few good minor league years played during World War II.

 

We are also fortunate to have Ed Price on the program.  Ed covers the Arizona Diamondbacks for the Arizona Tribune Newspapers, serving suburban Phoenix.  He has agreed to speak informally about the D-backs, the state of baseball, and anything else we want to throw at him.

 

Book Sale:  Baseball bookseller Mike Wickham will bring some of his extensive collection for sale.  Come early, peruse, and buy.

 

Raffle:  We will have a raffle at the meeting…it will be for a five-photo sequence of Ted Williams at bat when he was here at Lane Field in December 1941 only a few months after winning the American League batting championship at .406.  These rare color photos are being donated by Autumn (Durst) Keltner for the benefit of the Chapter.

 

Members of the Arizona Flame Delhi Chapter and Los Angeles Allan Roth Chapter have been invited.  The Arizona Diamondbacks will be in town that evening against the Padres so we expect that some of our out-of-town SABR members will join us. 

 

 

This year our chapter initiated an award to be given to a top San Diego county high school student (9^th through 12^th grades).  The Award, named after chapter member Bob Boynton, was established to recognize academic research on the subject of baseball. 

 

Receiving our inaugural First Place Award was Martha Aquilar, who lives in Vista and is a student at Vista High School where she will be a senior this fall.  Her paper was “A Look at the Creation of Modern Baseball, The Formation and Contributions of the Negro Leagues.”

 

Receiving Honorable Mention was Michael Molnar from Oceanside and also a student at Vista High School.  His paper was entitled “The Changing Faces of the Bat.”

 

(Our thanks to the Award Committee, which was chaired by Anna Newton, and included Bob Boynton, Vic Cardell, Jim Esterbrooks, and Tim Katzman.)

 

The Baseball Reliquary, a kind of alternative baseball Hall of Fame honoring those who make a significant, and at times offbeat, cultural contribution to baseball, will hold its annual induction ceremony in Pasadena on Sunday, July 28^th, beginning at 2:00 p.m.  This year's inductees are Mark Fidrych, Minnie Minoso and Shoeless Joe Jackson.  They join such former immortals as Bill Veeck, Satchel Paige, Moe Berg, Jim Bouton and Spaceman Lee.  Author Peter Golenbock will be the keynote speaker. 

 

For further details about the induction ceremony go to this web site:

http://www.baseballreliquary.org/inductees2002.htm.

The Reliquary site also has descriptions of previous induction ceremonies.  A group of local SABR members will likely be attending the ceremonies.  If interested, contact Jay Walker at walker@nhrc.navy.mil or 619-908-6406 on or after July 10th.

 

 

Here’s a message from Andy McCue related to TBI:

 

“For those of you who have not seen the announcement on SABR-L, I wanted to tell you that we have officially launched TBI on the web.  The address is www.baseballindex.org.  On behalf of Ted and myself I'd like to extend personal thank yous to all of you for the various roles you have played in creating this asset and getting it on to the web.  Without your collections, your advice, your money, your commitments and, above all, your time, this asset would not exist. Ted will justifiably get the most credit, but all of you should realize that this exists because of what you have contributed and that Ted and I appreciate it.

 

Thanks again, Andy”

 

 

With the assistance of The Upper Deck Company (located in Carlsbad), the services of member Andy Strasberg, and Ozzie Smith’s willingness to participate, Upper Deck has provided us with baseball cards with Ozzie’s photo on one side and words about the San Diego SABR Baseball Research Center (BRC) on the other (see below).  To announce the availability of the new card, Ozzie participated in a news conference at the Central Library on June 20^th along with Library Director Anna Tatar, Chapter-Library Liaison Vic Cardell, and Chapter President Tom Larwin.  The purposes of the card are to (1) promote the Baseball Research Center at the Central Library, and (2) promote the Library’s summer literacy program that is connected with Major League Baseball (discussed further on this page).

Here is what the back of the card says: “Baseball Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith has just caught another great baseball book at the San Diego SABR Baseball Research Center at the San Diego Main Public Library.  He knows the San Diego SABR Baseball Research Center is a true All- Star.  It has baseball books for children and baseball books and materials for fans and researchers.  The baseball research center is unique to San Diego and is sponsored in part by the San Diego Ted Williams Chapter of SABR.  For more information about the research library or how to contribute to the library contact: San Diego SABR, 3104 Fourth Ave., San Diego, CA 92103 or email SDTWSABR@AOL.COM.”

 

To receive a card of your own join us at our next regional meeting on July 20^th.

 

 

The American Library Association (ALA) and Major League Baseball (MLB) officially kicked off "Join the Major Leagues @ your library™" in May 2002.  The goal of the nationwide program is to develop 21st century literacy skills of young and old alike, ensuring their success in today's ever-changing information age. To be literate in the 21st century, Americans need to "step up to the plate" with more than just reading skills, including: Learning how to use computers and other media; Learning how to find, evaluate and use information; and Learning how to use information to communicate.

 

The centerpiece of the "Join the Major Leagues @ your library" program is a national contest designed to promote 21st century literacy skills and to increase awareness of local libraries as an essential information resource and librarians as the "ultimate search engine." As part of the contest, open from May 14 - September 30, players are instructed to download an online "play book" filled with four categories of baseball questions that vary in difficulty and information literacy skill level. The playbook can be found on a brand new Web site located at:

www.ala.org/@yourlibrary/jointhemajorleagues.

 

From the Internet and the electronic catalog to other key research tools applicable to daily life, players must use library resources to answer four questions (one for each base on the baseball diamond) to be entered in a national drawing for a trip for two to the 2002 World Series. The grand prize will be divided into two age groups - two tickets for kids, age 6 - 12, and two tickets for ages 13 and above. Ten first-prize packages for each age group include a copy of the book "Jackie's Nine: Jackie Robinson's Values to Live By," a baseball T-shirt and a Jackie Robinson poster from ALA Graphics.

 

 

Since our last e-News we have been fortunate to acquire some additional baseball resources through donations and financial assistance of the City of San Diego Public Library.  As a result we now have a complete run of The Sporting News annual Official Baseball Guides from 1947 through the present.  We are working on obtaining even more Guides (on microfilm) going back to 1883.  We are also going to be completing collections of the American League Red Books and National League Green Books, Baseball America Annual Baseball Almanac, The Sporting News annual Baseball Registers, Baseball America’s Super Registers, Elysian Fields Quarterly, NINE Journals, and Padres’ Yearbooks and Media Guides.  Below is what we have so far at the BRC.  If you have copies from any of the years that are missing below, and are willing to donate them to the BRC, please let us know…we would be very grateful.

 

The Sporting News, Official Baseball Guide, 1947-2001.

The Baseball Encyclopedia, The Macmillan Company, 1969.

The Sporting News, Baseball Register, 1984, 1988, 1996, 1999, 2001. 

Baseball America, Almanac, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998.

SABR, Minor League Baseball Research Journals, Vols. 1, 2, 1996, 1997.

San Diego Padres, Yearbooks  (1985, 1986); San Diego Padres, Media Guides  (1982, 1985)

Official Program, World Series, 1984; Official Program, All-Star Game, 1992.

Carlos Bauer, The 2002 Japanese Major & Minor League Statistics Report, Baseball Books Press, January 2002.

Michael Benson, A Comprehensive Historical Reference to Baseball Grounds, Yards, and Stadiums, 1845 to present, McFarland, 1989.

John E. Spalding, Always on Sunday, The California League, 1886 to 1915, Ag Press, 1992.

San Diego Padres Report, Vol. 1, Issues 16-19, 1978; Vol. 2, Issues 1-16, 18, 1979 (newspaper-type publication).

 

Also, earlier this year SABR headquarters generously contributed from excess publications they had on hand:

 

Adomites, Paul and Dennis DeValeria, editors. Baseball in Pittsburgh: An Anthology of New, Unusual, Challenging and Amazing Facts About the Greatest Game as Played in the Steel City.  Cleveland: SABR, 1995.

 

Allen, Lee. Cooperstown Corner: Columns from The Sporting News, 1962-1969. Cleveland: SABR, [ca. 1989].

 

Bergen, Philip S. Index to SABR Publications. Cleveland: SABR, 1987. (1^st printing)

 

Clark, Dick and Larry Lester, editors. The Negro Leagues Book. Deluxe ed. Cleveland: SABR, 1994.

 

Crepeau, Richard C. Baseball, America’s Diamond Mind,1919-1941. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. (1^st Bison Books printing; reprint of the 1980 ed.)

 

Deans, Bill. Award Voting: A History of the Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, and Cy Young Awards. Kansas City, MO: SABR, 1988.

 

Eckhouse, Morris, editor. All-Star Baseball in Cleveland. Cleveland, SABR, 1997.

 

Holden, Mike, editor. Mining Towns to Major Leagues: A History of Arizona Baseball. Cleveland: SABR, 1999.

 

Ivor-Campbell, Frederick, with Robert L. Riemann and Mark Rocker, editors. Baseball’s First Stars. A project of SABR’s Nineteenth Century Committee. Cleveland: SABR, 1996.

 

Kaplan, Jim. Lefty Grove: American Original. Cleveland: SABR, 2000.

 

Lane, F. C. Batting. Cleveland: SABR, 2001.

 

Longert, Scott. Addie Joss: King of the Pitchers. Cleveland, SABR, 1998.

 

Maranville, Walter “Rabbit”. Run, Rabbit, Run: The Hilarious and Mostly True Tales of Rabbit Maranville. Cleveland: SABR, 1991 (1^st printing)

 

Okkonen, Marc. The Federal League of 1914-1915: Baseball’s Third Major League. Garrett Park, MD: SABR, 1989.

 

Rocker, Mark, with Mark Alvarez and Tom Chubbier. Baseball For the Fun of It. Cleveland: SABR, 1997.

 

Spatz, Lyle, editor. Baseball Records Update, 1993. Prepared by the Records Committee of SABR. Cleveland: SABR, 1993.

 

Riemann, Robert L. and Mark Rocker, editors. Nineteenth Century Stars. Cleveland: SABR, 2000.

 

Tomlinson, Gerald, editor. How to Do Baseball Research. Cleveland: SABR, 2000.

 

Vincent, David W., editor. Home Runs in the Old Ballparks: Who Hit the First, the Last, and the Most Round-Trippers in Our Former Major League Parks 1876-1994. Cleveland: SABR, 1995.

 

Ward, John Montgomery. Base-ball: How to Become a Player, With the Origin, History, and Explanation of the Game. Cleveland: SABR, 1993. (Reprint of 1888 ed. published by the Athletic Pub. Co., Philadelphia)

 

Werber, Bill and C. Paul Rogers, III. Memories of a Ballplayer: Bill Werber and Baseball in the 1930s. Cleveland: SABR, 2001.

 

Baseball Research Journal:    No. 1-3 (1972, 1973, 1974, (reprints),   No. 7-9 (1978-1980),             No. 14-17 (1985-1988),                              No. 19-28 (1990-1999),          No. 30 (2001)

 

Minor League History Journal:              Vol. 2 (1993),          Vol. 3 (1994)

 

National Pastime:    No. 3 (Spring 1984),              No. 4 (Spring 1985),              No. 6 (Winter 1987),              No. 10-21 (1990-2001) 

 

SABR National Conventions:   27^th: Louisville, 1997. A Celebration of Louisville Baseball in the Major and Minor Leagues.

               28^th: San Francisco, 1998. Northern California Baseball History.

 

SABR Review of Books:          Vol. 1, No. 1 (1986),                Vol. 2, No. 1 (1987),                              Vol. 3 (1988),          Vol. 4 (1989)