The highlight of the evening was the 90 minute presentation made by former MLB player and executive Bob Watson. Bob discussed the many hats he has worn throughout his career starting as a young catcher in inner city Los Angeles to his 19 year playing career with 4 major league clubs and then moving on to be a highly successful General Manager for both the Houston Astros and New York Yankees which finally led to being named an Executive VP for MLB. But Bob said, after considering all his accomplishments including a World Series win and scoring the 1,000,000th run in MLB history, his biggest thrill was being named Chairman of the US Olympic Baseball Team and watching the players, manager and coaches he selected win a Gold Metal for their country.

Mr. Watson was very candid in responding to many questions covering a variety of subjects including player and umpire discipline, player unions, instant replay, former Yankee and Astros ownership and the strike zone. He also provided some batting tips that helped him be successful and his teaching approach to some of the players he had worked with.

Next, the group took a straw vote on the 10 individuals nominated from the Golden Age for Hall of Fame consideration. Since Mr. Watson is one of the 16 individuals participating in the actual vote, he recused himself and did not hear the final tally. We will publish the results next month.

We were fortunate to have 2 highly challenging trivia contests; one developed by Tim Gregg based on last month's guest Wally Moon which was won by Tom Kleinworth and another intriguing quiz prepared by Mike Vance asking for all time RBI leaders by surname. This one was won by Mike McCroskey