December 7, 2015

Last Monday, Dec. 7, we had an historic and eventful SABR meeting with 21 members in attendance.

The session started with the announcement that our own Tal Smith had been selected by the Baseball Hall of Fame to be a member of the Veterans Committee. What a tremendous honor for Tal.

Next, our chapter, along with the Sugar Land Skeeters, announced that a newly created award honoring the Houston area woman's high school coach of the year will be named for our own Marie "Red" Mahoney.

Then we selected our 2015 Distinctive Service to our SABR Chapter award winner and will make that presentation on January 21st at the Skeeters Hot Stove Banquet.

Mike Vance led off our presentations with a quality talk about "Stand Up Comedians and Baseball". It is amazing how many extremely famous comedians have owned or are committed to "their" teams. Mike also discussed his "realtionship" with did some very humorous  impersonations of Harry Caray and son Skip Caray.

Jim Kreuz showed us an interesting video on Detroit Tigers and St Louis Browns star Elden Auker. Dick Bily, a longtime friend of Elden, filled us in on their relationship with a number of stories including the time he was on standing the  mound at Tiger Stadium 50 years from the date  Mr. Auker stood on the same mound and pitched in game 7 of the 1934 World Series and decided to call Elden.

Jacqueline Holm was with us to discuss the Skeeters Hot Stove Banquet on Thursday, January 21 and provided specific details. Jo Russell volunteered to collect ticket money from the chapter for the event and we will send out a separate email shortly.

Plans are being made to combine the 2016 SABR Day with the Astros FanFest on Saturday, January 23 and we solicited volunteers to help set up and staff our table. A number of members agreed to participate.

Jo Russell's recent birthday was recognized by Mike McCroskey as he presented "the old bat" with an old bat signed by SABR members. Jo was thrilled.

Tom White won the PHD trivia contest prepared by Herb Whalley with Mike Vance finishing second. 

Our next meeting is on Monday, January 18, when we will have two very special guests; Julia Morales and Brian McTaggert.

Please don't forget the Rogers Hornsby Chapter winter meeting on Saturday, January 9 in San Marcos. Details here: http://sabr.org/latest/rogers-hornsby-chapter-10th-annual-winter-meeting-san-marcos-tx

Merry Christmas to All.

Bob Dorrill
bdorrill@aol.com