The new Woodpile is out!  Where else would you find a 139-line holiday poem about the Yankees & Twins in the ALDS?  You can read six new book capsules, CT vintage base ball news, Around the Horn (chapter news), Quotable BB, Ezra Count puzzlers, two BB travel journals — Stan Dziurgot in St. Louis and Ray Sikora in 7 ballparks — plus a book review (Paul Hensler), Cleveland in the minors (Alan Cohen), Frank Observations (M Frank), and Stan Osowiecki on the Polar Bear, and more.

Click this link to download…  SABR Newsletter Winter 2020 v3 20200106 (1)

-Karl

Joe Williams, David Stalker and Gary Passamonte are working with the Town of Caton in New York to erect a monument honoring the Caton-born, ballplaying White family. Jim “Deacon” White was the premier catcher of the 1870s before starring at third base later in his career. He played on six championship teams and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013. Will White was a 229-game winner who was the first major leaguer to wear eyeglasses on the field. LeRoy White was the older brother of Jim and Will. He ventured with Jim to play ball for the Forest City Base Ball Club of Cleveland in 1868, playing in seven games before returning home to play for the Monitors of Corning. Elmer White was the first cousin of the White brothers. He joined Forest City in 1870 and played with the club during the inaugural season of the National Association. He became the first professional league player to die when he passed away from tuberculosis on March 17, 1872.

The monument is part of David Stalker’s Baseball Memorial Series (https://www.facebook.com/David-Stalkers-Baseball-Memorial-Series-286357068668103/). David has erected two dozen baseball memorials throughout the U.S. and has assisted SABR’s Grave Marker Project – the most recent being a grave marker dedicated for Elias Hicks Hayhurst at Philadelphia’s Mount Peace Cemetery on September 14, 2019.

Gary Passamonte is a Ross Barnes historian who led the project to erect the Ross Barnes monument in Mount Morris, New York in 2017. The White monument will look like the front of the Barnes monument. More about the Barnes monument can be located here: http://seamheads.com/blog/2017/09/10/ross-barnes-is-first-baseball-pioneer-honored-in-monument-series/.

Joe Williams has researched the White Family extensively and wrote the most recent bio on Deacon White. The bio can be located at https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/99417cd4.

The monument text is being written and an image of Deacon White will appear on the front of the monument. Fundraising has begun. Joe, David and Gary are seeking donations and need your help to raise the final $2,000 towards the monument. To make a donation, please reach out to Joe Williams with the amount you are willing to donate at overlookedlegends@gmail.com and he will provide the information to send a check.

Thank you.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Contact: Tim Jensen, tim.jensen@patch.com, 860-394-5091

5 Sportsmen to Receive Good Sport Awards
at 79^th Gold Key Dinner

Five Connecticut sportsmen who have unselfishly given hundreds of hours of their time to the betterment of athletics in their communities and state have been selected recipients of the John Wentworth Good Sport Award by the Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance.

Ben Aleks of Somers, Paul Duddy of Mystic, Steve Krevisky of Middletown, Bill O’Brien of Stratford and Bill Santillo of New Haven will be among the honorees at the 79th Gold Key Dinner on Sunday, April 26, 2020 at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington.

Krevisky is co-founder of the Connecticut-based Smokey Joe Wood Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research, and is the only president the 20-year old chapter has ever had. Part of the growing SABR organization, the Wood chapter is dedicated to baseball historical research and preservation. The chapter holds six breakfast and two general meetings a year, the latter featuring guest appearances, research and presentations and media panels. In addition to a newsletter, the chapter has recently compiled books on Connecticut reared Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell and the late Mike Sandlock.

Since retiring as wrestling coach at Enfield’s Enrico Fermi High School in 1994, Aleks has stayed on as a volunteer assistant, first with the Falcons and now Enfield High School, for the past quarter century. He was also instrumental in helping revive the Enfield Eagles youth wrestling program, which had been dormant for nearly 30 years. The 2016 inductee into the Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame contributed considerable efforts and resources to convert the old band room at the Fermi building into a practice center for the high school and youth teams. Later this fall, the room will be dedicated as the Ben Aleks Wrestling Center.

Duddy, an alumnus of the Coast Guard Academy in New London,has been a volunteer photographer for sporting events and other activities at the academy for 13 school years.When he started shooting pictures, he was commuting from his home in New York, but eventually moved to Mystic. He has received several awards from the institution, and every year at the Bears’ senior athletics banquet, he hands out Paul Duddy Awards to a male and female athlete who represent Coast Guard both on the field and off.

After more than 40 years of service, O’Brien retired in June as Senior Director of Athletics and Facilities at the Sterling House Community Center in Stratford. He began his tenure in the early 1980s as a volunteer soccer coach, and eventually coached both soccer and basketball for 15 years. The position of athletic director became available in 1995 and O’Brien earned the job, initially on a part-time basis. Within a year, it became a full-time endeavor, and he also took on the role of camp director. He managed the center’s three main children and youth athletics programs: soccer, basketball and lacrosse.

Santillo has served on the Board of Governors of the New Haven Gridiron Club for 15 years and has been its president for the last nine, presiding over the club’s two annual dinners. He is also chairman of the club’s Hall of Fame committee, and is a member of the board for the National Football Foundation’s New Haven Chapter. Santillo was one of the primary fundraisers for the New Haven Athletic Center, and was instrumental in bringing Floyd Little back to New Haven when the center was dedicated in his honor.

Gold Key Award recipients for 2020 are five legendary scholastic coaches: Cookie Bromage (Enfield field hockey), Joe Grippo (Morgan girls volleyball and girls basketball), Lou Milardo (Hale-Ray softball), Ricky Shook (Danbury wrestling) and Angela Tammaro (Greenwich Academy field hockey and lacrosse). Baseball Hall of Fame honoree Claire Smith, 2017 recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, will receive the President’s Award.

The Gold Key Dinner was inaugurated in 1940, with baseball legend Connie Mack and golf superstar Bobby Jones among the initial recipients. The roster of honorees since then reads like a Who’s Who of Connecticut sports – Joe Cronin, Julius Boros, Willie Pep, Lindy Remigino, Floyd Little, Joan Joyce, Otto Graham, Calvin Murphy, Gordie Howe, Bill Rodgers, Geno Auriemma, Rebecca Lobo, Brian Leetch, Kristine Lilly, Marlon Starling, Dwight Freeney and ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen are just a few of the past Gold Key winners. A complete list is available at www.ctsportswriters.com.

Tickets to the Gold Key Dinner are $75 apiece, and may be reserved by contacting CSWA President Tim Jensen of Patch Media Corp. at tim.jensen@patch.com.Proceeds from the event benefit the Bo Kolinsky Memorial Sports Journalism Scholarship, named after a longtime Hartford Courant sportswriter and past CSWA president who died unexpectedly in 2003.

The CT SABR Holiday Luncheon will take place on Saturday, December 14 (12 to 3 p.m.) at J Roos Restaurant, 243 State Street, North Haven, CT 06473.

There will be a buffet lunch including fish, chicken and prime rib with a cash bar.  Tickets are $38 non-member, $33 SABR member and $27 for a plus-one (i.e., wife, family, friend). All are welcome.

Larry Levine will be honored for his service and contributions to our chapter with the first ever Ned Hanlon Award.

Mark Kanter will speak about the Competitive Index, which reflects how the relative closeness of pennant and divisional races has changed in the pre-Division, Division, and Wild Card eras.

Expect a good time, good fellowship, great food and an interesting program at this event!

To reserve your seat(s) please email Alan at adc0317@comcast.net as soon as possible.  Checks should be made out to CT SABR and mailed to Alan Cohen, 7 Longlane Rd., West Hartford, CT. 06117. Please mail your check when you make your reservation. For more info on this event, please contact Stan at stanyank7@yahoo.com.

Best,

Karl

The next general meeting of CT SABR will feature authors, new research, projects and the very best of CT media.   Rich Coppola, an 8x CT Broadcaster of the Year, East Haven native and lifelong Yankee fan, will appear.  Rich covered all of the Bomber Core Four championships for Fox 61 and much more.  The Courant’s Dom Amore, a 5x CT Sportswriter of the Year and one who actually did a front porch interview with Smoky Joe Wood 38 years ago, will speak about his book A Franchise on the Rise: The first 20 years of the New York Yankees.   Author Paul Hensler will talk about his new book on CT broadcasting legend Bob Steele.  The incisive, thought provoking David Kaiser will hold forth with observations on the 2019 season.  Stan Osowiecki will take us through exciting opportunities with SABR’s MLB Team Employee Directory Project. We’ll also hear a pair of brief talks: Larry McCray on the Early Base Running Games Project (for Protoball) and George Pawlush on the efforts of SABR’s Minor League Research Committee.

There will be a buck-a-book baseball book sale, plus refreshments and multiple breaks to stretch and socialize.  A $5 donation is requested.

Sat. Nov. 2

11 am to 3 pm

Chapman Hall, Room 605

Middlesex Community College

100 Training Hill Rd.

Middletown, CT 06457

For more information contact Steve at SKrevisky@mxcc.commnet.edu.

Thank you so much!

Karl

CT sports fans of a certain age will remember when the evening news featured Bob Steele’s Close Up on Sports (channel 3).  Our own Paul Hensler’s book on Steele, the broadcaster-motorcyclist-pugilist-wordsmith-raconteur who entertained CT for 6 decades, is newly published.  You can hear Paul speak about Steele this Thursday, Oct. 3 at 6:30 pm in the Hartford History Center at the Hartford Public Library, 500 Main St., Hartford.  More info at http://hhc.hplct.org/bob-steele-on-the-radio/

Congrats, Jacob!  SABR’s Jacob Pomrenke appears on page A-1 of today’s Chicago Tribune in a story about SABR’s Black Sox Scandal Centennial Symposium.  The event took place over the weekend in the Windy City.  You can read the Trib story at the below link.  It includes a gallery of 12 terrific photos.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-black-sox-world-series-100-years-20190930-sjromcu4gfgs7mdm6tif7yuoqu-story.html?fbclid=IwAR11s1guyqVT6jyfEtr1DfPvMUyrUW68HQX7TWnTGFRL9s5bwyleoJRywv8

Hi, SABR friends.  Our next general meeting will be on Saturday, Nov. 2 at Middlesex Community College.  Start time 11 am.  Will it be the Yankees, Astros, Dodgers, Braves or Twins we congratulate that day?

A donation of $5 is humbly requested.

Discussions with speakers are underway.  More info to come soon.

If you have suggestions for speakers or activities for our meetings please let a chapter leader know.

Our Holiday Luncheon will be in early December.  Date and site, TBA.

Thank you so much!

Karl

The Rabbit Maranville (Springfield, MA) Chapter of SABR will hold its next meeting on Sept. 23.  An interesting lineup of authors will present on a diverse group of new releases.

Bill Nowlin will talk about his latest book, The Boston Red Sox Killer B’s: Baseball’s Best Outfield, which he co-authored with Jim Prime.  Bill has authored, edited and contributed to numerous books.  He co-edited both of our CT SABR book projects (Sandlock and Bagwell).  Bill is currently on the SABR Board and served six terms as a SABR Vice President.

Saul Wisnia will talk about his new book, Son of Havana, which he co-authored with Luis Tiant.  Saul was a correspondent and feature writer at the Washington Post and Boston Herald before writing (at least) 13 books, mostly about baseball, as well as writing for Sports Illustrated and other baseball publications.

Rip Pallotta will talk about his new book, One Day in Mudville. Rip details some of baseball’s most unique games including a 33 inning battle, another that saw a batter run the bases backward and  yet another that saw a 59 year old come out of retirement to play.  Rip is a banker by profession.  He is also a musician, radio d.j. and a board member at The ARC.

Where and When:

Mon. Sept. 23

7-9 pm

Bears Den – lower level campus center

Western New England University

1215 Wilbraham Rd

Springfield, MA

01119

FOR MORE INFO PLEASE CONTACT:

Jim Winston  413-584-1110  james@jameswinstonlaw.com

Steve Manioudakis  413-537-8819 stavkim@charter.net

Thank you for reading and have a super day!

Karl

This issue has it all: Nanticoke magic, Wicket, Going Pro in the 1860’s, the ’69 Amazins, local marathons, new book releases, a March general meeting wrap up and more.

Here’s the link to the issue:  SABR Newsletter Summer 2019 v3 20190725 REV 2

Please send comments or Q’s to me at kcicitto@cox.net.

Enjoy!

Karl