My First SABR (Society of American Baseball Research) Meeting

I have been a member of SABR, the Society of American Baseball Research, for about two years, but had never attended a meeting before. Membership in SABR provides many advantages other than meetings, such as access to research materials, newsletters, special publications, and much more. When I found out that my local chapter, the Lajoie-Start Chapter, which covers Southern New England, was having a meeting on Saturday, June 10th at McCoy Stadium Pawtucket, RI (home of the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox), I decided it was high time for me to become a more active member in the organization.

The meeting was under one of the group outing cookout tents at McCoy stadium, and began at 10:30 AM. It was a cool, windy, rainy day, which made for a little discomfort, but thankfully I had on a thick sweatshirt, so I pulled through. There were probably about forty people at the meeting, all but a couple well older than myself, who at age 30 am in my last year of getting a discount on my SABR membership (folks under 30 or over 65 get a discount).

The bulk of the meeting was made up of presentations by authors of recently published or soon to be published books. Dave Clark spoke about his recently released book on the knuckleball called "The Knucklebook". He joking describes the book as an "applied physics textbook". I had a chance to talk to Dave after the meeting and to purchase a copy of the book. It's obvious from talking to him that Dave has put a lot of thought and research into the book, and I look forward to reading it. Look for a review on this blog soon.

Also speaking were Bill Nowlin and Cecilia Tan, authors of the recently published "The 50 Greatest Red Sox Games". The book looks like a great read, and they made their talk a bit more engaging by making a bit of a trivia contest about which games made up the top 10. They gave us clues to the games; we were to call out when we knew the answer. I'm proud to say that I was the first to get number seven on the list. The clues for that game were: 1) someone who spends time in the Red Sox dugout was also in the dugout for that game, 2) the pitcher who started the game for the Red Sox had shoulder surgery the previous year, and 3) the starting pitcher pitched to a former college teammate in the first inning. The Answer? Roger Clemens' 20 strikeout game in 1986. Al Nipper was a teammate of Clemens in 1986, and is now pitching coach for the Boston Red Sox, Clemens had shoulder surgery in 1985, and he faced former Texas Longhorn teammate Spike Owen (who was traded to Boston later in 1986) in the first inning of that game.

Larry Tye, a former columnist for the Boston Globe, spoke about his upcoming book on Satchel Paige. He gave a great chat about the process for starting to write a book. He also deserves accolades for handling the toughest time slot in public speaking with ease - it was announced before his presentation that right after he was done we'd break for lunch.

Lunch was hot dogs, chips, and lemonade prepared by the team's employees. Lunch provided a great opportunity for a newbie such as myself to chat with a few members of the organization, and it was fun to get to know some of my fellow "baseball geeks".

After lunch there was a trivia contest moderated by chapter president Len Levin, who ran a great meeting in my opinion…keeping things moving without anything ever feeling rushed. I am proud to say I was able to get seven out of the ten trivia questions correct…no small feat when dealing with baseball minds of this caliber. It made me feel like I might belong. The trivia revolved around players who played their entire career for one team, and were the all-time games-played leaders for that team. A few sample answers would include Cal Ripken Jr., Robin Yount, George Brett, and Stan Musial.

Next up were Dan Formosa and Paul Hamburger, authors of "The Baseball Field Guide", an attempt to reorganize and rewrite the baseball rulebook to make it more usable. They're information design folks, so they have experience making complicated material readable and usable. I got a chance to flip through the book, and I will probably end up purchasing a copy. The official baseball rulebook is nearly unreadable, and very unclear. The guidebook written by these two gentlemen organizes information in more reasonable ways (for example, all umpire judgment calls are in one chapter), and their plain words, helpful diagrams, and background information on the rules should prove very helpful.

A highlight of the day was a visit from several members of the Pawtucket Red Sox staff: Mike Tamburro, the team president, Lou Schwechheimer, the general manager, Ron Johnson, the manager, and Mike Griffin, the pitching coach. It was nice to be able to ask them questions about minor league baseball in general and the development of specific Red Sox prospects specifically. All of the men were very friendly and gave great answers to questions, and Ron Johnson was a blast…joking and goofing around with the audience during his time at the microphone. They pointed out that this year is the 25h anniversary of the longest game in professional baseball history, played right at McCoy stadium in 1981 between the Pawsox and the Rochester Red Wings. The home team won the game in the top of the bottom of the 33rd inning. Many records were set that night, and the team will be celebrating the anniversary with several special events all season. Among the players who appeared in that game were Hall of Famer Wade Boggs and future Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr.

Another highlight of the day was the next speaker…former major leaguer and Rhode Island native Bill Almon. Almon was the number 1 pick in the draft in 1974 by the San Diego Padres, and had a fifteen-year major league career with six teams, mostly as a utility player. Almon was born in Providence, attended Brown University, and still lives in the state today. Bill talked with us for a long time, answering any questions the audience came up with…from discussions about a former teammate of his who has been in the news a lot lately - Barry Bonds, to life in the majors, to what it was like to be such a rarity in baseball (Almon was not only a #1 overall selection, but also one of the few major leaguers from the state of Rhode Island, and an ivy league ballplayer). He had some great stories, and kept us laughing, joking about how tough he had it, playing ball in sunny San Diego and playing his minor league ball in Hawaii, and about being pushed off shortstop by none other than Ozzie Smith. Mr. Almon was very gracious, informative, and just generally a very nice guy, something you wouldn't always expect from a former pro athlete.

Shortly before the meeting broke up, we had a raffle. Tickets were three for a dollar, and I bought nine. The raffle was for used books from the chapter's collection. I won twice, getting a copy of a book by Jim Bouton that I'd never seen before, and a book on Yankees great Mickey Mantle. Between these books and "The Knucklebook", attending the meeting sure beefed up my reading list.

Despite the cool, wet, raw weather, my first SABR event was a blast. Despite my age and status as a new member, everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome, and the presenters were all top notch.

I would highly recommend membership in SABR to any serious baseball fan, and attendance of a SABR meeting for any member who hasn't already done so.