April 17th, 2017

Larry Dierker SABR Chapter Members:

At the Larry Dierker Chapter meeting on Monday, April 17, 2017, twenty-nine members and friends gathered for our regular monthly session at the Spaghetti Western Restaurant in Houston. We celebrated the Houston Babies vintage base ball doubleheader win in Sealy and announced that 33 members had entered the 2017 Astros Win Contest with projected wins ranging from 102 by Bill McCurdy to 83 by Janeen Schneider. The most popular guesses with four each are 95 and 93.

Kevin Rosell, recently back from the SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix, gave us a very detailed report on the happenings there. He enjoyed the entire conference and got to meet a number of key contributors including Bill James, Randy Johnson, and Brian Kenny. For a more detailed summary and highlights from the conference, please go to SABR.org/analytics.

Greg Lucas batted second and discussed his brand-new book "Houston to Cooperstown: The Houston Astros' Biggio and Bagwell Years." This is one of the very few books written by or about Houston players and is extremely well written. Greg shared his experience in writing, producing, and marketing the book while also telling us a few stories that are not included.

Bill McCurdy then stepped up to honor Greg and others with pennants representing their individual colleges or universities. Greg Lucas, Larry Miggins, Bob Copus, Phil Holland, Bob and Peggy Dorrill, Chris Chestnut, Sam Quintero, and Tom White each received this gift from Bill. The concept was that Greg would have (present) more pennants than Casey Stengel, 9 to 7.

The trivia contest developed by Mike McCroskey, who skipped our meeting to celebrate his anniversary with his wife, was once again won by Tom White.

Our next meeting will be at Constellation Field for the Sugar Land Skeeters game on May 8. Hope to see you there!