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SABR 36 ::
SABR 36 Recap - Saturday, July 1
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SABR 36 Recap - Saturday, July 1
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| By The SABR Office |
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| L to R: Rick Schabowski and ESPN.com's Rob Neyer |
SABR Saturday came into full swing with the Donor Breakfast, which was a special “thank you” event for those members who contributed $100 or more in the previous year and was briefly attended by PCL legend Eddie Basinski.
According to SABR Executive Director John Zajc, this was the largest donor breakfast in the program’s history.
“I’m pleased by the continued success of the donor program,” said Zajc. “It’s encouraging to see so many members make an additional financial commitment to help fulfill the organization’s mission.”
The breakfast was followed later that morning by the PCL Panel discussion. The line-up for this event included Mr. Portland Beaver, Eddie Basinski, who in addition to stints with the Seattle Rainiers and Vancouver Mounties also played in the big leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates; Dick Fitzgerald, who signed with the Baltimore Orioles and played professionally in York, PA, Columbus, GA, San Antonio, Vancouver and Seattle; Wes Stock, who had two stints in Vancouver played in the majors for the Orioles, Kansas City A’s and was a pitching coach for the Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A’s and Mariners; and Edo Vanni, who was a member of the original Seattle Rainiers team in 1938, and spent many years as a player and manager in the old Western International League to eventually manage the Rainiers in their last year in 1964. The panel was moderated by SABR President Dick Beverage, who is also president of the Pacific Coast League Historical Society and has written extensively on the PCL.
Following an afternoon of more great research presentations, attendees gathered for the Collective Bargain Panel Discussion. Panelists included Mike Marshall, 1974 NL Cy Young Award winner who pitched for 15 seasons for Detroit, Seattle, Houston, Montreal, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Texas, Minnesota and the New York Mets; Dick Moss, who has represented over 200 Major League Baseball players and was the general counsel for the Major League Baseball Player’s Association; and Andrew Zimbalist, author of several books including the recent Baseball and Billions: A Probing Look Inside the Big Business of Our National Pastime who is recognized as the preeminent economist on the sports landscape today. The panel was moderated by Rob Neyer, senior baseball writer for ESPN.com.
The days events concluded with the much-heralded SABR individual and team trivia contests. Ron Liebman served as official judge, Francis Kinlaw monitored the buzzers, Steve Nadel, timekeeper and Barry Mednick served as official scorer. Damian Begley did a wonderful job as the event emcee and kept the questions (and jokes) flying fast and furious during an exciting competition. The team, “East, West, North, South” comprised of Alain Usereau, Joseph Stanton, Michael Poplawski and Arnie Braunstein won the trivia finalists against the “Brother’s Adell,” named in honor of the recently deceased Ross Adell and comprised of Steve Krevisky, Ty Waterman, Rob Rafal and Jeff Tillis.
David Fleitz edged out Steve Treder, Greg Funk and Dave Raglin to win the individual trivia competition.
Winners of the trivia contest received a SABR 36 convention T-shirt and a copy of The 2006 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia edited by Gary Gillette, Pete Palmer and Stuart Shea.
At the conclusion of the trivia contest, the winners of the best oral and poster presentations were announced.
For his oral presentation, "Blocking Pitches: Assessing a Catcher’s Ability to Save Runs with Bruises," Sean Forman, of Philadelphia, PA, was honored with the Doug Pappas Memorial Research Award, presented by USA Today Sports Weekly. His presentation proposed a new metric for evaluating catcher defense.
Allison Binns, a doctoral student in Sociology at Harvard University, won the USA Today Sports Weekly Award for best poster presentation for "The Short-Term Effect of Salary Arbitration on Performance" which examined it in two ways – looking at the effect on performance compared with players at comparable career points who settled on contracts without arbitration, and contrasting arbitration winners with arbitration losers.
USA Today Sports Weekly sponsored both presentations. Winners receive a cash prize of $250 for best oral research, and $125 for best poster research presentations, with a like amount donated to SABR, courtesy of USA Today Sports Weekly.
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| Created On: 03.09.06 |
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SABR 36 ::
SABR 36 Recap - Saturday, July 1
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Page Link: http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,1578,34,0
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