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What's New Spring/Summer 2012

SABR National Convention, Minneapolis, MN, June 27-July 1, 2012

"Four Days in October 1908," Friday, June 29, 11:30 AM

The 1908 National League pennant race was one of the closest and most contentious ever. Steve looks at John McGraw’s New York Giants, after the famous Merkle game and before the game with the Chicago Cubs decided that pennant.

McGraw's Giants had just lost three games in five days to Phillies pitcher Harry Coveleski (who would become known as “Harry the Giant killer”). In order to force a tie with the Chicago Cubs, the Giants had to sweep three games against the Boston Braves, who were managed by McGraw’s old buddy and former Oriole teammate, Joe Kelley. The Braves also had a number of former Giants on their roster. Was that series on the “up-and-up”? How far would McGraw go to correct the “injustice” of the Merkle game, which was ruled a tie, not a New York victory?

SABR 2012 National Convention Publication, The National Pastime

"The St. Paul-New York Underground Railroad" by Steve Steinberg

This journal, which goes to all 7,000 SABR members, appears in conjunction with the convention. Steve's article, an overlooked story about Yankees manager Miller Huggins and his Minnesota connection, appears in it.

In early 1925, Yankees scout Bob Connery bought the minor league team, the St. Paul Saints. What wasn’t public knowledge at the time was that Connery’s close friend, Yankees manager Miller Huggins, was a one-third silent partner in the ownership of the Saints. Steve looks at the relationship between the Yankees and the Saints—their primary source of talent and training ground for prospects—over the next five years, until Huggins’s death.

Northwest SABR Meeting, Saturday, June 16, 2012

Seattle Pacific University, Library Conference Room

The Day John McGraw Lost Control of his Team…and Quit," Noon

New York Giants manager John McGraw ran his team for 30 years with a heavy hand, in his legendary autocratic style. Yet on one remarkable afternoon in October 1916, he lost control of his team and quit.

The Giants had just come off an amazing 26-game winning streak, yet they were virtually out of the pennant race when they finished the season against Wilbert Robinson's Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodgers (known as the "Robins," for their lovable manager, "Uncle Robbie") were fighting the defending NL champions, the Phillies, for the 1916 pennant. Many of the Giants players wanted Robbie, their former coach, to win. They played a very strange game against Brooklyn on October 3. What was the story behind the farcical game New York "handed" to Brooklyn? It involves a broken friendship, gambling friends, and even Arnold Rothstein.

This is the paper Steve delivered at the NINE Journal of Baseball History and Culture Conference in Tempe, Arizona in March 2012.

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