December 2025 Newsletter
By Gilbert D. Martinez
Seventeen chapter members and guests gathered ’round the hot stove to reflect on the major off-season deals so far and the winners and losers of such deals at the December meeting on Sunday at County Line on the Lake in Austin.
Jerry Miller, still very much basking in his Dodgers’ thrilling second consecutive World Series title, brought his Managers as Players Quiz to challenge the group.
Cy Morong (above, right) took top prize with 20 points, followed by Jim Baker (above, left) with 18, friend-of-the-chapter Gene with 14, and Monte Cely and Dick Butler with 12 each. Cy presented the top two finishers with prizes. Cy won “Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments” by Joe Posnanski, and Jim won “The Man in the Dugout: 15 Big League Managers Speak Their Minds” by Donald Honig.
Take a swing at Jerry’s quiz at this link (the answers follow the questions): Managers as Players Quiz
Good luck!
20th Annual Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting
Meanwhile, we’re excited to share the tentative meeting agenda for the 20th Annual Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting, scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026. It’s our biggest meeting of the year!
Jerry Miller, winter meeting coordinator, has put together a fun schedule featuring a conversation with Keith Moreland, a 12-year MLB veteran, University of Texas Longhorns national champion and broadcaster, and longtime minor league broadcaster Mike Capps. We’ll also have representatives from the Round Rock Express and San Antonio Missions, along with various baseball presentations and activities during the day.
See more details in Jerry’s winter meeting announcement and RSVP form below.
Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting Announcement
By Jerry Miller
The holidays will soon be behind us and, although never far from our minds, the National Pastime will soon again be front and center. It all starts with the 20th Annual Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting, sponsored by the Rogers Hornsby (Central Texas) Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). This year’s meeting is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 10, 2026, at Texas State University in San Marcos (see directions at the end of the newsletter below).
Named after our late chapter founder and president, the meeting will include our traditional chapter activities, as well as a series of presentations from both chapter members and outside speakers, with some new surprises. Through the efforts of chapter member and friend Mike Capps, we are honored to welcome University of Texas legend and 12-year major leaguer Keith Moreland, who will discuss the Longhorns’ 1975 national championship, as well as his long association with the Chicago Cubs, including as a member of the 1984 NL East champions and a team broadcaster. Through the efforts of chapter member and Maryland native Ryan Pollack, we are also pleased to welcome, via Zoom, Michael Gibbons, director emeritus of the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Museum in Baltimore, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary as the repository of all things Bambino. The meeting will also feature:
- A Zoom presentation by Rob Sheinkopf, author of the recently published “Baseball Impostors: The Dark Side of Fandom,” and “Hey Mom, Wanna Have a Catch?: A Collection of Baseball Stories…Honoring Moms and Dads Who Taught Us to Love America’s National Pastime” (featuring a chapter by our own Monte Cely);
- A Zoom presentation by Douglas Kurkul, a former chapter member and author of “It’s a Beautiful Day for Baseball: The National Pastime in the 1960s”;
- Reports from representatives of our local minor league teams, the San Antonio Missions and Round Rock Express, as well as a presentation by Texas State master’s graduate and former Sugar Land Space Cowboys creative marketing associate Carly Earnest on their season;
- Presentations from chapter members Dick Butler (“Town Ball: Depression-era Baseball in the Texas Hill Country”) and Frank Rechtorovic (“The Emerald City”);
- A new feature, i.e. a series of mini-workshops on different topics, including various baseball statistics and Strat-O-Matic and other baseball simulation games, presented in a “speed dating” format allowing participants to jump from one small group to another;
- Our traditional features, including our mock Hall of Fame voting, the presentation of awards to the winners of our Predictatron, Awardatron, and Contractatron contests, and presentations by chapter members regarding their 2025 baseball experiences; and
- Best of all, the opportunity to meet and interact with friends and colleagues from the local baseball community.
Please note that we will have an onsite pizza lunch available for pre-order. We will also be soliciting donations of old baseballs, gloves, bats and other gear for use in our “Baseball Memories” program, which supports baseball reminiscence activities as a means of improving the lives of persons dealing with dementia, chronic health problems, isolation, or loneliness.
We hope that you will be able to join us for our biggest and hopefully best event of the year, as we reflect upon the season past and whet our collective appetites for the season ahead.
Watch for a winter meeting reminder and meeting schedule in early January on our email list and on this chapter website.
RSVP for the Winter Meeting
To RSVP for the Winter Meeting (required if you want to partake in the pizza lunch), please fill out this online form.
Mock Hall of Fame ballot
If you’d like to participate in the chapter’s mock Hall of Fame vote, you can do so online or at the meeting (one or the other, not both!). Use this link to the online ballot for those who want to submit their ballot before or are unable to attend the winter meeting. Many thanks to Ryan Pollack for managing our HOF vote!
Baseball Memories Program Report for 2025
By Monte Cely
May 2025 marked 10 years that our chapter has fielded baseball reminiscence programs. In 2015, Hornsby Chapter volunteers led by Jim Kenton started SABR’s first program in partnership with Alzheimer’s Texas. Reminiscence, recalling pleasant memories of the past, has proven to be an effective way to improve the quality of life of those dealing with dementia, chronic health problems, isolation or loneliness. Since then, the number of programs using baseball as a reminiscence topic has grown both locally and nationally.
We continued our long-running program with the Kerrville Veterans . Chapter member Larry Rice has assumed command of this important offering. Although the catastrophic Kerrville flooding and new VA vetting requirements caused a mid-year pause, the program was back in action on Dec. 1. Larry and his San Antonio-area team have a long-standing excellent relationship with the VA Recreation Therapy staff in Kerrville.
Since 2023, our Austin-area team has been presenting a 90-minute monthly program at Williamson County AGE of Central Texas in Round Rock. The audience at this adult day care facility is a large, diverse group. We have a tremendous relationship with the AGE management team, and they are very supportive and enthusiastic about the program.
Over the past 10 years, 15 Hornsby Chapter members, along with family, have volunteered to facilitate or otherwise assist with these programs. We have positively affected the well-being of participants and their care partners. Currently, 10 SABR volunteers and several family members are involved in delivering the VA and AGE programs. In total, we have held 22 in-person sessions in 2025, reaching 35 to 45 participants monthly.
Two other items of note:
- Chapter member Peter Myers, now living in the Denver area, has taken a leadership role in the Rocky Mountain Chapter’s baseball memories programs. Peter previously volunteered for our program at AGE of Central Texas.
- Round Rock Express General Manager Tim Jackson arranged for the team to donate 15 game-used baseballs for our programs. Participants love to grasp a hardball! Thanks, Tim!
In 2026, we plan to add one additional program in each of our major metros (San Antonio and Austin). Grace Place, an adult care center in San Antonio, will come online in January. A second branch of AGE of Central Texas in South Austin is also interested in hosting a program. There are plenty of opportunities to get involved in this valuable community service program. In addition to plenty of baseball (of course), we also add music, cinema/TV, history and other sports in order to evoke a broad range of pleasant memories from a diverse audience.
We would welcome more volunteers! It’s a rewarding experience for us!
For more info, please contact: Monte Cely – Austin Metro area coordinator at cely@swbell.net
Larry Rice – San Antonio Metro area coordinator at ukisno1@gmail.com
Baseball Memories programs: Call for donations of used baseball equipment
Our chapter’s Baseball Memories programs are soliciting donations of old baseball gear. These are used for show-and-tell segments of our programs and they really help to stimulate the senses and memories of participants. Recall that Jim Bouton wrote in “Ball Four,” “You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” We’ve found this is so true when we see a veteran’s eyes light up when getting their hands on a hardball, or a participant tries on an old baseball glove.
If you have an old baseball, glove, bat or other gear taking up space in your closet or garage, please consider donating them for use in our Baseball Memories Programs. A good opportunity would be to bring any donations to our chapter’s upcoming annual Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting at Texas State University in San Marcos on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.
If you have questions or need more information, please contact: Larry Rice at ukisno1@gmail.com
Directions to Old Main at Texas State, site of the Bill Gilbert Winter Meeting
Directions to the winter meeting are as follows:
- From I-35, take exit 206 (Aquarena Springs Dr.).
- Travel west on Aquarena Springs Drive, which turns into University Drive.
- After crossing the San Marcos River, you will come to a traffic light. Turn right onto Sessom Drive. At the first light, turn left on State Street and go up a steep road toward Old Main (pictured above). Go through a gate (the gate should be up) and continue up the hill.
- At the top of the hill, make a sharp left turn and drive up to Old Main.
- Look for parking on this road that winds around the side and back of Old Main. You can find additional parking at the Pleasant Street Garage, located at the corner of N. LBJ and Pleasant Street. To reach this garage, after you pass through the gate, continue up the hill, then down the hill to the stop sign on Pleasant Street. Turn left; the entrance to the parking garage will be on your left.
You do not need a parking pass to park on campus – however, do not park in spaces not marked as parking spaces or in handicapped parking (unless you have the appropriate tag displayed).
Meeting is on the third floor – both stairs and elevator are available.
We hope to see you on Jan. 10, 2026!
For each player, the black vertical line is the median prediction among our contestants. The white boxes to either side end at the 25% and 75% prediction levels, and the dots are outliers. Yes, someone predicted Framber Valdez to get a $40M deal. I think that person is likely to be off by a large amount. But who knows? Maybe he’ll sign a one-year, $40M deal and the rest of us will look silly.
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