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Baseball research group touches all the bases

It goes without saying that Williamsport is a community rich in baseball history.

Little League Baseball traces its origins to the city and Muncy Bank Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field has been the site for many years of minor league baseball.

But it wasn't until last year that a SABR chapter was established here.

SABR is the acronym for Society for American Baseball Research, a national organization with some 6,000 members worldwide.

For baseball aficionados such as Lou Hunsinger, Jack Houston and Mark Pompeo, that was an oversight they found odd and that certainly needed remedied.

Hunsinger is a local historian and author of baseball books. Houston is a retired Fordham University professor. Pompeo is a writer and researcher and former curator of the Little League Baseball Museum.

"I became interested in SABR in the late 1990s," Houston said. "I taught baseball history."

After Houston and his wife moved to Williamsport, he became acquainted with Pompeo.

About two years ago, the two began serious talks about starting a local SABR chapter.

Hunsinger had been a SABR member since 1992, and like Pompeo and Houston, who was a member of the Casey Stengel chapter of SABR in New York, he liked the idea of bringing SABR to Williamsport.

And so it happened.

A modest public relations campaign was launched to recruit people to join what is now known as the Jimmy Sebring-George Stovey Williamsport Chapter.

Sebring, a native of Liberty, hit the first World Series home run in 1903 while a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Stovey, who resided in Loyalsock Township, is perhaps the best Black pitcher of the 19th century.

To the delight of the three men, the first meeting of SABR at the James V. Brown Library last August drew some two dozen people.

Successive meetings in October and this past winter attracted as many, if not more, interested folks.

"We have a cross section of people from the community who know about us," Houston said.

"We are trying to create something that draws people of common interests in baseball," Hunsinger added.

To many people, SABR brings thoughts of complex statistics and numbers-crunching used to assess the value of Major League Baseball players and clubs.

But as Hunsinger is quick to note, there is much more to SABR than figures.

Baseball, he explained, is rich in history, sociology and culture, a game steeped in issues ranging from labor strife to racism.

In essence, SABR has something to offer almost anyone, including those not necessarily interested in baseball.

Baseball is simply so much a part of the American fabric.

"You have more stories and films about baseball than any other sport," he said.

Baseball, Hunsinger continued, is a "joyful game" that looms so large in the nation's consciousness.

"Everybody has a baseball story," Houston said.

Houston recalled his earliest baseball memory as a kid when he and his father traveled from his hometown of Scranton to New York's Yankee Stadium for a game between the Yanks and Chicago White Sox.

Pompeo said his earliest memory can be traced to downtown Williamsport.

"I was probably about six. My mom bought me my first baseball glove," he said.

Hunsinger said, "My earliest baseball memory is the baseball cards on the back of the Kellogg's cereal boxes. I wish I would have kept them."

The SABR meetings include lively discussion on baseball and related matters and a guest speaker addressing a specific topic.

Pompeo said his hope is to recruit as many people to the local SABR chapter as possible and for the membership to include a diverse group of people.

The group meets next at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 30 at the James V. Brown Library.