A RECAP OF THE SPRING 2004 FORBES FIELD CHAPTER SABR MEETING

1.  Spring meeting
2.  Where are your baseball cards?
3.  Frank Boslett


1.  The Heinz History Center was the site of the Forbes Field Chapter's Spring meeting on April 10.  Tom Baxter gave a detailed "Where Are they Now?" talk covering the whereabouts of Pirates of recent vintage.  Everyone was covered from the recently-departed Joe Beimel (landed with the Twins) to the long-gone Barry Bonds (opened a seafood shack on the South Side, or something). 

Denis Repp gave a talk on the career of the man with the retired number, Billy Meyer.  Craig Britcher, of the Heinz History Center, spoke on the plans for the museum's new Sports wing (see below).  Tom Baxter won the trivia quiz (prize:  four Pirate tickets), and Paul Adomites spoke briefly of the joys of umpiring youth baseball.

And, as usual, there was lots of baseball talk among all in attendance.


2.  At the meeting, Craig Britcher spoke on the efforts being made by the History Center to collect memorabilia for the Sports Museum.  Of particular interest to us, he is trying to put together a baseball card exhibit.  The  plan is to have a display featuring every Pirate baseball card ever printed (Topps only).  If you are one of the few whose mothers did NOT throw your cards out when you were a kid, and would like to see a piece of your childhood on display at the museum, Craig would like to hear from you.  You can write him at


3.  Among the attendees at the Spring meeting was Frank Boslett.  I had the pleasure of sitting at his table for lunch, and as always, Frank had some great stories to tell.  Unfortunately, it's now my sad duty to tell you that Frank Boslett passed away on April 22.  His good friend, Paul Adomites, offers this remembrance:

 
Frank Boslett was not only a huge fan, but a superior student of every game he followed, which was most of them. Combine that deep love of sports with a wry, puckish sense of humor and a truly artful raconteurial style and you
get a sense of how much fun Frank was to be around. He also had the rare ability to make your stories funnier and smarter, too.

Frank's first memories of Pirate baseball were during the Kiner Years, so he understood the suffering as well as the joy of being a Buc fan. Frank joined SABR in 1984, and immediately purchased a Pennsylvania vanity license plate: SABR 84. The next year he and Paul Adomites hosted the first Pittsburgh SABR regional. Ten years later Frank was an integral part of the committee that hosted SABR's national convention in Pittsburgh.

A writer/bartender/sporting goods salesman by trade, Frank was a generous and devoted friend who will be missed in hundreds of ways by thousands of people. Although he was a small man physically, he had a huge heart, and people who met him never seemed to forget him.