2022 Conference Presentation Guide
Watch this page for the 2022 Presenters Line Up.
Denny McLain, 2022 VBBA Dearborn Conference Keynote Speaker
Denny McLain will be the 2022 VBBA Dearborn Conference Keynote Speaker. Denny is the most recent Major League Baseball pitcher to win 30 or more games in a season. He is the recipient of two Cy Young Awards. He was a Major League Baseball pitcher for ten seasons.
Denny will be at Greenfield Village’s Eagle Tavern, site of this year’s VBBA banquet to meet and greet, taking pictures with guests, starting at 6:30 PM. Denny will deliver a thirty minute speech consisting of stories from his playing career, focusing on his time with the 1968 World Series Detroit Tigers.
Denny McLain: 3x All Star (1966, 1968, 1969), A.L. MVP (1968), A.L. Cy Young Award (1968, 1969), World Series Champion (1968, 1972), 20 win seasons (1966, 1968, 1969), Major League Player of the Year (1968), A.L. Sporting News P.O.Y. (1968, 1969), State of Michigan Sports Hall of Fame
The Dodworth Saxhorn Band
The Dodworth Saxhorn Band will be performing, Saturday, April 23, at Greenfield Village's Walnut Grove as part of the 2022 VBBA Conference's All Comers Games, from 1:45 to 4:30 PM. This performance is from a donation dedicated to the memory of Bretton J Freed an 18 year old right hand pitcher who was being scouted to play Pro ball, till he was injured in a car accident-and 19 years later another car accident claimed his life, neither were his fault. View Flyer with complete details
Katie Flapjack Baer
Swimming Up”stream”: Navigating the Waters of Digital Presence & Online Engagement with a Salmon
Join Katie “Flapjack” Baer of the Chicago Salmon for a dive into the vast digital venues available to your VBBA club. Katie will doggy paddle through the basics of social media platforms, generating attention-grabbing content, increasing online engagement, and creating and maintaining a club website. She will also discuss her experience developing the well-received Salmon Spectator newsletter, and the takeaways she’s learned this season.
Katie is the Publications Liaison (and 2nd basewoman) for the Chicago Salmon. She holds a degree in Creative Writing from Knox College. She has extensive social media experience and focuses on running both the Facebook page and Instagram for the Salmon (find both @ChicagoSalmonBaseBall), and works with a team to maintain and update the Salmon website, chicagosalmon.org. Along with her husband, Brennan “Sketch” Probst, she created the Salmon Spectator newsletter, which comes out after each match, and can be viewed on the Salmon website.
Eric Squarehead Berg
Prince Honeycutt, Minnesota’s first black professional base ball player (1873) They played barehanded. His story is quite compelling. Eric Squarehead Berg was a member of the Springfield Long Nine Vintage Base Ball Club more than ten years. Most recently he was the team’s captain. Dr. Eric Berg is currently an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bemidji State University. Previously he was a Professor of Philosophy at MacMurray College.
Michael Copado
Umpires as Showmen & Effective Re-enactors
Michael Preacher Copado has umpired at Navin Field and Hamtramck Stadium. He understands and will share what it takes to be both a historically authentic, and an entertaining vintage base ball umpire. He will also share how to be a side line re-enactor at a vintage base ball game. Michael is a Senior Audio Visual Technician, Division of Med Ed and Distance Learning-School of Medicine at Wayne State University. He is also a Freelance Unity Minister, preaching and presiding at weddings.
Southern Michigan (Detroit) SABR
The story of the 1880's Detroit Wolverines and their 1886 world championship.
Jeff Pine Tar Kornhaas
What is a historic base ball bat? How was it swung?
With about a decade of experience as a vintage base ball player, and having thoroughly reviewed the history of the development of the base ball bat and how it was used over the years. Pine Tar will confront the issue of what model base ball bats the vintage base ball clubs should be using to be historically accurate. In addition he will share the evolution of the correct batting stance and swing.
Grant More & Daniel Jones
21st Century Town Ball. “What is vintage base ball? How far back do we have to go to be really considered vintage? Most vintage base ball clubs only go back as far as the civil war when the New York Game was the dominant bat-and-ball game played in the United States. However, before the war, there were more versions of bat-and-ball than there were daisies under a blue moon. No foul balls? No baselines? One out per inning? Pegging the runners? No obligation to run until the third strike? Five bases instead of four? Each of these rules and many more existed among the myriad of bat-and-ball games all referred to as “town ball” in the nineteenth century and earlier. Townball, as now played in the twenty-first century, borrows elements from all of these variants (especially those of Massachusetts) to make the perfect game that has been played on the West Coast since 2012. Come to our talk and learn about how your vintage base ball club can teach history by partaking in this modern twist on a collection of old ideas.” Daniel Jones "founder" Website: 21ctownball.com
Debra Reid
“Women in 21st Century Vintage Base Ball: Challenges and Experiences”
History collides with contemporary life on vintage base ball fields. Ask yourself…Is this a white man’s game? It became that in the past. Do women play? They did historically. Do non-white players play? They did historically. Who plays on your team? Do you issue an open call for players? Do you stress the historic game as a vehicle to extend your reach and engage broadly, or do you carry along all that white privilege baggage from the past into the 21st century? This session looks at the game as a public program at public sites, and asks what you and your club/team can do to make it as engaging, inclusive, and different from the past as possible.
Can My Vintage Base Ball Team Be Saved?
Vintage base ball sometimes faces problems and challenges of and off the field. Chances are whatever your team might be experiencing, another team has dealt with the same thing. This panel provides a forum for situations your club might have, be it funding, player recruitment and retention, playing field, team morale or other things. 4 experienced team leaders will share their stories and welcome your questions and discussion.
Jim “Glacier” Basala, Deep River Grinders, Hobart, IN: Entering its 31st year, the Grinders club is one of the most successful in the Midwest, regularly drawing 100 or more spectators to its games. Affiliated with the Lake County Park District, the club has evolved through player turnover and other challenges in three decades
Todd “Dutch” Eschman, Belleville Stags, Belleville, Illinois: The Stags club is an independent organization, self-funded and has enjoyed success during its existence. “Dutch” can share how his team met the challenges of self-funding, locating a field, player recruitment, scheduling and surviving a pandemic..
Ryan Pierce, The Milwaukee Grays Club, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Ryan’s team was founded in 2008, an offshoot of the Cream City Club. Ryan can speak to the challenges of founding, growing and maintaining a vintage club in a large metropolitan area.
Ryan Peters, Valparaiso Lookout Club, Valparaiso, Indiana: Ryan took over the club, founded by his father, a few years ago. Originally known as the Sunset Hill Farm Colonels, Ryan will address the challenges and opportunities in maintaining a club through personnel evolutions and other situations.Brennan "Sketch" Probst Photographer
Photography, like base ball, has seen a multitude of changes since its inception in the mid-19th century, and would be nearly unrecognizable today to those who first conceived it. Brennan “Sketch” Probst will guide you through a brief history of 19th century photographic technology, and how it was used to capture base ball. In addition, Sketch will explain how he goes about using modern camera technology to effectively capture the vintage game we all love so well.
Brennan “Sketch” Probst has played for the Chicago Salmon since 2020. While he does his best as an outfielder, Sketch’s greatest contribution to the club is perhaps his photography. Sketch holds an M.F.A. in Fine Arts from the University of New Orleans, and is currently an adjunct professor at Carthage College where he teaches darkroom and digital photography.
