Join us for the monthly group meeting of the New York chapter of Society of American Baseball Research (SABR). The group meets the second Saturday of each month. All baseball fans are welcome!

This month's lineup:

Brett Topel
The Boys Who Were Left Behind: The 1944 World Series between the Hapless St. Louis Browns and the Legendary St. Louis Cardinals

Mark Lamster
Spalding's World Tour:
The Epic Adventure that Took Baseball Around the Globe — And Made It America's Gamed

Frank Russo
Bury My Heart at Cooperstown:
Salacious, Sad, And Surreal Deaths in the History of Baseball

In The Boys Who were Left Behinds, Brett Topel and co-author John Hedienry, focus on a World Series that had one of the weirdest collections of characters and strange goings on. The St. Louis Browns were only able to muster a collection of "misfits, 4-F's, brawlers and drunks", but still won the American League pennant. The St. Louis Cardinals, not nearly as depleted, had cruised to the National League pennant. Facing off in a "streetcar series", there was well spring of support for the underdog and hapless Browns, even as they succumbed to the Cardinals 4-2.

Brett Topel is a freelance sports journalist and an adjunct professor of journalism at Adelphi University. He is also the art director of The Week magazine.

Spalding's World Tour, by Mark Lamster, chronicles one the greatest marriages between sport and commerce. Sporting-goods magnate Albert Spalding goes on a globetrotting tour with two teams of the most colorful characters to play "America 's pastime". Playing before royalty and citizens in Europe, and even more exotic locales, Spalding wanted to promote Americans' undying joy in the play of sport, and coincidentally open new markets for his equipment. With his larger than life personality and slate of athletes who played as hard off the field as on, Spalding's grand tour served to introduce the world to America's emerging spirit of hard-working play.

Mark Lamster is senior acquisitions editor at Princeton Architectural Press in New York. His writing on baseball, history, design, and architecture has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, Metropolis, I.D., and Architecture. Lamster lives in New York City and is an active member of the Society of American Baseball Research.

Bury My Heart at Cooperstown recounts the bizarre, unexpected, and unbelievable final at-bats of hundreds of baseball immortals . Reading about deceased baseball players may sound a bit morbid or even a little creepy, but this book successfully walks the fine line between reverence and humor.

Frank Russo created the website thedeadballera.com, to chronicle his research into the demise of major leaguers. He is a former radio announcer, current SABR member and long-time Yankees fan..

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