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Hot Stove Banquet Line-up Hits It Out & Dunning Gets $6K

This year’s Hot Stove banquet provided more than 200 diehard baseball fans with plenty of stories, observations and pre-2012 season commentary to keep them going until catchers & pitchers’ report. Scott Erickson fired the first fastball of the evening announcing his recent hiring as a pitching coach by the Carolina Mudcats, and sharing the tale of his rookie move of showing up for an organizational meeting with the suits - in uniform. Dana Kiecker a southern Minny boy pointed out that in the year he was drafted there were 7 others drafted from about a 35-mile radius, including another three future major leaguers – Terry Steinbach; Mike Kingery; and Barry Wohler. Banqueters were doing the math – probably not even 35,000 people in that area - pretty amazing record of getting to the “show,” must have been some great local competition. The always entertaining Mike Veeck recounted a few more of his firings from MLB, all of which were less glorious than ‘disco demolition’, but still very entertaining – especially his indoor, pyrotechnic “tribute to Jimi Hendrix” that contributed to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays 1999 home opening and to another Veeck MLB exit.Banquet supporter & BPT friend Twins President Dave St. Peter joined the evening’s panel in time to catch a few tough questions about ‘cutting payroll’ after moving into a new, revenue-driving ballpark. We admire Dave for coming into the hornets’ nest and taking a few, while dishing it out and admitting to some basic “truths” (the Twins pitch to contact “because we don’t have a lot of guys who throw hard.”)

The most touching moments of the night were provided by Dale Connelly, long-time sidekick of Tom Keith – better known as Jim Ed Poole on MPR’s Morning Show. It seems that Jim Ed was quite the ballplayer in high school making the all-tournament team during the playoffs. We regret never inviting him to be a part of our show, although we talked about it at least 8 times – there’s a lesson here folks.
Howard Sinker from the STRIB bestowed the BPT Citizen of the Year Award to Gary Eichten, the retiring host of MPR’s Mid Day program. Howard noted that the competition was particularly challenging this year due to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision which forced the merger of the BPT Citizen & Corporate Citizen awards. Gary gratefully accepted the plague about an 8- inch hunk of Met Stadium bleacher seat!!!!

We are happy to report that the Dunning Little League program had another $6K sent in their direction when the tallies were made of the live and silent auctions. Thanks to all who donated, purchased or forced the bidding up. We hope you’ll all get out and watch the kids play this summer on the fields located off Marshall Avenue in St. Paul between Lexington and Hamline Avenues.
In a final note that testifies to the fact that ours is truly a baseball “community,” upon learning that Mike Veeck was missing a Retinitis Pigmentosa fundraiser (a charity Veeck has a strong personal stake in), fans honored the Saints owner’s “home run” by tossing approximately $350 “into the hat” for this worthy cause.

In the end, the banquet was another homerun … good food, good beverages, good friends, good conversation and lots of great entertainment from our panel of speakers. Thanks to all who attended … see you at the ballpark and, hopefully, on this year’s tour. For now, listen carefully for those four beautifully poetic words – “Pitchers and catchers report.”