Spring Training 1939
 

April 3, 1939

MINERS ADD VETERAN CARTER FROM EAGLES

In yet another deal proving they are all-in on a pennant run this season the Pittsburgh Miners made their second trade with Washington this off-season to bring in another veteran player. This time it is 33 year old second baseman Andy Carter, who was a two-time All-Star but started just 26 games last season after missing nearly all of the 1937 campaign when he tore up his knee on opening day that year. Pittsburgh also receives a solid pitching prospect from the Eagles in 22 year old Art Brandon but the cost was high as the Miners were forced to send their top prospect, 22 year old second baseman Leon Blackridge to Washington. Earlier this winter Pittsburgh had picked up 31 year old pitcher Karl Johnson from Washington. Johnson was a 20-game winner two years ago but slipped to 13-19 this past season.

Carter once was one of the best second baseman in the Federal Association, perhaps only behind St Louis Pioneers star Freddie Jones who was also dealt over the winter. Carter spent 9 seasons with the Eagles batting .321 for his career and leading the Fed in triples on 4 occasions. In 1936 he hit a career best .359 but then came the knee injury in the first game of the 1937 season that required surgery and forced him to miss the entire year. He returned last season to discover that Johnnie Sundberg had replaced him as the everyday second baseman and Carter would start just 26 games, batting a career worst .255 and was clearly unhappy in Washington.

It is a bit of a risk for the Miners who are clearly betting Carter can regain his pre-injury form. The likely plan to use Carter at a number of different positions as they already have Jack Cleaves at second base but there is always the possibility if Carter regains his form at the plate that Cleaves could move to third and Les Tucker from third to shortstop. A more likely scenario is Carter plays a lot of first base especially if the often-injured Mahlon Strong goes down for an extended period of time.

Blackridge looks like a can't miss middle infield prospect and may even see some playing time in Washington this season after spending last year at the AAA level with the New York Stars. The Stars originally selected him out of a New Jersey high school in the 6th round of the 1934 draft but had traded him to Pittsburgh just 4 months ago in exchange for veteran infielder Ray Cochran. He was list as the Miners top prospects but just in the mid-50s overall by OSA. This deal was not just for the present from Pittsburgh's point of view as Miners management confirmed they would not have made the trade had Art Brandon not been involved. Brandon split last season between AA and AAA, posting an 11-5 record with a 4.69 era and he slots in just outside the top 100 prospects according to OSA. Like Blackridge, his stay with his former organization was very brief as Washington had just acquired him two months ago in the deal that sent Sergio Gonzales to Detroit.
JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE- I like the move from both teams perspectives. For Pittsburgh Carter is a worthwhile investment as injury protection at a number of positions and they bought when he stock was at it's lowest. Carter seems poised to want to prove he is still one of the better middle infield bats in the game and may just end up playing a big role in Pittsburgh, but as a first baseman, when Strong has his inevitable injury spell. The two prospects are both very solid. I really like Brandon and can see him becoming much more than a bottom of the rotation arm but he was expendable in Washington because of the recent additions Johnnie Jones and Jim Douglass from the Stars organization. Washington has a lot of decent young arms in their system but are slim in middle infielders so Blackridge addresses that concern and may just earn a starting job alongside Johnnie Sundberg on Opening Day. Both can play shortstop but the one downside is each is likely much better suited to second base but either still might be a better option than light-hitting minor leaguers Jack Bush or Leo Anderson - a pair of 25 year old's who currently appear to hold the inside track on the shortstop spot in Washington.

SPRING TRAINING STANDINGS

QUICK HITS

• A trio of Minutemen had a nice opening week of Spring Training. 1B Bob Donoghue had 3 bombs to go with his .438 avg. 3B Mack Sutton had a pair of homers and is hitting .316. C Bill Van Ness also has a home run, 5 RBI's and is hitting .440. The Boston lineup has been devoid of proficient long ball hitters for their entire existence. Dan Fowler's 26 in 1932 stands as the clubs all time single season record. Fun fact: Boston, Montreal, NY Stars, Toronto and Washington are the list of clubs that have not had a single player hit over 30 home runs in a single season.
• Bill Barrett, the 19 year old counted on to be the face of the franchise for the next decade plus, should take the Stars off that last and perhaps as early as this season. Barrett had a slow start to his spring, going just 1-for-15 but he clubbed 9 homers in just 48 games after his promotion to the big leagues last season.
• Jim Mason is fighting for his life for a starting slot in the New York Stars outfield, competing with Barrett and a host of others including Chink Stickels and ex-Eagle Moxie Pidgeon. Mason is making a good case after the opening week of spring training with a line so far of: 6 AB, 5 H, 1 HR, 1 RBI, .833 AVG, 2.167 OPS.
• It didn't happen immediately, but in the bottom of the 3rd inning of their second exhibition game the Gothams faithful saw something of which dreams are made. In consecutive at bats, Roosevelt Brewer, Mule Monier, Billy Dalton and Walt Messer - the Gothams infield of the future- all singled to contribute to a 4 run rally. The rest of their first week were a mix but overall the quartet played solid baseball as did another top prospect in catcher Pete Casstevens.
  1B Messer - 2/6
  2B Brewer - 1/8
  3B Dalton - 6/23
  SS Monier - 4/12
  C Casstevens - 3/9
  Likely Messer, Brewer and Casstevens return to the minor league side in another week, but their time is getting closer.
• Lloyd Stevens pitched the opener for the Keystones and batted third in the lineup (completely the AI's doing). Looks like new manager Bill Libby started his tenure boldly. A 4-3 week for the 'Stones was highlighted by Walt Potter (8-for-17, 4 RBI, 3 runs scored), who is fighting for a share of the catching duties, and Grover Lee (5-for-18, HR, 3 runs scored), an old favorite who is getting a chance as a backup outfielder.
• Detroit's offense was off to a somewhat sluggish spring start except in the 10-6 win over Boston. John Wood look solid in his 2 outings and will stay in the 6-man rotation. Bill Willman gave up 4 runs in 4 innings, but he will see another start but will be ticketed to AAA Newark. My starting OF of Nolde, Pestilli and Drake hit a combined 8-41 195 with 1 home run (Nolde) and 4 RBI's. C John Wicklund was 3 for 10 (300) but also had 3 whiffs. Playing lots of guys during the first two weeks so we will see how things go.
• Pestilli's brother Alf had a big first week of camp for the Brooklyn Kings, going 7 for 13 with a .625 OBP. Alf, who hit .269 with 16 homers for the Continental champs last season, is battling veteran Frank Lightbody, Bob Worley and ex-Gotham Howard Brown Jr. for the two starting jobs in the Kings outfield alongside right fielder Al Wheeler.
• The Washington Eagles are giving rookies Paul Wilkerson and Leon Blackridge an opportunity to claim the starting roles at catcher and second base, respectively. Wilkerson, a lottery signing in 1937 after an All-American season at Oklahoma City State, will be trying to supplant vets Claude Ramsey and Jim Kennedy for one of the catching spots while Blackridge has his work cut out for him as well.

• General Franco and nationalist forces triumphally entered Madrid unchallenged brining an end to the Spanish Civil War. The United States announced it will recognize Franco's government as the voice of Spain.
• Prime Minister Chamberlain pledged military support to ensure Poland's independence while announcing a "four-power Stop Hitler front" that would also include support from France, the Soviet Union as well as Poland.
• Britain also doubled it's territorial army to a war-time basis of 340,000 men.
• Hitler's broadcast of a reply to the world following the British announcement of support for Poland was mysteriously cut-off at the German source just moments after it began. However, the next day at a ceremony to celebrate the launching of Germany's second 35,000 ton battleship this year, Hitler scoffed at the powers challenge and warned the Reich and Italy are ready for war.
• Mussolini told a cheering crowd that Italy would not "remain a prisoner in the Mediterranean" and it's claim to special concessions as regards the Suez Canal had to be satisfied. He also praised the "defeat of Bolshevism" in the Spanish civil war and the role Italians played in it.

This Week in Figment Baseball: 1939 Spring Training
 

April 10, 1939

CURLY JONES DEALT TO DETROIT

Former first overall draft pick Curly Jones may be down to his last chance to carve a successful big league career after the Brooklyn Kings decided they had no room for the controversial soon to be 28 year old and dealt him to the Detroit Dynamos in exchange for a fringe minor league prospect. It was not that Jones pitched that poorly in Brooklyn, he did post a 12-8 record in 1937, but he just never came close to the stratospheric expectations that were thrust upon him when the New York Gotham made him the first selection of the 1932 draft following an outstanding collegiate career at Henry Hudson University. To his own detriment Jones did himself no favours right from the beginning when he threatened to retire prior to his first pro season because he did not want to apprentice in the minors as the Gothams had decided was best for the then 21 year old. Apparently fellow Georgia native Rufus Barrell talked Jones out of such a foolhardy decision but the tarnish on his reputation never did wear off.

Jones was pretty good when he made his big league debut as a 24 year old with the Gothams in 1935, posting a 12-6 record and helping the Gothams beat Cleveland to win the World Championship Series. He pitched just 1 inning in the series that season and it would be the only playoff appearance of his career as, despite being on the Kings roster each of the past three seasons, he was not trusted to take the ball in a Series matchup.

An elbow injury sidelined him for several weeks that rookie season and some say he was never the same pitcher afterwards. His control, which had never been his strong suit to begin with, certainly seemed worse and it was struggles with walks that played a big factor in the Gothams decision to send Jones to Brooklyn as part of their "Great Purge" of 1936. He had some moments with the Kings where he gave glimpses of what could have been a decent middle of the rotation big league arm, but those moments were few and were scattered between stints of extreme wildness forcing the Kings to remove him from the rotation early last year. He did pitch out of the pen for Brooklyn most of last season, going 4-3 with a 5.07 era in 33 appearances but his 5.6 BB/9 was fourth highest in the big leagues among pitchers with at least 90 innings thrown.

With young arms on the way up and Jones getting beat up in spring play, allowing 10 earned runs and walking 8 in 5 2/3 innings of work, the Kings decided they would no longer hold out hope Jones might someday approach the great promise he once had shown. He was out of minor league options and as a result, out of time in Brooklyn, so the Kings shopped him around the league. Several teams showed mild interest - all likely figuring they would take a flier on the chance that perhaps that potential the Kings had unsuccessfully tried to mine was still buried deep within his right arm - but none were willing to offer much in return, citing the odds of a payoff as far too low.

Detroit, which has another reclamation project already on their roster in Ron Coles who was one of the few pitchers to walk more batters per 9 innings than Jones did a year ago, figured it was worth the risk to send a 20 year old minor league third baseman by the name of Wally Tafur to the Kings organization in exchange for Jones. Tafur was originally an 8th round pick o Boston in the 1937 draft but has already been traded twice before - going to Cleveland and then Detroit - before now moving on to the Kings. He hit .312 splitting last season between Class B and C but is not considered a top prospect.

JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE - How the mighty have fallen. Jones was supposed to be a can't miss superstar, albeit one with a terrible attitude when the Gothams drafted him but control issues on the mound and wok ethic concerns off of it have dogged him his entire career. I can't fault Detroit for taking a chance in trying to mine that talent but it seems pretty obvious that Jones is nothing more than 'Fool's Gold.' Still at basically no cost at all it is a gamble very much worth taking for the Dynamos. They do have several pitchers who, like Jones, will be out of options so it will be interesting to see if his trial in Detroit makes it to opening day. On Brooklyn's end they did not get much in return but Tafur is a young talent others look up to and might make a good leader in the minors so adding him seems much better than losing Jones for nothing when he would have to be exposed on the waiver wire in two weeks.
https://i.imgur.com/sHDAqrw.jpg

STEVENS IMPRESSES IN PHILADELPHIA

Lloyd Stevens has been the star of camp for the Philadelphia Keystones. The #4 prospect in the league allowed one earned run over three starts (12.1 IP) for a 0.73 ERA. Manager Bill Libby was quoted as saying: "The time might be now for Stevens. He is already a big presence with the guys in the locker room. And, Lloyd is no shrinking violet." Stevens is a self-described "merry prankster", always joking and giving as good as he receives.

There are 8 pitchers vying for 5 starting pitching slots. Jim Whiteley and Gene White have the worst numbers, but they are close to locks for the rotation. White has as much upside as any Keystones pitcher, including Stevens, and Whiteley is Manager Bill Libby's preferred ace. Libby has a 6-man rotation, with Ed Baker working out of the bullpen in middle relief and Herman Patterson acting as the stopper. The stopper role is an open competition, as Don Attaway has had significant struggles at times over the past two seasons and has allowed 5 ER in 4 IP this Spring. Patterson, Baker, and Frank Parsons have the best numbers, but Paul Celis and John Perkins have some upside and are hanging on in the competition.

In other Keystones news Walt Potter continues to hit, leading to a three-horse race at catcher between incumbents Carl Ames and Jake Walton, who are also playing well. Potter is hitting .433 (13-for-30) with an OPS of 1.035, 4 doubles, and 8 RBI.

Among the multitude of first base candidates, no one is hitting. Stevens is hitting .250 (4-for-16), but has not appeared at first base yet. He has played one game at third and the rest as a pitcher. Sig Stofer (.227, 5-for-22), Don Ward (.214, 3-for-14), and John Turner (.077, 1-for-13) have contributed very little so far. The competition is still wide open and Austin Moore will join the ST roster as a late dark-horse entry.

SPRING STANDINGS

QUICK HITS

• The Toronto Wolves lead the way with a 9-4 record after two weeks of spring play as the club seems on a mission to prove last year's pennant near-miss was not a fluke. The roster pare down has begun for the Wolves but they still need to move seven more players, probably will be 2 pitchers, 5 batters. There may be some surprises with personnel beginning the season in Buffalo. Coming down to a numbers game on which players have options left, two players have already been waived and DFA'd due to having no options.
• A dark horse shortstop candidate has emerged for the Chiefs in their quest to replace the retired Pete Layton. Len Jones is having a really good spring. Chiefs manager Joe Ward has always liked Jones, but he lost his third base job when Martin moved over from first, and then he lost the second base job when Layton was acquired. He doesn't have much experience at short (113 FABL innings and 129 minor league innings), but he'll be given a chance over the next couple of weeks.
  
  Other than short stop, there are not many positions in question for the Chiefs. The 5th starter role is so far a neck and neck competition between Charlie Bingham and Augie Bertrand (I would prefer to keep Bingham in the stopper role where he had some good success last season). Red Hampton and Gene Jones have the inside track on the other two bullpen spots.
• Coming into camp the only battle in Brooklyn was expected to be for the centerfield position but Vergara seems to have disrupted the pitching plans pleasantly. Vergara and fellow Hank Mittan are both making a strong impression and each deserves to head north based on what they have shown so far. Vergara is Brooklyn's top prospect and after allowing just 1 run in 8 innings work it will be hard to keep the 23 year old out of the rotation if his next two starts are like his first pair of outings. Keeping Vergara makes for a crowded rotation with at least 5 other capable starters in the mix. A big thing in his favour is he is righthanded on a lefty dominated team.
  Lefthander Hank Mittan is the other rookie bidding for a spot but he has his work cut out for him with a plethora of southpaws in the pen already and several pitchers who would need to get waived if they are the casualty instead of the 24 year old Mittan.
  
  As for center, 2 weeks have camp have not seen anyone emerge as the leader. Alf Pestilli has had a great camp but ideally he is the leftfielder and Al Wheeler has 4 homers and 14 rbi's so hopefully ready for another huge season in right field. In center it appears the edge goes to ex-Gotham Howard Brown Jr, who is batting .250 but his defense is a question mark. Bob Worley has no such questions about his glove but he is just 1-for-17 at the plate this spring. The third option is for Pestilli to shift to center if Frank Lightbody shows he is ready to play everyday again after missing much of last season, but Frank is batting just .208. A long-shot is rookie Jim Alarie who is not having a bad spring but will likely need to show a lot more over the next two weeks to claim the final roster spot. It is looking more and more like the Kings are waiting for Rats McGonigle to complete his obligations to Bronx Tech before going straight to the big league club in June.
• A lot is riding on how strong Johnny Guzzo plays for the Miners. The scouts all seem to think he's a legit option now at SS after numerous years in the abyss with some really offensive batting lines. His defense has been far more than stellar his whole career except for it was quite pedestrian last year in the FABL, thanks to an uptick in errors.
  
  He OPS'ed .873 in 138 FABL at bats to finish up the season last year and has some real pop in his bat. If he can play the defense he's capable of and hit .270 with 40 XBH, the Miners will have a heck of a player.
• The Gothams still have a lot of cuts to make but as expected three of their very talented young prospects in Roosevelt Brewer, Walt Messer and Pete Casstevens have been sent over to minor league camp.
• The Saints had a bad second week of spring, going 1-5 after a 4-3 start but it was a week of experimentation on many aspects. Cuts to be made before week 3 to focus on potential roster. 30 year old 2B John Banks (11-for-19) is still on fire at the plate while catcher Adam Mullins had strong week and is hitting .423 so far.
• Old man Dave Trowbridge is letting his bat do the talking this spring after some suggested the 40 year old should have retired following an injury filled 1938 campaign. The veteran first baseman has been on fire the past couple of weeks, slashing .562/.625/.895 with a 1.520 OPS and a pair of homeruns in 24 spring at bats. Another player who looks rejuvenated this spring is Jim Mason as the 30 year outfielder is fighting to prove hes been looked over for years in Baltimore. Mason's slash line is an almost unbelievable .750/.765/1.000 after being cast aside by Baltimore. Mason hit .313 in 4 seasons with the Cannons and as alternated a very good year and a bad season. If the trend continues expect a strong 1939 from Mason. With Howie Smith also making a run for an outfield spot and Trowbridge seemingly unwilling to relinquish first base the Stars may have made one trade too many this off-season in adding Moxie Pidgeon. Of course there will be a spot in the lineup for a hitter of Pidgeon's stature which might not bode well for Mason or Smith.

• Italy invades Albania taking control of the capital and forcing the Queen of Albania to flee to Greece. British Prime Minister Chamberlain cuts short a holiday to return to London to discuss Britain's response.
• Reports out of Germany indicate the Reich will put strong pressure on Nationalist Spain to join the Totalitarian Anti-Communist Alliance as a counter-thrust against Great Britain's program for "encirclement" of the Reich.
• Former US Secretary of State Henry Stimson urged Congress and the nation to throw isolation overboard and give FDR greater powers to discriminate between aggressors and victims in war. Stimson stated he "believe(s) our present civilization is threatened with the greatest danger with which it has been confronted for four centuries."
• As the week comes to a close high ranking US Military officials believe Hitler will strike at Poland within a week. Britain has finalized an agreement to defend Poland if they are attacked while Germany has given Warsaw a week to back out of the agreement with Britain.
• Jack Benny is the latest Hollywood star found guilty of smuggling gems from Europe to the United States. He was assessed a $12,000 fine and a year in jail but the jail term was suspended. Fellow comedian George Burns had earlier pled guilty to the same charge.
  
  https://i.imgur.com/MMU16Gb.jpg

This Week in Figment Baseball - Spring Training 1939
 

April 17, 1939

EAGLES MANAGER BLASTS TOP INFIELD PROSPECT

This is the time of year when most organizations are pumping the tires of their top prospects, telling anyone who will listen just how good they can be. That's not the case in Washington where the new Eagles management team seems to have adopted the approach that any press, even bad press is a good thing. Now the hope for any press, no matter how negative or detrimental it could be to their players, might just make sense in the nation's capital where the Eagles of the past decade have made the sport a mere afterthought with their putrid play so, perhaps for them, any media coverage that they can receive is indeed a good thing. However, one does have to question what impact it might have on the mindset of recently acquired infield prospect Leon Blackridge when his own manager Jake McGuire calls out the 22 year old in the Washington Times Herald by saying "Leon Blackridge will never start at shortstop, except for injuries. The kid's not cut out for it defensively."

In full disclose that comment was likely meant more for TWIFB columnists instead of the young Blackridge as the Eagles brass scoffs at the notion this periodical might suggest the possibility of anyone besides Jack Bush playing shortstop for the club this season. To clarify what was actually said in these pages was:
And TWIFB lead columnist Jiggs McGee has to stand by the thought that Blackridge or Sundberg may not be a worse option at shortstop than Bush. Bush has never played in a big league game and is a career .238 hitter between AA and AAA the past 3 seasons. Yes he has speed and yes he has looked very good in the field as a minor leaguer but you might recall a fellow by the name of Pete Layton made out just fine playing shortstop despite a suspect glove a year ago. Jiggs would suggest to Mr. McGuire and the Eagles organization instead of telling your prospects how bad they might be at certain skills you first focus on giving them the opportunity to see if perhaps they might surprise you as Blackridge did not fare too badly in a brief trial at shortstop a couple of weeks ago. Now spring stats aren't worth the paper they are written on but it is pertinent to mention Blackridge was batting .368 after three weeks of spring games and Sundberg .282 while Bush was hitting just .148 after two weeks before a couple of decent games boosted his average to .225.

Jiggs McGee also added the following as a closing argument. "Now personally I would not expect any of the three (Blackridge, Sundberg or Bush) to be the starting shortstop on a championship caliber club, but McGuire and his charges will certainly not have to worry about being a championship club, at least not in the foreseeable future."

EAGLES AND WOLVES LEAD THE WAY

The Eagles do deserve some credit for posting, along with the Toronto Wolves, the best record of the spring season. Both clubs sit at 13-7, a game better than Brooklyn and 2 up on Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh with just 4 days remaining on the preseason schedule. Of course all of that won't mean a thing two weeks from now if the Eagles have sank bank to the cellar of the Federal Association as many have predicted they will end up. In fact some have gone as far as to suggest the current Washington club could threaten the 1935 Dynamos FABL record for most losses in a season. That Dynamo club went 43-111 for a .279 winning percentage. The only major league team to lose more games than that Detroit group was the 1890 Pittsburgh Miners of the old Century League who posted a 28-112 record.

QUICK HITS

• Hot take from The Pittsburgh Press: Doc Wiseman has the best stuff in baseball. The 23 year old lefty hits 94 on the gun and has an elite repertoire of pitches. Plus-plus changeup, great slider and splitter and a strong cutter as a 4th pitch. His K/9 numbers are becoming too good to ignore:
  8.4 K/9 for AA Birmingham in 99.2 IP.
  7.8 K/9 for AAA St. Paul in 54.1 IP
  11.1 K/9 for Pittsburgh in 18.2 IP.
  He walked 15 guys in that same span in the bigs, but had a 12 K performance against Boston for his only win.
  He's pitched a lot in spring training, 16.1 IP with 18 K's. He about has to be the stopper for the Miners this year, especially with Ellertson gone and Stout not necessarily putting a lock on the job.
• Nice week for Bob Donoghue of the Boston Minutemen. The 25 year old 1934 first round pick homered in 4 consecutive games to give him 8 round-trippers on the spring to go with a .300 batting average and 17 rbis. Long thought of as the power hitter the Minutemen desperately needed could this be the year the former Iowa A&M slugger finally surpasses his career high of 20 homers? The key, as always for Donoghue, is staying healthy. He has yet to play a full season topping out at 127 games two years ago. Last season he was limited to just 90 because of a series of injuries.
• Mack Sutton is another Boston first rounder that big things are expected of. The 22 year old third baseman looked good in a late summer debut in New England and has carried that success over to the spring, batting .333 with 4 homers in 20 spring games. Sutton and Donoghue were the big reason the Minutemen felt comfortable parting ways with Ken Mayhugh a year ago in order to add pitcher John Edwards. The 23 year old Edwards went 15-15 last season and Boston is counting on even bigger things from him this time around.
• The Detroit World hypothesizes that perhaps some bad blood has started in spring between the Chiefs and the Dynamos. Detroit was pleased with performance of William Jones outdueling Jim Lonardo in their 4 inning stints, but things turn later in the game. Veteran 3B Bob Martin hit a double in the 5th and it appeared something was said between him and Detroit reliever Ben Curtin. When Martin came up in the 7th. The first pitch sailed high in tight on Martin for a ball, the 2nd pitch hit him squarely in the shoulder. Was it intentional? After the game Curtin said it was so humid out that his fingers couldn't grip the ball properly and it “slipped”.
• Detroit is making a big deal out of a rivalry with the Windy City crew and from the Dynamos perspective I would think they do consider it a rivalry as Chicago is the big bad team in the Fed that denied the upstart Dynamos a Cinderella ending to a very successful season. I would say the rivalry, at least at this point, exists only in Detroit as the Chiefs likely look at the Dynamos as just another team trying to take the Fed pennant away from them. Now things could change with a tight pennant race between the two this season but other than 1929 when the Chiefs finished 2nd, 2 games back of Detroit I really don't think Chicago has thought much at all about the Dynamos the past 2 or 3 decades. To Detroit, however, the Chiefs are that big bad team because they are their closest rival geographically and have enjoyed great success the past few years. Now I might be wrong but the way I see it from Chicago's perspective is that Detroit is likely just another Fed team and there are no thoughts of a rivalry at all.
• Detroit continues on a very meh but workman like spring. The club is 11-9 but word out of Dynamos camp is management feels good about the club and it feels like they are getting their work in. The regular SP all were in the rotation last week and the 4 regulars will start the last 4 spring games. They cut down to 34 for week 3 and we will option those that have options and aren't making the team down. The expectation is 4 players will be DFA at the end of next week. Curly Jones will not be one of those four and his addition to the roster means Detroit will likely go back to 9 pitchers to start as the 8 person staff was set prior.
• Except for Bill Jones, who is subbing for Bob Martin while Martin nurses a sore shoulder, the Chiefs will be using their proposed lineup over the last four days of spring: Bill May CF, Ron Rattigan 1B, Tom Bird C, Hank Barnett 2B, Cliff Moss RF, Len Jones SS, Jim Hampton LF and Bill Jones at 3B comprise the batting order.
• It was another bad week in Montreal on the record side as the Saints fall to 6-14 - worst spring mark in either league. Highly touted prospect Heinie Billings was deemed not ready to take over the center field position, vacated with the trade of Pablo Reyes to Pittsburgh over the winter. The 22 year old Billings went just 1-for-15 in spring games and has been optioned back to the minors. It would have been a big jump for the 1934 4th round pick as he spent all of last season at Class A. That means Dilly Ward, the 24 year old who hit .292 in limited action last season, will likely be Reyes replacement in center although Ed Greenwood, a former lottery pick released by Baltimore and acquired from an Indy team over the winter may also get an opportunity. The Saints also plan to start the season with a 5-man rotation which will include rookie Karl Weiss and 25 year old Bud Robbins, who came over from Pittsburgh in the Reyes trade.
• Still a few decisions to make for the New York Gothams. Mostly concerning backups and the outfield. Spots are getting tight in the upper minors. There may be a few cuts to make room for younger guys pushing their way up.
• The Brooklyn Kings suffered a bit of a blow with news that veteran 1B-OF Joe Perret will be sidelined until early June with a wonky back. The 36 year old hit .252 last season in splitting the duties at first base with Doug Lightbody. Expect Lightbody to get the bulk of the work until Perret is healthy.
• The Kings continue to be impressed with rookie righthander Sergio Vergara. The 23 year old has made 3 spring starts, allowing just 4 hits and 1 earned run in 12 innings of work while fanning 11. He was the centerpiece for Brooklyn in the deal that sent centerfielder Bill May to the Chicago Chiefs and will be a part of the Kings rotation when the season starts on April 25th. He is a year ahead of schedule as Brooklyn had figured Vergara, who split last season between A and AA, would need a year of seasoning in Rochester.

• British and French warships mass off the entrance to the Adriatic as Chamberlain seeks a last minute deal with Mussolini for the withdrawal of Italian troops from Spain and a promise not to extend Albanian occupation.
• Britain and France pledge military aid for Romania, Greece and Turkey if their independence is threatened. Nazi leaders were said to be caught off guard that Romania was added to Anglo-French pledges of protection.
• Tensions rise between the Reich and Warsaw after the arrest of 21 persons in Poland described as German Nazis and countered by allegations from Berlin of a Polish terrorism campaign against Germans in the Polish Corridor.
• Despite objections from Isolationists, President Roosevelt pledges US economic support to any Pan-American country whose freedom is threatened by "economic pressure" from abroad. The US had earlier promised military protection for all Western Hemisphere nations.
• In an open letter to a Florida Senator, FDR warns that between 300,000 and 400,000 jobs would be eliminated if Congress reduces the appropriations for the WPA.
• Roosevelt ended the week with an urge to Hitler and Mussolini to assume peace for a period of at least 10 years. He also offered to act as "an intermediary" in communicating any offers for peace by Germany and Italy to other nations. Initial reports out of Germany indicate that Hitler will reject the request for peace talks, Hitler has summoned the Reichstag for an April 28th meeting to deliver his reply to FDR.

April 23, 1939

OPENING DAY IS ALMOST HERE!

The article above is a reprint with minor editing from Jimmy Wood's actual opening day writeup for the Brooklyn Eagle in 1939.

CHIEFS ADD ANOTHER ARM

With Opening Day just around the corner the Chicago Chiefs made a late deal with the Montreal Saints to add another pitcher to an already deep group. The newcomer is no stranger to the Chiefs front-office as George Thomas made his big league debut with the Saints when they were under the direction of current Chiefs skipper Joe Ward. The 29 year old Thomas has spent the past 8 seasons in Montreal posting an 80-84 record including a 6-8 season a year ago that was cut short by a July shoulder injury. Thomas is expected to fill the role of fifth starter with the defending World Champs and there will be little pressure on him as he will pitch behind the quartet of Rabbit Day, Jim Lonardo, Al Miller and Jack Beach.

The cost to the Chiefs was their fourth round draft pick in June and an indication of how the former first round pick's stock has fallen the past couple of seasons. In 1935 and 1936 Thomas had back to back 18 wins seasons and was considered an above average pitcher but he stumbled thru a 12-18 1937 campaign in which his 5.17 era was the highest of his career and then had the rather serious injury midway through last season. After he struggled again in spring play the Saints shopped him around the league and were quickly contacted by the Chiefs, who had some concerns about who their #5 starter just might be.

JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE: Really a no risk move by the Chiefs as the cost was minimal to take a chance on Thomas regaining his pre-1937 form. They actually don't even need him to do that with their pitching depth. All he needs to do is eat some innings with 15-20 starts during the season while providing moderately acceptable work on the mound and the trade will be a success. The Saints got what they could for Thomas, who likely had little interest from other clubs as it seems clear the connection Ward and the Chiefs GM have with Thomas was what prompted them to take a chance on him. Chicago has had good success with reclamation projects Lonardo and Beach. If they are any where near as successful with Thomas as they were with the other two they will have Pittsburgh and Detroit very worried.

• London provided assurances to Germany and Italy that Britain was not attempting a policy of "encirclement" in moves to cope with Europe's trouble situation. Britain also welcomes President Roosevelt's offer to mediate peace talks but Mussolini rejected the notion of a 10-year peace agreement as "absurd."
• Tokyo is said to be attempting to negotiate an agreement with Germany and Italy whereby the three powers would help each other with airplanes, munitions and manufacturing privileges.
• Diplomatic sources also suggest that Yugoslavia is on the point of being drawn submissively into the influence of the Rome-Berlin axis, with the co-operation of Hungary.
• FDR met with his senior financial advisors today to survey tentative plans as to the conduct of the stock and commodity markets in the event of a European War.

This Week In Figment Baseball - 1939 Opening Day (part 2)
 

April 24, 1939 - Special Edition

WILD 24 HOURS LEADS TO CHANGES IN CLEVELAND

Surprising news from Cleveland caught the baseball world by surprise on the eve of Opening Day. Few outside of Foresters owner Richard Marshall know exactly what happened and none of them are talking following an incident of some sort that led to the sudden retirement of legendary catcher T.R. Goins and the dismissal of the club's General Manager. It is purely speculation at this point but sources indicate that Goins decided to retire after learning he did not fit into the club's plans for this season and was told by GM Nigel he would be assigned to AAA Cincinnati as the Foresters wanted 23 year old Ken Vance to be the starter and Mickey Patterson to remain the back-up. Nigel, who had only been on the job since the former GM left for the New York Stars in October, apparently did not run the move past Marshall and the Cleveland owner was incensed when word of why Goins was leaving reached his office. At that point there reportedly was a heated discussion which culminated, depending upon who you ask, with Nigel either quitting or being fired by Marshall.

Marshall is believed to have asked Goins, who won 2 Whitney Awards in his 16 year big league career, to reconsider his retirement decision but the 39 year old, who hit a career worst .234 last year, decided it was best for him to step aside. Goins won a pair of World Championship Series rings - one with Washington as a rookie in 1923 and one with the Foresters in 1934- and was named to participate in the all-star game 4 times since it's inception in 1933. His 2,622 career hits are the most all-time by a catcher and the 18th highest total in FABL history. At his retirement Goins sits 4th all-time in homers and 7th in rbi's. He will almost assuredly be called a Hall of Famer one day.
As for the Foresters front office vacancy it was revealed at a hastily called press conference that they have secured a new General Manager, who will be the third man to take the job since DD Martin left for Detroit in 1935. The new GM, Andrew, did hold the same post in the big leagues before, briefly running the Boston Minutemen for a couple of seasons but most recently was in charge of the Kyoto Bears of the Japanese League.

BNN TABS FORESTERS AND MINERS FOR SERIES

The news was not all bad for Cleveland fans as just before the controversy broke BNN, the Baseball News Network, issued it's official preseason predictions and surprisingly they picked the Foresters to dethrone the 3-time pennant winning Brooklyn Kings atop the Continental Association. The call seems a far-fetched one as several other prognosticators feel the Foresters will be hard pressed to escape the second division. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact BNN has the Kings finishing 5th in the CA. The selection of the Pittsburgh Miners as the Federal Association winner is far less controversial although few expect the defending World Champion Chicago Chiefs to finish 11 games back of the front-runners.

The complete predictions from BNN are below but some other oddities include the News Network calling for Deuce Barrell of the Baltimore Cannons to win more games than his uncle, three time Allen Award winner Tom of the Kings. In addition BNN thinks the Washington Eagles pitching staff will yield nearly 100 fewer runs than the Chicago Chiefs will surrender, and they also believe Bill Anderson, who has been awful the past two years in Washington, will regain his 1936 form when he won 22 games.

WHAT OTHERS ARE PREDICTING

While BNN sees the Cleveland Foresters as the surprise winner of the Continental Association each of the other major publications that posted predictions are in agreement that the Brooklyn Kings will retain their title. On the matter of the Federal Association there is much debate with Pittsburgh, Chicago and Detroit each being tabbed by two of the six experts listed below.

On the topic of the Federal Association OSA co-founder and Hall of Fame selection committee chair Rufus Barrell had the following to say. "Until someone knocks them off, the Chiefs' pitching and veteran lineup get my pick. The three-way battle may come down to who stays healthy, which is why the Miners' injury history drops them to third in the list. The next four are somewhat akin to the 2-5 group in the CA in that you can jumble them up in any order and have a reasonable chance of being right. If the Minutemen stay healthy, they're good for at worst fourth place in a top-heavy league. The Gothams, Keystones and Eagles are all in various stages of rebuild but NY has the edge in young talent... if it's ready. The Pioneers' big sell-off leaves them as most likely to finish last, but that's no sure bet either."

Rufus feels Brooklyn is the class of the Continental Association but beyond that a lot of things could happen. "you could throw numbers 2 through 5 in a hat and pull them out in any order and have a reasonably good chance of success," explained Barrell. "The only clear things are that the Kings are still ruling the roost and that the Cannons and Saints are going to be "fighting" for the cellar. The Stars should be improved under new management and with the moves made over the winter, but the clump of clubs in the CA behind Brooklyn is both deep and tough."

Like Rufus, Percy Sutherland, sports editor of the Chicago Herald-Examiner and frequent contributor to TWIFB, feels the Chiefs are the team to beat in the Fed citing age and durability as the reason. "BNN sees both George Cleaves and Mahlon Strong playing in 150+ games, which is rather unlikely. I also doubt that the trio of Stedman, Johnson, and Ketterman will combine for 950 innings. While BNN is discounting the Chiefs pitching tremendously."

As for the Continental Association Sutherland sees a real gap between the haves and the have-nots. "The 2nd division of the CA really could be in any order. I think there will be a big gap between the first and second divisions."

McGee had outlined his reasons for taking Pittsburgh and Brooklyn in an earlier edition of TWIFB but he feels the Miners will be rewarded for going all-in this season but expects it to be a very tight three-way race with the Chiefs and Detroit- noting injuries may be the deciding factor. McGee feels the Cougars are improving and Philadelphia is always strong but Brooklyn is just too powerful not to win the CA title again this season.

Fast Freddie Farhat passed his picks along with no explanation but that is fine as most readers are just happy to see the controversial Detroit World columnist out of the drunk tank and finally stringing complete sentences together again.


Word trickled out yesterday that the New York Stars had sent a pair of pitchers and their second round draft pick in 1940 to the Baltimore Cannons for second baseman Clark Car. There was some confusion caused by the new split draft in which rounds 1-3 take place in January and the remaining rounds occur in June so the two clubs were under the impression that they could deal next years picks but it was quickly clarified by the commissioner as the rules state future years draft picks may not be dealt until after the current season draft has fully concluded. It is easy to see how the confusion occurred and Baltimore offered to accept New York's 4th and 5th round picks this season instead of the second next year but so far no official confirmation has come out of New York.

JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE: I hope this one just dies a quick death and does not occur as from my corner it looks like a rare deal that would actually see both teams end up as losers in the exchange. The move makes little sense for either club in my books. Car is a 25 year old second baseman who hit .264 last season and has decent speed plus is very good in the field. in short, just the type of player the offensive-starved Cannons should be hanging on to. Now Baltimore does have some pretty good middle infielders in their system (Charlie McCullough, Jim Hensley and Howard Rivers are 3) but none have played at the big league level and with 5 straight last place finishes it seems foolish for Baltimore to further prolong the rebuild by dealing guys who are proven big league players away to make room for future talent.

Add in the fact that two players the Cannons would get back are both pitchers in Glenn Payne and AAA arm Lou Barker and I am at a complete loss to explain Baltimore's reasoning behind the deal. The 25 year old Payne went 4-10 last season with the Stars and has some potential but Baltimore already has Rufus Barrell, Gus Goulding, Art Edwards and Rusty Petrick on the big league roster who fit the description of rising young pitchers so it really seems like overkill to add another one at the expense of one of the few productive infielders they have.

As for the Stars, one FABL source summed it up this way: "Car is ok, but it's a lateral move from Hancock to Car at 2B. The defense isn't much better and the bat is arguably worse. Plus, where does Hancock go? He's got a pretty good 3B and 1B already and Hancock's glove isn't a great fit at SS - plus Angevine is going to be a stud. And the OF is crowded already."

In short the deal makes little sense from New York's perspective either, especially considering Payne could fit into their rotation this season - a rotation that appears at this stage to be the weak spot of the Stars club after all of the upgrades over the winter to their offense.

QUICK HITS

• For the first time since 1933 President Roosevelt will not be available to throw out the first pitch when the new baseball season begins today with the Washington Eagles hosting the Philadelphia Keystones in the first ever game at their new stadium, Columbia Park. There is also one Continental Association game on the Monday docket with the Cleveland Foresters entertaining the Philadelphia Sailors.
• In addition to Columbia Park in Washington there are two other new ballparks this season. Cougars Park will see the Chicago side hosting Cleveland in the first game at their new venue tomorrow. The new stadium for the Chicago Cougars was constructed right beside the North Side Grounds, which served as their home since 1903. It is a big change in New York as the Gothams had played at the Bigsby Oval on Broadway since 1883 although it did undergo several renovations over that time period. Their new home is called Gothams Stadium and is located in Queens. It will also see it's first action tomorrow with the defending World Champion Chicago Chiefs providing the opposition.
• Both the Gothams and St Louis will have a tough go out of the gate as each play 11 of their first 14 games against either Detroit or Chicago.
• The time is now in Detroit. The Dynamos GM told the Detroit World "I always pointed to the '39 season as where I'd like to see Detroit contend seriously. Last seasons 94 wins was certainly a surprise. The Dynamos arrived a season earlier than expected. Now it's time to take the next step. I think in 1939 after a 10 year drought will see a Fed pennant flying in Detroit barring serious injuries."
• It is a clear division in both the Fed and the CA according to Rufus Barrell. " I would be shocked if 1-2-3 in the Fed is not comprised of the Chiefs, Miners & Dynamos in some order of that trio and the same could be said in the CA where three from the group of the Kings, Cougars, Wolves and Sailors seems a lock. Cracking either group would be a monumental achievement."
• Rufus Barrell did add if there are going to be surprise teams he pegs the two New York clubs as the ones to do it. "Both the Stars and Gothams could raise some eyebrows this season. I would like to see some of the top prospects get a shot in Queens..."
• The Opening Day updated list for the top prospects in the game seems to lean heavily towards pitchers with the top 4 and 6 of the top ten prospects being arms. The Gothams have the deepest farm system in the league and according to OSA they own four of the top ten prospects including number one overall Ed Bowman. Bowman is a 19 year old pitcher selected out of high school in Texas with the first actual draft pick in 1938. That was one of the years where the players judged to be first and second round talents were free to sign with clubs in a lottery system so the first actual draft pick selected by the teams was Bowman at the top of round three.
• The Montreal Saints have the second and third ranked prospects in 20 year old lefthander Wally Doyle and 18 year old righty Pat Weakley. Doyle made his big league debut late last season but appears poised to start this year in AAA while Weakley made his pro debut last summer, going 6-11 for Class C Dubuque.
• A recent article in the Chicago Daily News focused on 36 year old John Lawson being a lock to make the Hall of Fame one day. Can't argue with that as Lawson is a 5-time All-Star, 2 time Whitney Award winner who owns 4 batting titles and has 2306 career hits and counting entering the season. The column also speculates that 3 other current Cougars have an outside shot at making the Hall one day. They are newcomer Freddie Jones as well as Milt Fritz and Lou Kelly.
• The Daily News story was inspired by speculation in the Washington Times Herald that Jack Bush could be a Hall of Famer. It sounds a bit like pure propaganda from a mouthpiece for the Eagles as Bush is 25 and has yet to make his big league debut. Percy Sutherland responded best when he said if he set the over/under on career games for Bush at 500, he would take the under.
• Others mentioned by their hometown papers as potential Hall of Famers are all a lot more realistic than the Bush prediction from the Times Herald. They include Toronto's Fred McCormick, Lefty Allen and Jack Cleaves of Pittsburgh and while it is a long ways away there is already speculation in the Detroit World about Sal Pestilli and Red Johnson.
• The owner of the AAA Sacramento Governors passed away this week. The Governors, one of 5 independent clubs in the Great Western League, were a powerhouse a couple of decades ago as they won 6 league titles in a 9 year stretch beginning in 1914 but have struggled much of the past decade. His son will take over running the club.

• Britain says the decision to recall it's German ambassador is not permanent and Sir Neville Henderson will return to Berlin in the near future. When he does Henderson is said to be delivering a message to Hitler that London is close to introducing conscription to increase it's military might.
• The President of Bolivia is now a dictator after issuing a decree establishing a totalitarian state in the South American country.
• In New York, Mayor LaGuardia officially opened a new subway express service that will reach as far as Flushing.

1939 Regular Season - Opening Week
 

May 1, 1939

MINERS OFF TO FAST START

The Federal Association race is expected to be a hard fought battle between Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago so every win counts and while the Chiefs and Dynamos encountered some opening week difficulties the Miners were at the top of the their game. No one in either Association is unbeaten after the first week of play but Pittsburgh, thanks to a powerful offense, is the closest with a 5-1 record. The Miners opened the season by sweeping 3 games from the Washington Eagles at Fitzpatrick Park before going on the road to Boston where they won two of three. Pittsburgh's only loss came Friday and needed extra frames as the Minutemen prevailed 3-2 in 11 innings.

The Miners key hitters looked to be in midseason form as Mahlon Strong (.375,2,9), newcomer Pablo Reyes (.320,0,3) and the Cleaves brothers all had big weeks. Unfortunately something else also appeared to be in mid-season form the Miners and that was injuries as the club has had more than it's share over the years. Two more players got banged up this week as pitcher Henry Crayton and infielder Jack Cleaves each were bit by the injury bug. Fortunately neither is serious and both are expected to be fine in a couple of days but with outfielder Joe Owens already nursing a sore arm there is a constant fear amongst Miners fans that someone else in Pittsburgh is going to get hurt. For now, the Miners can just enjoy the fact that they are already 3 games ahead of both Detroit and Chicago.

The Dynamos and Chiefs each dropped season opening series to New York and St Louis. For Chicago it was simply a week worth forgetting as, aside from Rabbit Day's solid outing in 1-0 loss to New York at the debut of Gothams Stadium, the pitching was awful. One consolation for the Chiefs was catcher Tom Bird had a big week, hitting .429 with 3 homers and 7 rbi's to claim the Federal Association player of the week award. In Detroit the pitching was very solid but it was the bats that must have missed the train ride up from spring training. Reigning Fed Whitney Award winner Sal Pestilli had one of his worst weeks as a big leaguer, notching just 4 hits, and only one extra base knock (a double), in 24 at bats. None of Detroit's 4 losses were by more than 2 runs but St Louis and New York were both considered to be second division clubs so starting 2-4 against them is not the way Detroit, or Chicago, wanted the season to begin.

In the Continental Association it seems all the turmoil of last week had little effect on the Cleveland Foresters. The Cleveland crew saw their General Manager replaced and future Hall of Fame catcher T.R. Goins hang 'em up just before they were to open the season against Philadelphia. It had no negative effect on the Cleveland bats as the Foresters pounded out a FABL best 44 runs in their 6 games last week and started the season with a 4-2 record and a share of the CA lead with the Chicago Cougars. It was a case of all or nothing for the Cleveland bats as they scored 41 runs in their 4 wins but just 3 in their two losses. Dan Fowler, perhaps one of the most underappreciated players in the big leagues, had a strong start, socking 2 homers, driving in 8 while batting .455 last week to earn the nod as the Continental Association's top performer.

THOMAS HAS 52 GAME HIT STREAK COME TO AN END

It took 3 years to accomplish but former Brooklyn King Ab Thomas hit safely in 52 consecutive Dixie League games, which is the fifth longest such streak in a professional league ever recorded. Thomas' streak is certainly unique as it started way back on July 27, 1936 when Thomas went 2-for-5 for Knoxville in a 7-4 loss to Mobile. He had been demoted from AAA Rochester just prior to that and finished the season up with the Knights while hitting safely in each of the final 49 games of the season which bested the 1901 Dixie League record, set by Bobby Reuscher of Birmingham, by one.

Thomas would spend all of 1937 in AAA and was with the Brooklyn Kings last year before the now 34 year old was assigned back to Knoxville this season. He went just 4-for-18 in the Knights opening week but did get at least one hit in the first 3 games of the year to run his streak to 52 games before it was ended yesterday in a 5-2 loss to the same team it started against 3 years ago - the Mobile Commodores - when he went 0-for-5.

There have only been 6 streaks of at least 50 games in all of organized baseball (including one in college play). The longest streak in the major leagues is 47 games set by Rich Rowley with the Toronto Wolves in 1900.

QUICK HITS

• Not the start the Kings expected at 3-3. Tom had a rough spring and it continued with 2 more bad outings. Offense needs to get going. 7th in batting average and runs scored but first in on base and slugging percentage. Not sure what to make of that other than some bad luck perhaps.
• Gothams Mule Monier, who had his debut season ended early in 1938 with a fractured finger, picked up where he'd let off. Coming into the new season with a 15 game hitting streak dating back to his late August injury, Monier put up hits in the Gothams first three games before being stopped by Charlie Wheeler and the Detroit Dynamos. Monier has hit in 5 of the Gothams first 6 games this season.
• A mixed bag of news for the St Louis Pioneers. The good news includes a 4-2 start and Sam Sheppard with an outstanding performance to ruin the Chicago Chiefs WCS celebration day in their home opener. Sheppard went 8 and a third allowing just 2 runs as the Pioneers upended the defending champs 4-2. The 1935 Allan Award winner had 3 straight twenty-plus win seasons before falling off a cliff last year and losing his spot in the rotation. It will be a huge win for the Pioneers if the 31 year old is back to his old form. But the bad news is David Abalo, who missed half of last year with arm troubles had to leave his debut this season with another injury but the hope is he will only miss a start or two.
• In spring training the Washington Eagles might have got a little carried away when club execs suggested that Jack Bush, a 25 year old who had yet to make his big league debut, was a potential Hall of Famer. Talk about putting a target on a kids head and the rookie clearly buckled under the pressure, starting his big league career by going 0-for-21. Yes his defense at shortstop was very good but scouts have stated that Bush appears to lack the tools to hit consistently in the big leagues and to put added pressure on him by calling him a Hall of Famer before his first big league game was not the best move the Eagles could have made.
• Washington does deserve credit for a 4-3 start and look like perhaps they will not be the last place team desperately trying to avoid 100 losses that TWIFB sees for them. One reason for the quick start is Jack Elder. The 28 year old, who worked primarily out of the pen the last two seasons, won both of his starts this week including a complete game 3-hit shutout in a 5-0 win over Philadelphia to officially open Columbia Stadium.
• It is disappointing to see just 11,124 in the brand new park to witness the first game when the venue was designed to hold nearly 42,000. Washington's bad play the last couple of years has just destroyed the fan support and they averaged just 7,200 for their other 3 home games last week. That is an increase on the 5800 they average per game a year ago but the Eagles, despite a shiny new concrete cathedral, are still playing before a lot of empty seats.
• New York and the Chicago Cougars also welcomed new ballparks with the Gothams drawing what is believed to be a record crowd for a regular season FABL game in the opener of Gothams Stadium. Here is how each team fared in it's home opener.
  
  Code:

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  HOME OPENER ATTENDANCE THIS WEEK
Gothams                32,924*        beat Chiefs 1-0
Detroit                31,193        lost 5-4 to Gothams
Stars                30,128        beat Brooklyn 3-0
Cougars                29,706*        lost 10-5 to Cleveland
Cleveland        28,055        beat Sailors 7-4
Chiefs                26,718        lost 4-2 to St Louis
Pittsburgh        25,834        beat Washington 7-5
Sailors                23,909        lost 6-4 to Toronto
Montreal        22,879        beat Baltimore 7-4
Toronto                22,862        lost 6-4 to Cougars in 11 innings
Brooklyn        22,579        lost 8-1 to Montreal
Keystones        17,954        lost 1-0 to Boston
St Louis        14,299        beat Detroit 2-1
Baltimore        13,150        lost 5-3 to Stars
Boston                11,305        beat Pittsburgh 3-2 in 11 innings
Washington        11,124*        beat Keystones 5-0
  *debut of a new stadium

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  NEWS FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE
• NEW YORK WORLD TELEGRAM : Rain Does Nothing to Dampen Spirits at Gothams Stadium Opener
  On a rainy Tuesday afternoon 32,924 fans braved the elements to be present for the opening of New York's latest gleaming bauble. The Gothams opening the new season and their new ballpark with a game against the champion Chicago Chiefs and their ace, former Gotham Rabbit Day. What they were rewarded with was a pitching duel to remember. For one afternoon at least, their local boys stood toe to toe with the champs, and prevailed. In the bottom of the second John Phillips reached on a walk, then was balked to second. New catcher Jack Flint then singled to leftfield. Phillips challenged the arm of 37 year old Jim Hampton and scored the first run in the new stadium. Unbeknownst to the opening day faithful that would be the only run of the afternoon. Veteran started Oscar Morse matched zeroes with Day, scattering six singled while walking none. Day went seven innings, allowing just the one run with giving up four hits and walking three. The only other scoring threat was a long triple to left-center by Mule Monier leading off the 8th against Chief's reliever Charlie Bingham. Bingham worked around two intentional walks to get out of the inning unscathed. Morse went the distance and the Gothams were 1-0 at their sefl-named stadium.
  As for the stadium, there is much to be said for the more suburban location. Just across the East River from Manhattan, fan poured in from cars and the nearby N train station. The main view from the stadium is of Robert Moses' Triborough Bridge which spans the distance from the leftfield foul pole, across to righ center. The stadium is more comfortable, with wider seats and better sightlines than the old refurbished Oval. Fans will have better access from the sprawling suburbs of Long Island and even from over in New Jersey. Local businesses will prosper from the added foot traffic as fans walked the several blocks from the subway terminal. The Gothams should be proud of their new ballpark, and with the promising young players on the way, may soon be seeing these large crowds on a regular basis.
  
• MONTREAL STAR
  Opening week in Montreal saw the Saints finish with a 3-3 record. Most important thing is the fact that on home opening day against Baltimore, Saints honored Joe Ward, recently nominated to the HOF, by retiring jersey #20 and uncovered the large sign on the left field wall. The physical 3rd base that Joe Ward was use to cover, was also removed and given to the HOF museum for exhibit. Joe Ward was not there in person to receive the honors as the team he now manages, the Chiefs, were playing the same day in Chicago. Ward gave a speech through the radio that left Saints players and the fans at Parc Cartier pumped up for the opening game. The opening home game was won by rookie Karl Weiss followed by Snyder to end the game. CF Dilly Ward was 4-5 with 3 RBIs during the game. Overall good first week with SP DeYoung getting 2 wins and showing the leader skills that Montreal believes he has. C Mullins has a great week also. Big week ahead again... keep the finger crossed to maintain the level of energy. 2B Banks has lost the starting job at second for 2B/3B Carmichael stepping up in week #2. Banks had a great training camp but was silent in week #1 of the calendar.
  
• WASHINGTON TIMES-HERALD
  Though it's too early to say, Washington has been... genuinely good in their first 7 games. Though going 4-3, they've scored the most runs of any FABL franchise, with an offense led by ball slammers Shoe Shumate and Sam Brown, as well as very very fast man Don Miller, (who leads the league in WAR, a new statistic proposed by some west coast sports journalists).
  On the fun side of the ball, they've also allowed the 3rd fewest runs of anyone in the league. This is, in large part, because of Jack Elder, who posted a 2-0 record and .5 ERA, striking out 9 and walking none over 18 innings pitched, tied for the most of anyone in the league.

• In his speech to the Reichstag Hitler rebuffs FDR's peace talk plan and advised Roosevelt that nations directly concerned should determine the matter while adding that evidently no nation has asked for American protection against Germany.
• Hitler also delved into history showing that for hundreds of years the United States and other nations settled their differences by arms instead of conferences.
• Poland is preparing for a Nazi attack after Warsaw refused German demands for disputed Polish territory.
• Mussolini weighed in as well, calling Roosevelt "a hippopotamus in a crystal shop" and "spectacularly ignorant" to attempt to intervene in matters that do not concern him or the United States. Mussolini also announced plans to strengthen the Italian army.
• Prime Minister Chamberlain says the British Empire is "ready for world parley" and announces that all British men in their 21st year would become liable to six months of military training before either entering the national guard or the reserves. Chamberlain's 'draft' decree causes the opposition in British parliament to demand an election be called.
• British, French and German warships are all gathering near the western entrance to the Mediterranean as Germany conducts war maneuvers in the area.
• Japan is set to tell Germany and Italy she will agree to a military alliance only against Russia if the British-Soviet alliance creates dangers to Japanese position in the Orient.
• President Roosevelt submitted to Congress a sweeping Government reorganization plan calling for the creation of three new Federal agencies by merging welfare, works and lending functions.
• It was described as looking like a New Year's Eve gala as 600,000 attended the opening day of the 1939 World's Fair in New York. In his fair opening speech Norway's Crown Prince Olav told the crowd to "hope against hope" for a peaceful end to the troubles in Europe.

1939 Regular season
 

May 8, 1939

Minutemen Post 6-1 Week; Will Spend The Next Week On A Train

(Courtesy of the Boston Globe)

The Boston Minutemen posted a fantastic 6-1 week thanks to a revived offense and solid pitching performances. The Minutemen opened the week at home on May 1st against Washington on a dreary rain delayed afternoon that saw just over 6,000 patrons in attendance. Ed Wood went 6 innings giving up zero earned but couldn’t come away with the win as Mike Lee blew the save but picked up the win thanks to a pair of Boston runs in the bottom of the 8th inning. In game two of the series the struggling Mack Sutton provided 2 RBI’s to go along with Bob Donoghue’s three hits to give Boston the 8-3 win. Going for the sweep Boston’s Dick Higgins was outdueled by 25 year old righty Bobo White as the Eagles were able to salvage one game in the series with a 2-0 victory.

Next for Boston was a quick two game series against the struggling Keystones. On the mound for Boston in game one was young John Edwards who has had a rough start to the season. It didn’t get any better for Edwards against the Keystones but he was able to pitch around a few self-inflicted jams and the offense did enough to give him a 4-3 victory. Game two of the series was all about Bob Donoghue who went deep in the third, fourth and eighth innings knocking in six runs, leading the Minutemen to a 9-3 win. Donoghue's heroics made him the first player in Minutemen history ever to hit 3 homers in a single contest.

The final series of the week saw Boston traveling to Pittsburgh to take on the first place Miners. Boston had maneuvered it’s rotation in such a manner to allow Dick Higgins to face Lefty Allen in the second game of the series. First however, Mike Lee needed to rely on a Boston offense that supplied 13 hits and six runs to overcome his own pedestrian start to give the Minutemen a 6-4 win setting up an opportunity for a possible road sweep. Higgins vs. Allen was pretty much everything you could have asked for out of two top pitchers who went about their business in different ways. Allen was more of the erratic power pitcher striking out six but walking three while Higgins was more of a surgeon in dealing with his baserunners. The hero of the day was John Wood as he entered the game with two runners on in the top of the ninth as a pinch hitter for Higgins. Wood would hit a line drive to left field off of Allen scoring both Donoghue and Sutton giving Boston its first lead of the game. Hazeltine would pitch a flawless bottom half and the Minutemen would take both the game and the series.

The win would push the Minutemen win streak to four games. Currently, Boston sits in second position with a 9-4 record. Monday will be a travel day for The Minutemen as they will travel to Detroit for a two game series against the 7-6 Dynamos who sport a four game winning streak of their own. Then it will be off to New York to check out the Gothams new shiny stadium before they head back across the midwest for a series against the Pioneers in St. Louis. These road trips that criss-cross the country can really test a club mentally. However, every club in the FABL has to deal with these types of road trips over the course of a season. It will be interesting to see if the Minutemen can rise to the challenge now that it is their turn to embark on such a trip.

STRONG OUT AGAIN

We all knew it was just a matter of time as Pittsburgh Miners slugger Mahlon Strong is back on the injured list. Strong has been amazing when he is healthy, socking 21 homers, driving in 105 and batting .323 in his 131 games with Pittsburgh but the issue is this is his third year with the club and he has still not been healthy enough to play the equivalent of a full seasons worth of games. The Miners did know what they were getting when they acquired the injury prone outfielder from the New York Gothams prior to the 1937 season but it is a shame he has been hurt so often. This is his 9th big league season but he has played just 737 games including 10 this year in which he was batting .342 with a pair of homers and 12 rbi's for the Miners.

This time it is a strained stomach muscle that is expected to sideline Strong for the next month and a half. The Miners acquired Andy Carter from Washington over the winter to help cover for the inevitable Strong injury so now it is time to see what Carter can bring to the table. Early indications are good as the the 33 year old is batting .346 in 26 at bats with Pittsburgh. He won't provide the power Strong brings but if Carter can hit in Pittsburgh like he did a couple of years ago before his own injury problems derailed him in Washington the Miners offense should be fine. Carter will play his natural second base and the Miners will shift Jack Cleaves from second to first in Strong's absence. At least that is the plan but they also have AAA prospect Frank Buchanan as a possibility if the Carter/Cleaves moves don't pan out.

PIDGEON SCORES HIS 1000TH RUN

One of the reasons the New York Stars are off to a solid start this season has been the play of outfielder Moxie Pidgeon. The 32 year was acquired from Washington over the winter and is hitting .365 while leading the CA in homers (6) and rbi's (17). Pidgeon also reached another career milestone yesterday when he scored his 1000th career run in the Stars 5-3 win over Brooklyn. Last week Pidgeon drove in his 1000 career run and now has 1,013 rbi's to his credit making him one of just 47 players in FABL history to both drive in and score 1000. That list gets much shorter when you consider he also has 235 career homeruns making him just one of 9 players to hit 235 homers while driving in and scoring at least 1000.

The only other active players on that list are Al Wheeler of Brooklyn and the Cougars Lou Kelly. The others are Max Morris, Rankin Kellogg, T.R. Goins, Hal Eason, Joe Masters and Paul Tattersall. The next two milestones on Pidgeon's agenda look like they could both potentially be reached this season. He needs 15 homers to become just the 8th player to hit that many and is 153 hits shy of 2000 for his career. If he reaches those two marks he will be in very exclusive company joined only by Wheeler, Morris, Kellogg, Goins, Eason and Masters although Lou Kelly of the Cougars is just 4 hits away from 2000 as well and Kelly already has 269 career homers.
Here are some upcoming Milestones to watch for

QUICK HITS

• Last year the expectations coming out of spring weren't very high for the Detroit Dynamos. Finish around .500 or slightly above. This season it's completely different with expectations sky high and the team goes 3-6 out of the gate losing all 3 series. A recent 4 game win streak against NY and St Louis rights the ship to some degree at 7-6 but it is not the start the Dynamos expected.
• A WCS hangover for Brooklyn and the Chicago Chiefs? Neither has been very impressive to start the season as both sit with 6-7 records. The Kings are having trouble putting it together but fortunately for Brooklyn no one is off to a dominant start in CA. Brooklyn leads the CA in OBP, OPS and WOBA but are only 4th in runs scored. They have surrendered the 3rd lowest runs against and are a CA best +11 in run differential but somehow are a game below .500. It should balance out. It is a similar story in Chicago where the Chiefs are +12 in run differential but that happens to be 23 runs behind Pittsburgh, which boasts an amazing +35 differential after two weeks. The first two-game series between Pittsburgh and Chicago will take place this week (Day and Lonardo are scheduled to pitch for the Chiefs).
• How about the Keystones with the -52 run differential after two weeks. Is anything going right in Philly? A Philadelphia Inquisitor columnist summed it up this way: "Nope, nothing at all (has gone right). The Keystones have handed the keys to the next generation of pitchers and the front bumper is gone and the fender is busted. They have committed to the turning over of this roster and new manager Bill Libby says he still has faith in the kids.
• Chicago might want to consider giving George Thomas a start against the Miners. The 29 year old picked off the scrap heap in Montreal has been very good for Chicago as their fifth starter. He sports a 1-0 record with a Chiefs rotation best 2.35 era.
• Former first-round pick Bennie Griffith has been overall a disappointment for the Chiefs. It's early, but he has started this season very hot. hitting .500/.520/.667 and is 5 for 5 in stolen bases. He is now the 4th outfielder and starting in right field against left-handers. It remains to be seen whether--at 26-years-old--things are starting to come together for him.
• Did Sal and Alf Pestilli switch teams without telling anyone? Fed Whitney Award winner Sal is homerless for Detroit with a .173 average while big brother Alf wins his first CA player of the week award and has 5 homers and 13 rbi's thru 2 weeks to go with a .341 batting average to be one of the few early season bright spots in Brooklyn.
• Staying in the Kings outfield what is wrong with Al Wheeler? The five time Whitney Award winner hit just .233 in spring training and is batting only .216 after 13 regular season games. The power is still there was Al has 5 regular season homers among his 11 hits and hit 7 in spring play but it is all or nothing when Wheeler steps to the plate so far this season.
• Congratulations to future Hall of Famer Jack Bush as after an 0-for-22 start the 25 year old Washington Eagles shortstop finally got his first career big league hit. Bush singled off Boston's Mike Lee for his milestone marker and added 3 more hits in 18 at bats to raise his average to .103. Perhaps the Eagles should delay unveiling the Bush HOF plaque on the Columbia Stadium concourse for at least the time being.
• Boston's Bob Donoghue ties the FABL singe game HR record at 3 with his first 3 round trippers of the season in a 9-3 thumping of Philadelphia. Donoghue becomes the 20th different player to have a 3 homerun game and his effort helped him claim the Federal Association top player award for last week. On the season the 25 year old is batting .356 with 3 homers and 10 rbi's. Fun Fact. Who is the only player to do it twice? Tom Taylor hit 3 HR in 2 games just 4 days apart back in August 1928 with the Sailors.
• I think we can officially say the Pete Papenfus era has arrived in Chicago. The Cougars young star tossed his first career shutout just a week after celebrating his 21st birthday. Papenfus fanned 7 and allowed just 4 hits in a 1-0 win over Herb Flynn and the Philadelphia Sailors. Papenfus still needs to work on his control - he walked 7 in the shutout and 12 already in 19 innings of work this season but at 2-0 with a 1.89 era and 15 strikeouts he is quickly establishing himself as one of the best pitchers in the game. He went 8-6 with a 4.52 era in 17 appearances last season as a rookie.
• Speaking of 21 year old pitchers, Rufus Barrell is now 3-1 with a 3.64 era to start the season in Baltimore. Quite a turnaround from a very rough debut midway through last season when the former first overall pick went 1-9 down the stretch for the Cannons.
• Bob Walls was unbeatable down the stretch last season and a big reason why Toronto came tantalizingly close to dethrone Brooklyn in the CA. It is a different story this year for both Walls and the Wolves. The pitcher is 0-3 to start this season after going 8-1 following his July acquisition by Toronto from Detroit a year ago. The Wolves are also struggling and, at 4-8, have the worst record in the Continental Association.
• With the waiver claim pickup of veteran catcher Claude Ramsey from Washington the Brooklyn Kings have released John Kincaid. Best known for his days with the Cougars, the 34 year old Kincaid is a veteran of 1618 FABL games with a .329 career batting average and 2065 hits. He has hit just .207 in a reserve role for the Kings since the start of last season.

• Hitler ranks Germany with the "most heavily armed nations of the world" as Nazi diplomats press efforts to isolate Poland to make her ripe for yielding to German demands. To this end Hitler is attempting to form a neutral bloc of at least six nations offering identical non-aggression pacts to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia and Estonia.
• President Roosevelt sent a telegram of friendship to the President of Poland in a show of support for the country on it's National holiday.
• On the heels of what is called it's greatest May Day parade, Russia is said to be ready for a big war as it finalizes a military alliance with Britain and France that includes plans for supporting Poland and Rumania against any possible aggression.

1939 Regular Season
 

May 15, 1939

MUCH MORE THAN THE NEW STADIUM MAKING NEWS IN NEW YORK

It has been a long wait in New York but ask any fan at the brand new Gothams Stadium and they will tell you it was well worth it. One could be referring to the shiny new steel gargantuan ball park that seats 50,000, is easy to access or at least will be now that the nearby World's Fair has come to a close and in short is everything the dilapidated Bigsby Oval was not. However, one could also be referring to the suddenly competitive product the Gothams are putting on the field this year as well as fans are ecstatic about the Gothams 12-8 start and there are whisperings the team could make a Detroit Dynamos-type jump from the bottom of the Federal Association to immediate contention.

Duplicating Detroit's second place finish of last season after Eddie Thompson's boys spent several seasons as the laughing stock of the Fed might be just a little too much to ask for from the Gothams in a very competitive Federal Association this season but it is clear the club is certainly headed in the right direction. They went from back to back first place finishes in 1934-35 to seasons of 85, 100 and most recently 94 losses but for the first time since the title clubs the first division seems a very realistic possibility.

The Gothams have the best farm system in the game and after three years of being content to field a terrible big league club waiting for the talent to develop the team is now looking to be a factor in the Federal Association pennant race for years to come as the key prospects are either already here or on the cusp of making their big league debuts. The Gothams have 9 players ranked in OSA's top 100 prospects including 4 of the top 11 in pitcher Ed Bowman (1st), catcher Pete Casstevens (2nd), 1B Walt Messer (9th) and pitcher Bunny Edwards (11th). While Bowman is just 19 and still in Class A word from the organization is the Gothams are calling up Edwards in an effort to help solidify a shaky pitching staff.

It is that pitching staff that still worries Gothams management and fans alike. Despite a promising early break from the gate, near team record crowds at the new ballpark and what appears to be a breakout season for young 3B Billy Dalton, there are big concerns on the mound. That's where the 23 year old Edwards comes in. The #11 ranked prospect will make his FABL debut this week filling in for the injured Nate Spear. Edwards has worked his way up through the Gothams system since his first round (draft portion) selection by the team in 1936. Edwards was 1-1 with a 3.66 ERA at Toledo this season.

Spear (3-0, 1.47) should only miss one start with his injury and it is a good thing since he and veteran Oscar Morse (4-0 2.16) have been the only reliable starters this season. Roger Perry (0-2, 5.16) has struggled while Mule Earl (1-1 10.24) and Jack Snyder (1-1 5.92) have been awful and are both going back to the minors as the revolving door on the mound continues. Earle Killebrew (1-1 2.38 at AAA) returns to try again this season along with Edwards to replace them.

Another big move is the promotion of top 30 prospect Roosevelt Brewer. Brewer was the first player to choose the Gothams organization in the 1936 player signing portion of the draft. The 2B was hitting .360 with 7 doubles and a homer at AAA Toledo. Brewer will join fellow rookie Mule Monier up the middle with young Dalton and veteran Bud Jameson rounding out the infield. In other team news catcher prospect Pete Casstevens has been promoted to AA Jersey City. Casstevens was hitting .365 at Albany.

It remains to be seen if the Gothams can maintain their solid start and stay in contention this year but one thing appears certain: the Gothams will be a factor in the Federal Association race for many years going forward.

SAINTS AT RARE HEIGHTS

It has been almost a full decade since the Montreal Saints last spent any meaningful time in the top half of the Continental Association standings but a surprisingly potent offense has Saints fans suddenly dreaming of contention. At 11-9 Montreal is hardly setting the world on fire but it seems like a dream for a club that has not been over .500 after May 5th since 1935 and has not finished a year with a .500 record since 1930.

It is Montreal's offense that is the talk of the Continental Association as the Saints, pegged by many for the basement of the CA this time around, have the most productive offense in the CA despite trading away Pablo Reyes over the winter. Adam Mullins (.406,2,21) and Frank Davis (.400,0,6) are a surprise 1-2 in the CA batting race and veteran Vic Crawford (.351,2,15) is also off to his best start in years. The Saints are 3-2 against the three time defending CA champs from Brooklyn and have scored 43 runs off of Kings pitching in those 5 contests.

The worry in Montreal is can the pitching hold up. None of their starters have been particularly effective although Jake DeYoung is off to a 3-1 start and while the bullpen has been solid for the most part thanks to former Pittsburgh Miners reliever Lou Ellertson, one has to question how long they can keep winning games by 8-7 type scores. The lofty heights of the first division might be short-lived for the Saints this season but Montreal fans are certainly enjoying it while it lasts as attendance is up substantially over last season.

KEYSTONES UPDATE FROM THE PHILADELPHIA INQUISITOR

The Keystones had their first above-.500 week at 4-2, including an unlikely sweep of Detroit. Manager Bill Libby juggled his pitching staff, inserting Ed Baker (good) and Gene White (very, very bad) into the rotation for George Brooks and Pepper Tuttle. Tuttle was sent down for more seasoning. White had one of the worst starts in league history against the Gothams, as they laced six straight hits to start the home first, capped off by a 3-run homer by Jack Flint. After a walk and another hit (single), White muffed a grounder to allow another run to score and hit the next batter. Mercifully, after 30 pitches, his day was done, but not before reliever Frank Parsons came in with the bases loaded and poured gasoline on the fire, letting them all score in what became a 12-run inning for the Gothams. The final line: 0.0 IP, 7 H, 10 R, 9 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 HR, with a game score of minus-11. Herman Patterson might get another look in the rotation if White continues to struggle and the leash will be extremely short. Baker, the veteran, is keeping a rotation spot warm for a youngster to take it, but no one else is ready, he should be able to at least give the Keystones some innings.

In other news, Carl Ames has started the season 3-for-20 and while he is on a couple of milestone lists (84 hits shy of 2,000 and 72 runs shy of 1,000), those milestones might be tough to reach for the 36-year-old catcher-turned-pinch hitter. Rookie Walt Potter made the team out of camp and has started to struggle and first backup Jake Walton is not exactly pushing for playing time, so Ames might yet get worked back into the lineup. At first base, Sig Stofer has struggled. Enter Lloyd Stevens, who is showing his two-way aptitude is no gimmick. Stevens is hitting .373 with a homer and 8 RBI, which is second on the team. He has played an adequate first base in his nine appearances there. His pitching has been a bit lacking with a 4.00 ERA and 21 walks in 27 innings, but his offense has been outstanding in his first taste of major league ball.

QUICK HITS

• Hide the liquor in the Thompson Field press box. Freddie Farhat will likely be back to tipping his elbow after what he and the rest of those watching the Detroit Dynamos have been subjected to this season. A 10-10 start 2 years ago had the fans ecstatic but this year not so much. The club is lacking a spark at the moment and it's has carried forward from the spring. The low point so far might have been the 3 game sweep they suffered at the hands of lowly Philadelphia last week, getting outscored 22-9 in the process.
• The Chicago Chiefs made yet another deal with Montreal, this time adding AAA shortstop Tony White in an attempt to plug the hole that remains open after Pete Layton's retirement. With the acquisition of White, the Chiefs 24-man roster now has 8 ex-Saints on it. No coincidence as the Chiefs GM and manager each got their start in Montreal. Joe Ward, the current Chicago skipper was reminiscing on when White first joined the Saints system. "It was a shallow draft pool in 1932, and Tony White was drafted in the 3rd round out of Central Ohio because of his glove. However, he quickly rose through the Montreal system and by June of 1934, the 22-year-old White had supplanted Woody Armstrong as short stop. I left Montreal after the 1934 season, and I don't think White was given a fair shake after that. He'll be thrown right into the short stop mix in Chicago.
• The news the Chiefs were picking up another shortstop lit a fire under Len Jones. Jones responded by going 6-for-10 in his last 3 games to raise his season average to .280 as he tries to hang on to the starting job.
• Might be a small sample size but right now there is likely no one you would rather have coming to the plate in a key pinch-hitting situation over Frankie Cohen. The 28 year old Chief had success last season as a pinch-hitter and so for this year he's come in to pinch hit 15 times and is hitting .583/.643/.583. In close and late situations he has 6 hits in 9 at-bats. In extra innings, he is 1 for 1. Nerves of steel, that Frankie Cohen who also "has great knowledge of the game" and "gets along with everyone." He has "future coach" written all over him.
• It is likely the end of the line for Tom Taylor after news broke the Chicago Chiefs are waiving the 34 year old following an 0-for-13 start to the season. Taylor burst on to the scene as a 23 year old in 1928 with the Sailors, winning back to back Whitney Awards to start his career. Injuries slowed is exceptional start but he has stuck around to win 5 World Championship rings with 4 different teams and played in over 1300 games. OOTP doesn't show the records for this anywhere, but in Taylor's history it shows him as having 14 leadoff home runs in his career. That has to be close to a record if not the record. And that really came from 2 seasons batting leadoff for the Cougars.
• More injury news from Pittsburgh as the Jack Cleaves experiment at first base ended quickly. Cleaves was moved to first to replace Mahlon Strong after Strong's latest injury. The plan lasted exactly one game before Cleaves, who was hitting .325 on the season, got hurt running the bases against the Chiefs and will be out until late June. Despite the injuries the Miners did win three straight to start last week including a pair over the slumping Chicago Chiefs but the week did not end well for Pittsburgh as they dropped their final 3 contests including the last two of a 3 game set with the surprising St Louis Pioneers.
• Jack's brother George Cleaves is off to a cool .493/.564/.836 start with 5 doubles, 3 triples and 4 homers for the Miners. And the 4-time all-star catcher has thrown out 5 of 7 runners. Cleaves was named the player of the week in the Fed while Joe Watson of the Philadelphia Sailors took the honour in the Continental Association.
• As high as Minutemen fans were a week ago when their club went 6-1 they have crashed just as low this time around after the club followed that performance up with an 0-6 week including 3 losses to the suddenly relevant New York Gothams.
• The decision to acquire Clark Car was seen as overkill by the New York Stars but it is paying off at the moment anyway after young shortstop Joe Angevine went down with a back injury and is expected to miss 3 weeks. Car will take over at SS and Mel Hancock Jr will likely man second until Angevine returns. Car (.312,0,4) is off to a hot start, hopefully proving the Stars thinking he is way better than his stats in Baltimore indicated.
• Pitching remains a concern for the Stars but Billy Riley (2-3, 7.20) seems to have settled down a bit after an awful start, only allowing 7 runs over his last 2 starts picking up 2 wins in the process. George Phillips (3-0, 3.86) is pitching well and Chuck Cole (2-1, 6.50) has been up and down. The Stars GM has some questions to answer from the owner about the price paid, but hopefully he will work out. Vern Hubbard (1-1, 5.30) needs to get back to his spring performance while Less Zoller (0-2, 6.88) has been moved to the pen for the time being. In addressing the New York media this week the new Stars GM was unexpectedly frank with reporters admitting he made some missteps coming over to the club from Cleveland. "Lessons learned for future years. But i think we're in a good place. Just need that pitching to settle in."
• After 8 failed stolen base attempts 2B Ed Stewart nabbed the Dynamo's first stolen base of the season. So that 1 for 9 success rate doesn't look too good.
• It has been an up and down start to the year for Sam Sheppard of St Louis. The 1935 Allen Award winner looked great in beating Chicago in the season opener and gave indications that perhaps he was back to his old self again after a dreadful 1938 season. Then came a pair of average outings before a poor game against Washington to start last week. He righted the ship Saturday with a gem - a complete game 5-hit shutout to run his record to 3-2 as the Pioneers completed a sweep of Boston.
• A special moment for rookie St Louis outfielder Henry Cox as the 23 year old hit a dramatic first big league homer. It was a walk-off shot in the bottom of the 9th to lift the Pioneers past Pittsburgh 8-6 on Friday in the opener of a 2-game sweep that pulled the Pioneers to within a game and a half of the Federal Association lead.
• Another St Louis rookie is leading the club in rbi's. 22 year old shortstop Ivan Cameron, who like Cox came over from the Chicago Cougars in the Freddie Jones trade, has driven in 14 runs despite hitting at the bottom of the order. Cameron, who originally was a 3rd round pick of the Cougars out of high school in 1934 is hitting .280 on the year.
• James Slocum, the step-son of Brooklyn Manager Powell Slocum, is making waves in the Upper Mississippi Valley Association. The 19 year old had a 5-hit game this week and is hitting .351 on the season for Brooklyn's Class C affiliate. He was the Kings fourth round pick last June.

MOCK DRAFT RELEASED NEXT WEEK

With the OSA mock draft set for publication next week, TWIFB's Jiggs McGee decided to unveil the names of the players he expects to be at the top of that list. With the new two phase draft Jiggs believes all 16 players to make the first round of OSA's list will have already been selected.

Here are Jiggs predictions for the top 10 in the mock draft

• Tokyo is considering joining an Axis Alliance but says "whether such negotiations materialize depends on whether Italy and Germany fully understand Japan's position in East Asia as well as theirs in Europe."
• The British government hints to it's new ally, Poland, that London would "welcome amicable settlement" possibly through arbitration on Poland's quarrel with Germany over the city of Danzig.
• Pope Pius isin favour of a peaceful settlement in both the Germany-Poland and French-Italian land disputes and has offer direct Vatican mediation by inviting the governments of France, Great Britain, Poland, Germany and Italy to sit down with him.
• Polish troops stand ready to act immediately in case there is any attempt by Nazi Germany to alter the present state of affairs in Danzig.
• The danger of a coal famine in the United States was averted as the first mines reopened following intervention by President Roosevelt to end a 39 day work stoppage. The re-openings were not without incident as Militia forces with bayonets drawn were needed to halt 4,000 pickets in Harlan, Kentucky.
• George Putnam, publisher and husband of the late Amelia Earhart, was found safely a few hours after being kidnapped from his Hollywood home. Putnam, unhurt said the kidnappers demanded the name of the author of the anonymous book "The Man Who Killed Hitler" and suggested it be "healthier" if he ceased printing it.
• "Monkeys are a warehouse of spare parts for humans" claims French Doctor Serge Voronoff upon arriving in New York for the World's Fair. Voronoff, known as "the monkey gland doctor" reported he successfully transplanted thyroid glands from monkeys to mentally defective children and has performed some 2,000 rejuvenation operations since 1913.

1939 Regular Season
 

May 22, 1939

MINERS, FORESTERS CONTINUE TO LEAD THE WAY

The Pittsburgh Miners managed to avoid getting a third key injury in as many weeks but that was about the only streak they put an end to as the Miners continued their strong play with a 4-2 week. Meanwhile the Cleveland Foresters remain the leader in the Continental Association, something that comes as a surprise to many observers who expected Cleveland to be on the downswing especially after the controversy surrounding a General Manager change and the retirement of legendary catcher T.R. Goins just hours before Opening Day.

Thought to be in need of a rebuild the Foresters instead are 17-9 on the season including victories in 10 of their last 13 games. Cleveland is 4-1 in extra innings games and at +23 their run differential is tops in the CA thanks to a balanced offense and for the most part some pretty consistent pitching. As Cleveland sails along the four teams expected to comprise the first division of the CA - Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Toronto and Chicago - all have struggled to one degree or another. The Wolves have been hit especially hard, stumbling to a 9-16 start but Brooklyn has also been a disappointment as the Kings had eyes on a CA record 4th straight pennant but since below .500 as the first month of the season heads to a close.

Unlike Cleveland, the Pittsburgh Miners were certainly expected to be one of the team's to beat in the Federal Association and they have lived up to their billing. Pittsburgh has been even more dominant then their FABL best 17-8 record might indicate as they have already amassed a run differential of +59 thru their first 25 games. Detroit, at +15 is second in that category but the Dynamos, who along with struggling Chicago, were expected to challenge Pittsburgh for the Fed title. Instead it is the surprising St Louis Pioneers who hold down second place in the Fed.
While much of the talk surrounding arms races is focused on Europe there has been a battle of one-upmanship going on in the Federal Association for the past couple of years as the contenders all target veteran pitching. The Boston Minutemen are the latest Fed contender making a splash with the addition of a veteran pitcher as they announced the acquisition of southpaw Art Myers from the struggling Philadelphia Keystones. The Boston move comes on the heels of off-season trades by Pittsburgh (to add Karl Johnson), Detroit (Sergio Gonzales) and the Chicago Chiefs (George Thomas) to upgrade their pitching over the winter.

Boston is off to a strong start and the club hopes the addition of the 32 year old Myers might solidify a rotation that relies heavily on Dick Higgins (3-3, 2.72) and Mike Lee (4-1, 2.27) especially with 23 year old John Edwards (2-4, 5.73) still struggling to live up to his vast potential. Myers, ranked by OSA as one of the top ten pitchers in the game, is off to a 3-1 start with a 2.35 era despite pitching in front of a very weak Keystones squad. A first round pick in 1925 the two-time all-star was in his 11th season with the Keystones and owns a 101-77 career record.

In return the rebuilding Keystones add a promising young shortstop prospect in 21 year old Tim Humphrey. The switch-hitting Humphrey is off to a great start in AAA, batting .388 for the Columbus Titans. He was originally a second round pick out of a Virginia High School in 1935 and OSA feels he could develop into an above average shortstop. Philadelphia also will receive Boston's fourth round pick in next month's draft.
JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE: A statement from the Minutemen that they plan on being part of the Fed race this season. Myers is a durable steady veteran arm who can slot in behind Higgins as Boston's #2 starter very easily. They gave up a nice prospect in Humphrey but with Lew McClendon set as the long-term answer at shortstop Humphrey was a player they could afford to part with. The question now is just how serious is Boston about making a real charge this year? Their pitching is much better now but in my books they still lack a big bat to truly make a run at their first pennant since 1915. Maybe that bat will come from within if one or more of youngsters Mack Sutton, McClendon and Bill Van Ness can get on a roll or if outfielder Dave Henry can recapture the form he should a couple of years ago but Boston fans would feel better about their chances if they club makes one more statement move before the deadline. The infield of the very near future for the Keystones could look pretty strong with Billy Woytek at second and former Detroit draft pick Hank Koblenz manning third with Humphrey standing in between them.

QUICK HITS

With the final draft pool released and round 4 underway the focus in Quick Hits this week is on some of the draft prospects.

• A big question in Brooklyn is does Rats McGonigle see the big leagues before this season ends? The 4th overall draft pick put up some very good numbers at Bronx Tech (.350/.418/.613) was second in the AIAA in batting average - trailing only Lou Millican, who had the benefit of playing against Poor competition. McGonigle was also tied for 3rd in HRs with 12 while also stealing 33 bases. The awards and All-American teams won't be announced until next week but at quick glance the Christian Trophy looks to be a battle between McGonigle and pitcher Harry Sharp of Red River State.
• I am going to say the Pioneers got a steal with the selection of hometown boy Harry Sharp in the third round. My scout loves Sharp and he put up some great numbers in his lone season at Red River State, posting an AIAA best 10-1 record with a 1.92 era - also tops in the college ranks.
• Quite a high school career for Marcus Mangum. The teen who was selected 5th overall by the Detroit Dynamos in January just finished his prep career at Louisa (KY) High School. His career mark of 37-4 puts in 5th all time in career HS wins and his 576 career K's is also fifth most all-time. Of course the high school kid to watch is New York City sophomore Hiram Steinberg. The 16 year just posted his second consecutive 12-0 season and had 207 strikeouts. He also had 203 k's as a freshman which is more than Deuce Barrell (199) had in his draft year and ranks second and third all-time for single season K's behind only Donnie Jones 215 in 1936.
• Danny Goff Jr might not have got a lot of love in the mock draft but the Cougars draft pick finishes as the all-time hit leader in college play with 289 in his career at Hempstead. That smashes a feeder era record of 281 established by Walt Mullen with Sadler from 1930-33. Goff Jr is also 6th all-time in career batting average at .346, trailing Sal Pestilli, Alex LaComb, Don Felice, fellow 1939 draftee Bob Jennings and Ed Lang.
  The son of Brooklyn bench coach Danny Goff, Junior's big season at Hempstead was his freshman year when he had 103 hits, tying him for second most in a season by a college player with Clint Casstevens. The leader is Jake Shadoan, now of the Dynamos, who set a record with 105 hits in the 1929 feeder AIAA season. By the way, Ben Brazel - who is draft eligible this season but not selected yet - is the only player besides those 3 to have a 100 hit college season. Brazel had 101 hits for Red River State this year. He was originally a 17th round pick of Toronto's in 1936 but failed to sign and went to college instead.

• Russia has backed out of attending a League of Nations Council meeting. It is regarded as a plain, if indirect, warning to Great Britain not to delay negotiations to bring Russia into the British-French security front. London thought it had previously secured Russian support but Moscow required some late changes to the agreement.
• Prime Minister Chamberlain offered again to lay down a definite long-range policy for European peace if Germany would renounce in a convincing way the "intention of aggression or the further use of force" in her relations with other countries.
• As the Reich continues to fortify along it's Polish border all indications point to Germany taking action against Poland over the disputed Danzig territory in the very near future.
• Japan decides to offer moral and other support to the 'axis' but after weeks of debate refused to commit to an official alliance with Germany and Italy.
• A British sovereign trod Canadian soil for the first time since the dominion of the Maple Leaf came under the sway of the Union Jack almost two centuries ago as King George VI spoke at a luncheon in Quebec City.
• National Guardsmen patrolling coal mines in Kentucky have "shoot to kill" orders because of an implied union threat to remove the militia's "intimidation" as miners return to work.

1939 Regular season
 

May 29, 1939

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHIEFS AND KINGS?

A little over six months ago the Chicago Chiefs and Brooklyn Kings were meeting in the World Championship Series for the second time in three years. As this season began just last month most were predicting a fourth straight trip to the Series for the Kings this October and it was felt the Chiefs also had a great shot at playing autumn baseball again and would be in the thick of the Federal Association pennant race. As the season passes the 30 game mark, or about 20% complete, both Brooklyn and Chicago seem to be a mere shadow of their former selves as each sits in the second division.

The Kings have struggled mightily on the road where they are just 5-9 and as a result they sit one game below the break even mark, 5.5 games back of the surprising Cleveland Foresters in the Continental Association. Much of Brooklyn's problems can be blamed on their stars as Tom Barrell (3-2, 5.51), Mike Murphy (3-4, 4.05), Al Wheeler (.224,8,24) and John Langille (.258,1,9) have all struggled. As a whole the Brooklyn pitching staff has not performed too badly but the Kings offense just has not been delivering the timely hits in tight games. The expectation in Brooklyn is it is just an early season funk- and the Kings have certainly gone thru some rough patches the last few seasons- with management counting on the team going on a roll as they come out of. There would be no better time for Brooklyn to start the turnaround than over the next four days when they play two in Cleveland followed by a pair against the suddenly hot Philadelphia Sailors, winners of four in a row and 7 of their last nine. The Kings did get started on the right foot with a 4-3 victory over Cleveland yesterday keyed by Mike Murphy's best outing of what has been a rough season for him so far.

The worry level might be much higher in Chicago where the normally dominant Chiefs pitching staff has been awful and the club has lost nine of it's last 12 games to drop to 13-20 on the season and fall into a 6th place tie with lowly Philadelphia. 37 year old Jack Beach (0-4, 11.30) is looking like he has reached the end of his road but there is hope that Rabbit Day (3-4, 4.14) and Jim Lonardo (1-2, 3.13) have finally figured things out. Lonardo was not rewarded with a win in either of them but he had a pair of solid outings over the past week, at least until he seemed to go back to his early season woes with a tough showing in a 13-6 loss to Boston on Thursday.

Day has made seven starts this season and already has had 4 occasions where he allowed at least 5 earned runs in a start. In contrast he allowed 5 or more earned runs just 8 times in 35 starts a year ago but perhaps Chicago fans can look to late July last year for inspiration. Day was lit up four straight starts with the final one being his 7th loss of the season on August 2nd which put the Chiefs a game and a half back of Detroit. From that point on Day only allowed as many as 4 earned runs once the rest of the way and won his final 10 decisions leading the Chiefs to finish 8 games up on the second place Dynamos. This season Day had allowed 5 or more earned runs in his last three starts heading into a game on Wednesday against Boston. He pitched 8 innings allowing just 1 run on 6 hits so perhaps there is hope this will be the game that gets the 3 time Allen Award winner back on track. If he and Lonardo can get going the Chiefs will still stand a strong chance of being a factor come September. The big concern is they better figure it out soon as Chicago is already 8.5 games back of Pittsburgh and the Miners look like a team on a mission.

NO-HITTER FOR DYNAMOS WOOD

Jack Wood became the first pitcher this season and the first Detroit Dynamos hurler to toss a no-hitter since Jim Golden did it in 1916. The 26 year old Wood (3-2, 3.86) blanked the Philadelphia Keystones 3-0 while facing just one more than the minimum 27 hitters. The only thing that kept Wood from a perfect game was a pair of walks, one of which was erased by a Detroit double-play. It capped quite a weekend for the Detroit pitching staff as the Dynamos went 4 straight games without allowing a run, blanking Pittsburgh 6-0, Washington by scores of 3-0 and 8-0 before Wood had his magic afternoon in the opener of a 3 game set in Philadelphia. It was just the 29th start of Wood's career and improved his pitching record to 11-15. A former third round pick by Brooklyn in 1935 he came to Detroit in that famous deal that sent Al Wheeler from the Dynamos to the Kings.

MINUTMEN STAY RELEVANT; LOOK TO WELCOME MYERS TO BOSTON ROTATION

courtesy of The Boston Globe

The big news around the Boston clubhouse this week was the acquisition of veteran left hander starter Art Myers from the Philadelphia Keystones. As the month of May has wound down it is clear that the Minutemen need both an impact bat (or three) and some help in the starting rotation. Both requests are hard to fill as many competitive FA clubs are at times remiss to trade within the Association out of fear the traded player will take a measure of revenge on their former employer on a semi-regular basis. So that really leaves a handful of clubs in the second division of the CA as potential trading partners if they have the impact bats that could help a club. Also, as much as the Minutemen would like to improve the offense they have held their own to this point. In the FA, Boston ranks third in runs scored, second in OBP. and 4th in OPS and WOBA. According to sources adding a bat is still a main priority but it wasn’t the most important of priorities as the Minutemen have struggled to keep runs off the board this season. This is in part due to some sub-par defense but that certainly does not account for the whole problem. At this point there is no sugar coating that John Edwards (acquired from Baltimore in the ‘37 offseason) is still trying to figure things out. In 50.2 innings pitched this season Edwards is 2-5 with a 5.86 ERA. Edwards has also been taken deep 7 times and has walked more batters than he has struck out.

The usually reliable Ed Wood has also had a rough start to the season which prompted the Boston brass to look for a quality arm to help right the Boston rotation. That deal actually came from a FA club as the Keystones agreed to ship Art Myers for a AAA SS (Tim Humphrey) and a 4th round pick. Myers has been a model of consistency during his 11 year run in Philadelphia. The move to acquire Myers means that Edwards is the odd man out. Edwards will move to the bottom part of the rotation where he will have his appearances limited as he continues to develop. Expect Myers to get his debut against a hot Detroit club later this week. Behind the scenes the move set off a chain reaction of promotions and releases in the minor leagues. With the ‘39 draft now entering the 5th round, space needed to be made for the incoming crop of players.

On the field the highlight of the week was taking two of three from the Chiefs and posting a 4-3 week overall. Mel Alvarez had a fine week at the plate going 12-22 and registering 7 RBI’s. The output was enough for Mel to earn “Player of the Week” honors in the FA. When approached about the trade for Myers, Alvarez had this to share. “I think it is great. Anytime an organization adds talent to help us win more games I think players are on board with it”.

This week the Minutemen will continue their homestand with two more against the Gothams followed by two against Detroit and three against the Eagles of Washington.

CHRISTIAN TROPHY WINNER AND AIAA ALL-AMERICANS NAMED

It was the tightest battle in the history of the college player of the year award but when the votes were tabulated Bronx Tech outfielder Rats McGonigle was named the winner of the 1939 Frank Christian Trophy. McGonigle, who was selected 4th overall by Brooklyn in the January portion of the draft, played just one season of college ball after coming to the Flying Dutchmen's program from semi-pro play in his native Mississippi. It was quite a debut as McGonigle (.350,12,60) finished second in the nation in batting average, tied for third in homers, 4th in rbi's and runs scored and his 3.2 WAR was 0.9 better than anyone else in the AIAA. McGonigle is the first Bronx Tech player to win the award but it marks the fourth straight season, and fifth in the past six years, it has gone to an outfielder.

McGonigle narrowly edged out Red River State junior pitcher Harry Sharp who won the AIAA pitching triple crown with a 10-1 record, a 1.92 era and 128 strikeouts. Sharp, native of St Louis, was selected by his hometown Pioneers in the regional round three of the draft. Maryland State first basemen Bob Johnston Jr., son of the former Montreal Saints pitching great, was the other finalist. The junior, who was a second team All-American selection a year ago, led the AIAA in homers (14) and rbi's (68) this season while batting .325. Like Sharp, Johnston Jr. was a St Louis draft pick as the Pioneers selected him in the second round.

Here is the complete AIAA All-American team for 1939

NEW YORK CITY PITCHER STEINBERG WINS ADWELL AS TOP HIGH SCHOOLER

Despite being just a sophomore big league scouts are already drooling over righthander Hiram Steinberg. The 16 year old, nicknamed "The Undertaker" completed a second consecutive 12-0 season for New York City's Washington High School. Only 8 times has a high school pitcher gone 12-0 and Steinberg already accounts for 25% of those. Last season he had 203 strikeouts, this year 207 which is the second highest single season total in high school history (including feeders) and trails only the 215 Donnie Jones notched in 1936. Steinberg is not draft eligible until 1941 but he is already drawing a level of hype surpassed perhaps only by Deuce Barrell who went first overall to Baltimore in 1935. With the Continental Association last place club picking first in 1941 there is a decent chance Barrell and Steinberg might be teammates with the Cannons one day. Steinberg becomes just the second underclassman to win the award, joining current New York Gothams prospect Walt Messer, who also happens to be the only two-time winner so far.

The other two finalists for the High School player of the year were Dick Blaszak, a junior outfielder out of Morris High School in New York City and Bennington, Vermont junior pitcher Joe Lund. Blaszak led the nation in rbi's and OPS. Second in runs scored, homers, WAR and slugging percentage. His .525 batting average was just outside of the top ten. Lund was 1109 with a 0.70 era and 205 strikeouts. His era was lower than Steinberg and he came within 2 strikeouts of the New York sophomore's total.

Here are the High School All-Americans for 1939. Another New York City prep star, third baseman Wally Fuller, became the first player ever named to the High School All-American squad all four years of his high school career. Fuller was drafted second overall by the Washington Eagles.

QUICK HITS

• Veteran outfielder Doc Love is back in the city he began his big league career in. The Detroit Dynamos reacquired the 32 year from the Chicago Cougars in exchange for an 8th round draft pick. Love has only 14 at bats this season but is hitting .357 and wanted out of Chicago. He spent the first 3 seasons of his career in Detroit before moving on to the Cougars, for whom he was an all-star two years ago.
• File this one under strange. Two weeks ago the New York Gothams promoted one of their top prospects in 19 year old second baseman Roosevelt Brewer to the big leagues. To do so, the Gothams had to place a perfectly good second sacker in Rabbit Mudd on waivers and Mudd was quickly claimed by St Louis. Now the Gothams have decided that Brewer is not yet ready and sent the kid back down to AAA so they essentially gave away Mudd for no reason at all. Brewer did struggle early, going just 2-for-19 at the plate in his first 8 big league games but since then he is 3-for-10 and coming off a 2-hit game against Boston yesterday. I am sure he will be back at Gothams Stadium before long but for now Brewer is heading to Toledo and Mudd has left for St Louis.
• Players of the week go to Bob Smith of the Sailors and Boston's Mel Alvarez. Smith's (.375,3,23) play of late is a big reason why the Sailors are on a roll, winning 7 of their last 9. Likewise for Boston, which is 9-4 over their past 13 games, Alvarez has been a big contributor. On the season the rookie centerfielder is hitting .385 after going 13-for-26 last week.
• Second year Pittsburgh outfielder Lew Seals (.359,4,33) is having himself a great start to the season. The 25 year old's latest accomplishment is a 5 hit game in a Saturday win over the Gothams. Seal hit for the cycle in that contest - the first such occurrence in either association this season. The last time a Pittsburgh player hit for the cycle was way back in 1900 when a player by the name of Dan Dunn did it.
• The Sunday win for the Miners was the 940th of their long-time GM's career with the club and evened his lifetime mark at 940-940.
• The Minutemen have a choice to make and club executives are on the self-described "struggle bus" with catcher Bill Van Ness (.174,1,13) and third baseman Mack Sutton (.215,6,19). They have nothing left to prove in the minors. Van Ness 4.4 WAR in AAA, Sutton 31 homers. I guess I just have to ride out the wave because I really don't want to send either down. They are both still young though but I have been committed to pushing prospects harder for the last few seasons and I feel like that has given me some success in getting guys to develop to the highest level of the minors. That last step though is a doozy.

• Germany and Italy officially signed a military pact agreeing to pool all of their military and economic resources in the event of a war in which either party might be involved. They also intend to continue to efforts to convince Japan to join their alliance despite Tokyo's stated final decision to maintain neutrality in European affairs.
• Britain sent Russia a modified proposal for a British-French-Russian mutual assistance pact and is optimistic it will be acceptable to all three nations.
• The Polish government introduced a bill in Parliament empowering that nation's President to proclaim a state of war without the need for parliamentary approval.
• Ten thousand Jewish women led by a 79 year old American demonstrated against British policy in Palestine. The protest got violent when a British military truck attempted to break through their line.
• 26 US Sailors died after a Navy submarine sunk off the coast of New Hampshire.
• The royals continued their first Canadian tour with a spot in Toronto where King George and Queen Elizabeth was greeted by the Dionne quintuplets.

1939 Season
 

https://i.imgur.com/IpFr1FV.jpg

June 5, 1939

SHIFT IN POWER?

Courtesy of The Boston Globe

Are we witnessing a changing of the guard in both the Federal and Continental Associations? Traditional powers such as Chicago in the FA and Brooklyn in the CA have not not lived up to expectations so far this season. It should be noted that OSA predicted such a slide for both organizations in their pre-season predictions. Of course, most people (rightfully so) blatantly ignored OSA based upon years of inaccurate information. Sources in Boston have shared that most of the league's GM’s had a “believe it when I see it” mindset towards both clubs potential fall from grace. The question however is if this is a matter of small sample size?

In Brooklyn especially it looks as if they simply need the offense to wake up as they sit in seventh position in both runs scored and batting average. Yet, they lead the league in home runs. Long balls are great but are most effective with runners on base. Brooklyn sits at sixth in that department. Their pitching has been excellent but even they can’t shut out every opponent they face. In Chicago it is the exact opposite of Brooklyn. The Chiefs can hit but the pitching has been a slight letdown for them this season. However, pitchers can get hot and if they do their offense can make up ground quickly. Now for the even bigger question. Will either club even get a chance to get back into their respective races? As the trade deadline approaches there are rumors abound about players availability. Names such as Lonardo in Chicago. Wheeler, Vance and maybe even a Barrell or two in Brooklyn. Surely, GM’s across the league are salivating over the chance to bolster their rosters with established talent.

As this article is being drafted it would not surprise this writer one bit if the phones are ringing off the hook in both Chicago and Brooklyn. It appears that even the venerable commissioner of the FABL, with popcorn in hand, is watching closely from the sidelines. The Gothams are firing arrows directly in the face of both GM’s as they were both critical of his own moves in past seasons. There is high drama in the FABL right now! Only time will tell if there will indeed be a transfer of players and power or if this was all an elaborate smoke screen created by a two month sample size.

BROOKLYN WILLING TO LISTEN TO OFFERS FOR WHEELER, OTHERS

The management of the Brooklyn Kings seems to be sending out mixed signals regarding the direction the club plans to take but that really seems to match the rudderless course the Kings have charted so far this season. Most observers predicted a 4th straight Continental Association pennant, which would have been a CA record, for the Kings but instead the club got off to a slow start and sits a game under the breakeven mark after five straight seasons of at least 90 victories. Little has changed from the cast of key characters the Kings have had over the past three seasons but management is thinking a major move is perhaps necessary in order to shake the team out of it's current slumbering state.

The question is what sort of move would that entail? A little over a week ago their rumblings the Kings tried to jumpstart their struggling offense with a mega offer for Philadelphia Keystones outfielder Bobby Barrell and also made inquiries to struggling Toronto about the possible availability of Fred McCormick. Neither club showed much interest in making a move and Kings management, seeing no other option to attempt to acquire an impact player abandoned the idea of a big move. The hope in Brooklyn was a big deal would fire up the team similar to the results earlier trades this decade to add Al Wheeler and Frank Vance from Detroit and the big 1932 trade with the Cougars that netted Tom and Fred Barrell as well as Mike Murphy accomplished.

With that option gone, and Brooklyn owner Daniel Prescott starting to apply some pressure on his executives, the Kings - following another rough week that saw them go 3-3 - began to look at the possibility of shaking things up in a different manner. That's when word leaked out the Kings have told the rest of the league that, depending upon how the next 3-4 weeks go, they might be willing to part with 5-time Whitney Award winner Al Wheeler or one of several other key pieces if the Brooklyn offense did not turn around in a hurry.

Brooklyn's pitching has been sound but the offense has struggled with none in the cross hairs more than perhaps the 31 year old Wheeler. This was another bad week for legendary slugger and there is likely talk after Rankin Kellogg’s sudden decline a couple season ago that maybe something is wrong with Wheeler. While Kellogg’s troubles at the plate proved to be far more serious and ultimately life threatening in Wheelers case it just seems to be a sudden loss of ability to make contact.

Wheeler has been streaky in the past and his current struggles are reminiscent of his terrible final days in Detroit before the move to Brooklyn. Once he became a King he was on fire and won the CA triple crown despite giving everyone else a month and a half head start. His WRC+ with Brooklyn was an amazing 184. He followed that up with a 170 in 1936 before dipping to 142 last year. Now at 98 Wheeler is a below average player 2 months into this season. Wheeler says he has no desire to leave but Brooklyn is said to be willing to listen to offers for one of the the games most dominant sluggers. A couple years ago there were rumors the Kings talked to the Chiefs about a possible Wheeler for Rabbit Day deal. It never materialized but perhaps the thought of the Wonder Wheel leaving the Kings is not so outlandish.

WHY DEAL WHEELER NOW?
Yes his stock could not be much lower because of his poor start but Wheeler would still command a hefty price were the Kings to move him. While the timing might not be right based on Wheeler's on-field struggles at the moment the truth is if he was not struggling no other team would have a chance to pry him from Brooklyn. As for the Kings, who are still a very strong team and really should be much better than their record indicates, the deal just might make sense if they get established talent in return. One thing working in their favour is the Federal Association looks like it will have a pretty good pennant race going with teams that perhaps are feeling the pressure to win now. Pittsburgh certainly is after emptying much of their cupboard of young talent in order to stock up for a run this season. Detroit says they are not but the reality is owner Eddie Thompson desperately wants to bring another pennant to his ballpark before he passes away and Boston, suddenly in the race and searching for their first pennant since 1915 might also feel the need to go "all in." St Louis may even dabble in discussions about acquiring Wheeler, who would be the most exciting slugger they have had since they parted ways with Max Morris a decade ago.

With those 4 teams potentially in the running for an upgrade, and perhaps Cleveland in the CA as well, there could be a real bidding war for a player like Wheeler or perhaps Frank Vance. Add in the fact that there really are no other superstar caliber hitters available (unless the Chiefs decide to sell) and it is certainly a sellers market.

Brooklyn would likely demand a hefty return for Wheeler and the focus would be on players who are either ready for the big leagues next year or already in the majors now. One would also expect Brooklyn would want quality, not quantity as the Kings are not in a position where they would like to stock their low minor leagues with high risk but high potential prospects but instead want those couple of pieces that will help them remain relevant in the Continental Association.

The other factor that perhaps has made it easier for Brooklyn to consider moving Wheeler is the emergence of Alf Pestilli (.295,10,29) as a bona fide big league slugger. With Alf and highly touted Bronx Tech draft pick Rats McGonigle along with Chuck Adams, a top ten prospect the Kings are trying to convert in the minors from 1B to the outfield the Kings feel they could withstand the loss of Wheeler if they can upgrade the offense at another position or two. With Harry Barrell there is no need for a shortstop and between John Langille and rookie Jim Lightbody second base seems spoken for. The Kings are very high on former second round pick Tiny Tim Hopkins as their first baseman of the future so that would leave third base and perhaps catcher, where Fred Barrell appears to be starting to slow down, as the two biggest needs. The question is does any of the potential suitors for Wheeler have those type of players they'd be willing to part with in order to add Wheeler's enormous, if currently underperforming, offensive prowess?

CHIEFS SAY NO SELL-OFF, ONLY LONARDO ON THE BLOCK

No team in FABL is likely more disappointed with it's start to the season than the defending World Champion Chicago Chiefs, who ended May and started June with a 7 game losing streak before rebounding to take two of three from Detroit over the weekend. The Chiefs are now tied for last place in the Federal Association with Philadelphia as both sport a 15-25 record. The only significant change Chicago made from it's championship club was the retirement of shortstop Pete Layton and while the club has tried 3 different players as his replacement it is not the Chicago offense that has let the team down. Instead it is the pitching staff, thought to be perhaps the most feared in the game, that has fallen on hard times.

Rabbit Day, Jim Lonardo and Jack Beach own 8 Allen Awards between them but have combined to go 5-13 this season with Beach, at 0-4 with a 10.47 era, being the worst offender. Day is just 3-6, 4.14 and at the moment is clearly not the pitcher he had been ever since the Chiefs acquired him from the New York Gothams in 1936. Lonardo has fared a little better at 2-3, 3.53 but despite being the youngest of the 3 at age 34, he is the one the Chiefs have decided to see about trading.

Day would certainly command more than Lonardo in trade and is actually just a month older than his teammate in both New York and now Chicago, but the Chiefs feel he is still a key piece in Chicago's future. Beach is 37 and likely at the end of the line so the Chiefs need either Al Miller (2-4, 3.90) or ex-Saint George Thomas (1-4, 3.93) to really step up if they are going to make a run at Pittsburgh, something that is looking increasingly unlikely with every week that passes. The Miners are now 11.5 games up on the Chiefs and showing no signs of slowing down so Chicago appears content to almost write this season off, take a high draft pick and maybe add a prospect or two for Lonardo and focus on making a pennant run again next season.

Much like Brooklyn's thinking on Wheeler, the Chiefs recognize this is a sellers market with little in the way of impact pitchers expected to be available at the deadline so the timing to move on from Lonardo might just be right.

RUFUS BARRELL SAYS DON'T MOVE WHEELER

Cautionary words from none other than Rufus Barrell to both the Kings and Chiefs. In both cases I would suggest riding it out. Down years happen. It's doubtful anyone you got back would be a factor in the short term if you're not doing a full rebuild while the players mentioned will be more than good enough to be a factor - and probably before this season's done. Wheeler, for example, is not going to hit .220 over the full season. It does smack of that Steinbrenner-esque mentality of "We're not winning! These guys are bums and we have to make changes immediately!"

My concern, in your shoes, would be this: dealing a core guy for a youngster or pick will weaken your current team, making it harder to get back into contention and start a cycle where you begin selling off the other pieces. I get that there's a line where you figure it's time to retool or rebuild. I don't think you're there yet.

AROUND THE LEAGUE

FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE

Minutemen Go 4-3 For The Week; Fail To Gain Ground On Pittsburgh

The Boston bats came alive this week but unfortunately it was not enough to cover up some shaky pitching and defense as they finished the week 4-3. The week started out well enough as the Minutemen beat the Gothams twice to finish off the three game sweep. 1B Bob Donoghue and 3B Mack Sutton were especially dangerous at the plate. John Edwards (3-5) and Mike Lee (5-1) both picked up wins. Art Myers made his Boston debut against the Dynamos on the 31st. Myers had a solid performance and went the distance but was simply outdueled by Detroit’s starter Sergio Gonzalez, and took the loss. Boston would split the series with a 4-3 win the following day thanks to a three run 7th courtesy of Dave Henry's two run knock in a pinch hitter role. The final series of the week was at home against the Eagles which started out well enough with Ed Wood pitching a complete game victory. Wood had plenty of offense thanks to both Bob Donoghue and Mack Sutton going deep for the Minutemen. The Eagles would get a measure of revenge the following day with Eddie Quinn pitching a complete game giving up a single run while scattering eight Boston hits. Mike Lee took the loss (5-2) giving him only his second defeat of the season. The final game of the series was a 10 inning sloppy slugfest that featured a combined 24 runs on 35 hits and 6 errors. The game took over three hours to play. Both starters, Bill Anderson for Washington and Art Myers for Boston were less than effective and were both pulled after 6 innings making it a bullpen game on both sides. The Eagles bullpen turned out to be better (if only slightly) as they scored four in the top of the ninth to tie the game and two in the tenth to go up for good and win 13-11.

This week the Minutemen will welcome the Keystones in for three games in two days (doubleheader Tuesday) before traveling on the off-day for a 12 game road trip that will start in New York against the Gothams. From New York, it will be off to Detroit for three games at Thompson Field against the Dynamos.

DETROIT WORLD

The word in Detroit right now is patience and self-control. The Dynamos won 7 straight to end May 19-11. Of course we started June 1-3….The players being dangled at the moment (Wheeler and Lonardo) don't really seem to fit in Detroit. The starting pitching has been fantastic, even William Jones who is 1-6 has been bad with a 3.74 ERA. The offense has been in neutral so far and the slow start (aka sophomore slump) of Red Johnson has been felt. 2B Ed Stewart has struggled with only 1 home run and an average in the 230’s. C John Wicklund is still trying to figure it out. Manager George Theobald says he likes his team so "for now I don't see us as major player in the market."

The Dynamos also announced that veteran second baseman Jake Shadoan has been designated for assignment in order to make room for Dale Robbins. The 24 year old Robbins, who was acquired from independent club Houston prior to last season, is hitting .276 with AAA Newark. He appeared in 10 games with the Dynamos last season, going 3-for-12. As for the 31 year old Shadoan, well he just never lived up to the hopes the Dynamos had for him when they picked him up from Brooklyn in 1937. Shadoan won a CA batting title with the Kings in 1933 and was a two-time second time All-American at Liberty College. He is a career .328 in 1047 major league games and is 1929 batting average of .473 remains the fifth highest single season total in AIAA history.

MONTREAL STAR

The Saints are still holding strong in the first division after a 4-2 week. Lots of positives for Montreal fans as 3B Mark Burns (.307,2,24) was named rookie of the month in May. Catcher Adam Mullins (.369,3,37)looks like a lock to make his third all-star game as he leads the CA in rbi's and sits third in batting average. Rookie starting Pitcher Bill Stewart looked strong in his big league debut throwing 6.2 IP with 8 Ks. He did not factor in the decision but the Saints beat New York 9-4 in the game.

Montreal split a two games series against Cleveland and are now 1-3 vs the Foresters - the only team the Saints are below .500 against. However, the Saints followed up the trip to Cleveland with back to back wins over the New York Stars including an 18 innings marathon yesterday. Prospect wise, AAA 3B Spud Bent, acquired in the Pablo Reyes trade with Pittsburgh is showing that in training camp disaster was a fluke as he is playing with a lot of offense hitting .340 with 3 homers for Minneapolis. However, with Mark Burns excel at Parc Cartier there is no room for Bent at this time.

PITTSBURGH PRESS

Any week the Miners can increase the gap between them and 2nd place is a good one. Especially with Mahlon Strong and Jack Cleaves scheduled to return (briefly, most likely) to action soon. The Miners are in the midst of an 18 game road trip during which the only team they won't visit is the Boston Minutemen. They began the trip with a tough 8-7 loss in Philadelphia after scoring 4 times in the 8th and 9th to force extras but rebounded with wins over their in-state rival Saturday and Sunday with the finale also needing extra innings to settle. That was after starting the week with 2 wins in 3 games vs St Louis and taking a pair from the struggling Chicago Chiefs before heading out on the road.

JUNE DRAFT RECAP

The Baltimore Cannons made Berwick (PA) High School outfielder Gordon Malone the first selection of the June portion of the 1939 draft. The first three rounds were selected in January leaving rounds 4 thru 25 to be picked following the high school and college seasons conclusion. Malone was highly ranked on the OSA mock list and was very consistent during his 4 years as a starter in high school, batting .454 with 3 homers and 25 rbi's in 24 games as a senior.

QUICK HITS

• The Boston Minutemen may be getting a new ballpark in a few seasons but the hopes of replacing 37 year old Cunningham Field are tied to the city's bid to host the 1944 Summer Olympics. Boston is one of four in the running to host the games of the thirteenth Olympiad and is in competition with London, Athens and Laussanne, Switzerland. Presentations are to be made before the International Olympic Committee this week with a final decision expected some time this month. Should Boston be successful the proposal includes a new track & field venue which also act as a new home for the Minutemen in addition to it's Olympic duties. American IOC delegate Avery Brundage says "Boston has done a very workmanlike job in preparing its case, and I will do everything I can to support them."
• In the Montreal Saints 7-6 win in 18 innings over the New York Stars Vic Crawford had 9 at bats. He went hitless, going 0-for-9 but the 9 at bats are 1 shy of the Continental Association record held by 12 players including most recently former Stars infielder Frank Moore. Among those with 10 at bats in a game are three Saints: Dan Rhodes who had 10 in a 1913 game along with John Goldsmith and Jim Martin, who each did it in the same game in 1896.
• Keystones 2B Marshall Strickland hit for the Cycle on June 4th against the Miners. Going 4-6 with a run scored and an RBI. Unfortunately for Keystone fans it was not enough as they lost 7-5 to the 1st place Miners. It was the second cycle in a week as Lew Seals turned the trip for Pittsburgh recently.
• Lightbody’s now equal Barrell’s in Brooklyn as Jim Lightbody has been promoted and will make his big league debut this week for the Kings. Jim, a 22 year old second baseman is the cousin of veteran Kings Doug and Frank Lightbody. He was hitting .319 at Rochester prior to his promotion, hastened in part due to the fact that veteran second sacker John Langille is struggling at the plate. Brooklyn is also home to three of the four Barrell brothers playing in the major leagues in Tom, Fred and Harry.
• The Kings organization is very excited about it's first pick in the June portion. With their fourth rounder traded to the Gothams, Brooklyn had to wait until round five before landing outfielder Ben Brazel who was a second team All-American out of Red River State. Now 21, he was originally drafted in the 17th round by Toronto out of a Nebraska High School in 1936 but elected to play college ball for the Rowdies instead. Speed is his biggest asset as he stole 110 bases over the past 3 seasons of college ball but Kings scout John Spears feels he can hit .300 and play some pretty good defense. A CF/SS Brazel hit .342 this season, which was the third highest average in the entire AIAA trailing only Lou Millican and Christian Trophy winner Rats McGonigle - who the Kings selected 4th overall in January.

• Britain and France are caught off guard as Russia rejects the latest attempt to broker a "peace front" between the three to counteract any Nazi offensive. The Russian Foreign Minister said his country "must remember Stalin's warning about pulling chestnuts out of the fire. Months ago Stalin had said the Soviets would not be dragged into a conflict with Germany strictly to pull British and French chestnuts out of the fire.
• Retired Major General George Van Horn Moseley told a Congressional committee that while he disliked some of Hitler's methods, he approved he restoration of control of Germany to "the hands of the German people." Moseley was testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
• 13 persons were killed and scores injured as riots in Palestine continued.
• An ocean liner with 918 Jewish refugees seeking escape from Germany was forced to turn back towards Hamburg after being refused refuge on Cuban soli. Havana had threatened to send a Cuban gunboat to tow the steamer to international waters had it refused to leave on it's own.
• A week after a US sub sank, the British lose 97 sailors after one of it's newest and most modern submarines sank off the shores of Liverpool.
• The bold attempt of 24 year old Thomas Smith of Los Angeles to fly across the North Atlantic on a small plane seldom used for flights of more than 250 miles appeared to have ended tragically after he failed to show in Britain.

1939 Season
 

June 12, 1939

SAILORS ROWING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

The hottest team in the Continental Association lately is the Philadelphia Sailors, who finished the week on a five game winning streak. The Sailors were pegged by many to challenge the Chicago Cougars for second spot in the CA but they got off to a 2-5 start and by May 19th they were reeling with a 10-14 record after dropping 4 games that week to Baltimore and Montreal. Things turned around quickly starting the next day as the Sailors won the opener of what would be a 3-game sweep of the Cougars and they have not looked back since then, posting a 15-7 record since May 20th and have closed to within 2.5 games of first place Cleveland atop the CA.

That was right about the time Dutch Sheldon came over from St Louis and has done a solid job (4-3, 4.13) settling in as the number two man in the Sailors rotation behind Doc Newell (5-3, 4.66). The starting pitching has been solid in Philadelphia and while the bullpen has struggled the Sailors have made up for it with a decent offense and arguably the best defense in the Continental Association. On those last two fronts it is second baseman Bob Smith who has stood out the most in the balanced Philadelphia lineup. The 28 year old second baseman is having a career year at the plate, batting .374 presently which is nearly 100 points above what he hit last year. His work in the field has also taken a giant leap forward as Smith, who was solidly average at second base a year ago, has suddenly developed into one of the best second base gloves in the league. One has to think if Smith keeps going at this rate he is a lock to appear in next months All-Star game and perhaps even make the starting lineup although the Cougars Freddie Jones might have something to say about that.

Smith's wRC+ is 180, which is better then that of the former Pioneers star Jones this season and in fact the fourth highest total in either association among players with at least 75 plate appearances. He trails only CA batting leader Fred McCormick, Foresters first baseman Bill Moore and Pittsburgh catcher George Cleaves.
This will be a key week for the Detroit Dynamos if the club is to gain ground on the front-running Pittsburgh Miners in the Federal Association race. The Dynamos have a big three game series starting Saturday when they welcome the Miners to Thompson Field. Detroit, which is 4 games back of Pittsburgh, has played the Miners 5 times already this season: splitting a pair at home before dropping two of three at Fitzpatrick Park last month.

Before they get a chance to stare down the leaders Detroit starts a busy week with two games against the third place Boston Minutemen, who sit just one back of Detroit. Sandwiched around those 2 big series are 3 games against the Washington Eagles. Detroit Manager George Theobald is cautioning his guys to not look past the Eagles as every game counts. All these games will be at Thompson Field where the Dynamo's are surprisingly only 14-13 at home, a far cry from the .675 winning percentage the Dynamos enjoyed at Thompson Field a year ago. One of those 14 home wins did come yesterday as the suddenly hot Sal Pestilli (.276,11,37) led the way in a 7-6 win over Boston.

Pittsburgh is continuing on it's 18 game road trip with a stop in Chicago to start the week before visiting the Gothams and ending the trip in Detroit. The Miners are 6-4 so far on the trek including a 4-3 loss in 10 innings at Whitney Park in Chicago yesterday. Jim Hampton's 10th inning rbi single was the difference and gave the suddenly surging Chiefs their 5th straight victory. Chicago still sits six games below the breakeven mark and 10 back of the Miners but a couple more wins against Pittsburgh to start this week might go a long way towards rekindling hope the season in Chicago can be salvaged.

The St Louis Pioneers dropped two of three at home to Pittsburgh over the weekend and now find themselves in fourth place, 6 back of the leaders. One would think the Pioneers had an opportunity to perhaps gain some ground this week as they finish with the Philadelphia Keystones after opening the week with a continuation of their three game set against Washington. Unfortunately for Pioneers fans the Eagles have given them fits this season as St Louis is just 1-4 on the year vs Washington after absorbing an 8-2 drubbing yesterday. The Keystones are another team that St Louis has struggled with, losing 3 of 5 to Philadelphia, for whom St Louis is the only team against which the last place Keystones have a winning record. In between Washington and Philadelphia the Pioneers will have to contend with Boston, which has that previously mentioned series in Detroit to start the week with the Minutemen having already dropped the opener of the 3 game set yesterday.

MINUTEMEN FAIL TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SCHEDULE; LOSE MONTY FOR EXTENDED PERIOD

Courtesy of The Boston Globe

The Boston Minutemen had a rough week going 3-4 and losing another game in the standings to Pittsburgh. As the warm summer weather approaches, Boston finds themselves behind both Pittsburgh and Detroit in the standings at five games back. The week started off well enough as Dick Higgins was sharp against the Keystones in a 7-1 win. CF Chick Donnelly had a home run (4th) in the game to help power an offense that beat up on Philadelphia starter Herman Patterson (0-4). In the next afternoon’s doubleheader the Minutemen could thank some sloppy defense for their game one loss. Mike Lee (5-3) gave up six runs but only two of them were earned making him the hard luck loser. Boston would secure the series win with another dominant performance from Ed Wood (6-3) who has started to come on in the last few weeks.

Granted a travel day for their short train trip to New York to face the Gothams, Manager Bill Boshart was a bit worried that the boys would “indulge a bit too much” with all the free time and instituted a strict curfew of 9 pm. Whether it was the curfew or the 13 mile an hour wind blowing out to left field at Gotham Stadium the Minutemen came out swinging as both Mack Sutton (8th HR) and Bob Donoghue(7th) cleared the fences in a 14 hit 10-5 win. Art Myers (1-1) would pick up his first win in a Boston uniform after joining the team late last month from the Philadelphia Keystones. Unfortunately for Boston fans that would be the last win they would see in New York and for the week. Dick Higgins was set to start game two of the series against the Gothams but for some insane reason Boshart gave a spot start to Art Keeter out of the bullpen. It did not turn out to be a sound decision as Keeter was absolutely blistered to the tune of nine earned on 11 hits in 6.2 innings of work. The Boston offense did all they could in scoring six runs but it was just not enough in the end.

In this writer's opinion Boston manager Billy Boshart needs to be taken to task for his juggling of the Boston rotation. If Higgins would have started the game like he should have then he would have been ready on full rest to pitch against Detroit on the 13th. Instead Boshart pitched Higgins in the closeout game in New York where he had his worst outing of the season and was pulled after 3.2 innings in a 9-3 loss. Does the short outing allow for Higgins to close out the series against the Dynamos? Or will he need an extra day of rest and face the Pioneers in St. Louis for the first game of that important series? The problem is in the fact that this is a problem at all. Boshart should have kept things the way they were instead of going off the reservation and pitching a reliever. Even going with a fully rested John Edwards would have been a better decision than pitching the emergency guy out of the pen. This move was a complete head scratcher at a point in the season where a team is trying to gain ground by using their best assets accordingly.

The final game of the week was the first game of a three game series in Detroit. It was a wild back and forth game that saw both starters hit the showers early. Just as it seemed the Minutemen were going to come away with the victory, tragedy struck as stopper Bobby Montefusco came out of the pen with sub-par stuff. The Dynamos took full advantage and Monty had to exit the game in painful agony, clutching his pitching arm. Eventually, Detroit would tie the game up sending the contest to extra frames. The Dynamos would take the game with a game winner in the bottom of the 11th pushing the Boston losing streak to three games. Later it was learned that Montefusco will be sidelined for at least two months, leaving a big hole in the Boston bullpen. The 32 year old was 3-1 with 5 saves in 17 appearances this season.

Now the real test truly begins. The Minutemen have to play two more against Detroit before travelling to St. Louis for three and then head back north to Chicago for three more games. This grinder of a road trip will definitely help answer the contender or pretender question.

DYNAMOS NOTES FROM THE DETROIT WORLD

Interesting week for CF Sal Pestilli who has once again climb onto the league leader board with 11 homers. After a slow start he's now 2nd. Last week Pestilli was just 5-23 but when he connected he made it count. 4 of the 5 hits went for extra bases and he tripled and hit 3 home runs and drove in 9 RBI’s. For the season he's hitting 276 with 11 home runs and 37 RBI’s.
SP Frank Crawford in his last 9 starts is 6-1 with a 1.96 ERA. On the opposite end of the spectrum SP William Jones is 1-7 on the season with a respectable 3.65 ERA. In 6 of his 10 starts the Dynamo’s have scored 2 runs or less. In another start Jones left the game with the scored tied 2-2. The Dynamos finally won 7-2 in 14 innings. The lack of run support for Jones has been the veterans undoing.

QUICK HITS

• On June 5th, Lou Kelly took Lou Martino deep in the second for his 2,000th career hit. It was the only run the Cougars scored in a 3-1 loss to Cleveland , but Kelly becomes the 65th player to join the 2,000 hit club. It was also his 271st homerun, which moves him 1 ahead of former Washington and Cleveland catcher T.R. Goins and into 4th place all-time in that category.
• I can't help but thinking Kelly is one of the more underrated players over the past decade and a half. He did win a Whitney Award in 1932 and finished second in the voting two years earlier but looking back he had some very strong years at the peak of his career. Kelly led the CA in homers three straight seasons starting with his monster 1930 campaign when he drove in 159 runs and batted .363. At 37 years of age he is certainly near the end of his career and reaching 300 homers is likely too much to ask but he is just 19 rbi's shy of becoming only the 26th player to top 1200 in that category. Kelly got a late start as he did not make his big league debut until the age of 25 and by 35 was clearly on the downswing of his career but for half a dozen seasons in Baltimore it was tough to find many who were better than the native of Pekin, Illinois.
• With news that Boston has won the rights to host the 1944 Summer Olympics expect an announcement in the near future that the Minutemen will be getting a new stadium to replace Cunningham Field. The Brookline Avenue venue, which seats over 37,000, has been home to the Minutemen since 1902. No word yet on whether the club will move into the new stadium before or after the games are held in 1944.
• I hate to see Jake Shadoan end up in the Lone Star Association. He was a dominant hitter for a couple of seasons in Brooklyn but got lost in the shuffle of their infield when Frank Vance arrived from Detroit. Never really got an opportunity with the Dynamos either and is now on waivers. Not sure if his glove is good enough anymore but a team like Baltimore should be all over him and give him a shot at second base. There is no way he can be any worse than Charlie Willis, who is hitting just .225 for the once again struggling Cannons.
• The New York Stars have impressed this season after a couple of terrible years as new management has the team heading in the right direction. However, one has to think the clock will strike midnight soon on the Stars, who presently sit three games over .500 (25-22) despite owning a -32 run differential, better than only hapless Baltimore in the CA. The Stars are aided greatly by a 7-3 record in 1-run games and 4-1 in extra innings thanks to what has proven to be a decent bullpen led by Robert Curry, who has saved a CA best 7 games. However the starting pitching has been inconsistent and I have grave concerns about the defense, particularly the middle infield where both Joe Angevine and Clark Car have seemed overmatched.
• Pioneers prospect Jim Vaughn is really starting to like Oakland. In his first 34 games he scored 20 runs and knocked in 18 while barely hitting over .300. In his last 10 games he's hitting over .500 with 17 RS and 19 RBI. Look out Zip Sullivan as the 22 year old Vaughn is clearly eyeing the first base job in St Louis.
• Detroit has shut down stopper Jack Richardson for the early part of the week as he is dealing with a dead arm. To bolster the bullpen which has been successful so far this year the Dynamos claimed Red Ross on waivers from St. Louis. Ross will be eased into a spot in the pen this week. To make room for Ross since Richardson will not require a stint on the DL, the club optioned 2B Dale Robbins who was 1-3 in his big league debut back to Newark....for now.
• Jim Lightbody had quite a start to his big league career last week. The newest Brooklyn Kings infielder hit .571 (8-for-14) with 3 doubles and will certainly get more starts at second base for the club as John Langille's struggles at the plate continue. The 22 year old was a few months older than his cousin Doug Lightbody when he broke in with the Kings in 1926 but conjured up memories of the veteran with the same sweet swing. Now 35 years old, Doug had a decent week as well adding 7 more to his hit total giving him 1881 in his big league career.
• Looks like Al Wheeler does want to stay in Brooklyn as amidst trade rumors he has his best week of the season going 12-for-26 but perhaps the rest of his teammates are not so fond of Al sticking around as the Kings have another bad week posting a 3-4 record and are now 2 games under .500. But it was a terrible week for Frank Vance. Went 4-for-26 at the plate and committed 5 errors in the field.
• The Gothams have to love the job Nate Speer (5-0, 1.28) is doing but lamenting the fact he can't stay healthy. Speer missed a couple weeks earlier in the season with an elbow issue and now he is on the shelf again. This time it will be longer, well over a month, as his shoulder is acting up. Between the 23 year old Speer and 25 year old outfielder John Phillips (.361,4,13) - who both came over from Pittsburgh along with a first round draft pick - the Gothams have to loving the decision they made nearly three years ago to part ways with incredibly talented but also extremely injury-prone outfielder Mahlon Strong.

• As Britain, France and Russia continue to work on finalizing details of their alliance, Prime Minister Chamberlain told the British house of Commons he is ready to give the Soviets full military support in the event of any act of aggression which would involve Russia in war with any European power.
• Meanwhile Hitler warned the "encirclers" of Germany they will be sharply repulsed if they attempt to attack the Reich.
• Nazis threatened a "purge' of Czech nationalist elements throughout Bohemia after the second slaying of a German police officer within 48 hours as Czech resistance to German rule spreads.
• Relations between Britain and Japan have been aggravated "almost to the breaking point" by an increasing number of incidents in Japanese-occupied areas near Shanghai.
• King George VI stopped in Niagara Falls, New York making him the first reigning British monarch to set foot on United States soil. He would continue on to Washington where he would meet with President Roosevelt.
• The International Olympic Committee awarded the 1944 Olympics to Boston and Italy. Boston will host the Summer Games after defeating London. Rome and Lausanne, Switzerland in voting. The winter games will be held at Cortina D'Ampezzo.

1939 Season
 

June 19, 1939

STARSTRUCK!

The New York Stars, after four straight losing seasons including a 71-83 campaign a year ago, find themselves in a tie for first place in the Continental Association with Cleveland at 30-24 thanks to a recent seven game winning streak. That streak came to an end yesterday after they dropped both ends of a doubleheader to Toronto - a team who's run to within a game of a pennant a year ago is exactly what the Stars appear to be trying to duplicate or even improve upon...and just as improbable as the Wolves run was last season.

When you look at most of the stats the Stars seem to have no business being in first place. They have surrendered 315 runs this season, more than any other club in either association except for the Montreal Saints. 50 of those runs have been unearned thanks to a FABL worst 80 errors. At this pace the Stars will commit 228 errors on the season. No team committed even 200 errors a year ago and the most miscues in 1937 was 200 muffed by the Cleveland Foresters. The starting pitching has been ordinary with George Phillips (7-3, 4.25) leading the way while the bullpen, aside from Robert Curry (3.55, 7 saves) and Boyd Harper (5-0, 3.54) has struggled, ranking 6th in the CA in bullpen ERA. There offense is solid but it is not setting the world on fire: the Stars 304 runs scored is second in the CA but only 8 runs ahead of being fourth in the loop. One would not expect a team with a -11 run differential to be leading the league but despite being the only CA club aside from perennial cellar-dweller Baltimore to have given up more runs than it has scored the Stars remain entrenched at the top of the CA.
With major changes over the off-season including several trades plus the addition of a new General Manager who has completely revamped the philosophy of the entire organization it was expected the Stars would be a much improved team this season, but few forecast them battling for first place as we close in on the All-Star break. But that is where the Stars find themselves with much of the credit going to a pair of off-season veteran acquisitions in outfielder Moxie Pidgeon (.335,12,43) and third baseman Ray Cochran (.313,2,16). The continued development of youngsters Joe Angevine (.323,0,15) and superstar in waiting Bill Barrett (.260,8,32) has also played a factor but the biggest surprise might just be coming from the longest tenured Star. First baseman Dave Trowbridge (.354,5,36) is 40 years old and many were writing him off after hitting .291 - his lowest season average since being a part-time player in Pittsburgh way back in 1925 - last season and missing over a month with back troubles. If there was a comeback player of the year award it is clear Trowbridge would be at the top of the list of candidates and he seems to be a solid bet to make his first all-star game appearances since 1934. When we ask 'Can it continue all season?' one could be enquiring about Trowbridge's early season success or the Stars themselves. While the numbers - pitching and defense in the Stars case and age in Trowbridge's - might say it is unlikely fans at Riverside Park certainly disagree and are showing up at the ballpark at a pace that is just ahead of the team attendance record setting year of 1932, which incidentally was the Stars last World Championship Series winning season.

SUCCESSFUL ROAD TRIP HAS BOSTON TO WITHIN 2 GAMES OF FA LEAD

Courtesy of TWIFB contributor William 'Doc' Shaw of The Boston Globe

Last week, the big question was how the Minutemen would fare on the road against top competition. Although, it is getting tougher to ignore the happenings in Chicago as the Gothams are the latest team to overtake the Chiefs in the FA standings. Even still, Chicago is loaded with talent and I, “Doc” Shaw, will not undersell the former FA giant. It would appear that Boston skipper Billy Boshart stuck to the script this week (by my estimation) and was rewarded with a 5-2 week. The mighty Minutemen are now tied with Detroit in second position a mere two games behind first place Pittsburgh.

Two players were key to Boston’s success over the course of the week. Art Myers pitched 18 innings, won two games, struck out eight and logged an ERA of 0.50 for the week. The offense was paced by Bob Donoghue who went 10-21 (.476) with two homers and six RBI’s. For his efforts, Donoghue was recognized as the player of the week in the FA for the second time this season.

For those that remember, the Minutemen came into the week losers of three straight games. In the first game of the week, and second of the series against Detroit, Myers picked up one of his two wins of the week with a complete game victory, outdueling Sergio Gonzales. Mack Sutton and Pete Day each contributed two hits and an RBI in the 4-2 Boston victory. Bob Donoghue got the series finale off to a fine start with a first inning homer (8) and Pete Day had another nice performance collecting three hits and an RBI giving Higgins (6-4) all the support he needed for a 7-2 win. After the game the boys had to immediately race and catch the 5:30pm train to St. Louis for a late afternoon game the next day. If the boys were at all tired from travelling they certainly did not show it as they scored 16 runs on 18 hits in the first game of the series against the Pioneers. Bob Donoghue went 4-4 with a homer (9) and two RBI’s. Mack Sutton also had a huge day hitting his ninth homer of the season to go along with his four RBI’s. It was a great start to the series for the Minutemen who now suddenly found themselves winners of three straight.

Like what often happens in baseball though, things can and will take a turn at the strangest of times. Coming off a fantastic opening game performance against the Pioneers, the Minutemen would get beat up pretty badly in the second game of the series 9-2. Boston righty Mike Lee, who had jumped out to a 5-1 start to begin the ‘39 season has now found the loss in three of his last four starts (His other start was a ND with Boston losing). Although Lee took the loss the offense still produced nine hits and it was really reliever Johnny Harry that let the game get out of hand by allowing 4 earned (6 total) runs in 2.2 innings worth of work. Thankfully for Boston, the red hot Art Myers was ready to take the ball in the final game of the series as he pitched a complete game, six hit shutout, giving Boston the series win.

The final stop on the road trip would take the Minutemen to Whitney Park to take on the Chiefs. Dick Higgins (7-4) delivered a season high ten strikeout performance and Bob Donoghue added his tenth homer of the season in the 5-2 win giving Boston the early series advantage. Chicago would even the series the very next day with Day (pun intended) by an identical 5-2 score. Rabbit was a bit of his old self in this one, going all nine innings and striking out seven on the way to his fifth win of the season.

The week ahead will be yet another test for the Minutemen. After the final game in Chicago the boys from Boston will get a travel day to return to the friendly confines of Cunningham Field to play the Gothams and the Dynamos for three each. The Saturday game on the 24th against the Dynamos is a double header which will be especially interesting for those concerned about Billy Boshart’s manipulation of the pitching staff. It seems in weeks with a double dip he can get a bit muddled about how to properly deploy his units. Hopefully, the 55 year old skipper has learned his lesson from two weeks ago and handles the rotation accordingly. If not, I don’t think he will be welcome in McGreevy’s for quite some time.

Speaking of people that probably would probably not receive a warm welcome in McGreevy’s or Boston proper at all right now is the FABL Commissioner himself. He has gone on the record numerous times leaving comments about both Chicago and Brooklyn having superior talent and that he fully expects those clubs to rise up in the standings. He makes these comments knowing full well that a number of teams have done much more during the first third of the season than what the Chiefs and Kings have. A little piece of advice to the commish from ‘ol “Doc” here. It isn’t that we don’t in the darkest part of our collective hearts believe you. It is just that we are a prickly bunch here in Boston and a little sensitive to the fact that we haven’t won the FA since the 1915 season. We Bostonians take high offense at the slightest disrespect served up against our local boys. Furthermore, where is the love for Pittsburgh, Detroit, the Stars and Cleveland to name a few? Yes, Mr. Commissioner, Cunningham is mostly empty every single time the Minutemen take the field but do not confuse that for apathy towards our local boys. The depression has hit this glorious city hard and it has brought many to their knees, but we still love our Minutemen. So the next time you are in our proud city enjoying a refreshment in one of our local establishments, you may want to tip your hat a bit lower to cover your eyes and flip up your jacket collar to hide your face. The anonymity will not only protect you from the vitriol that would surely fly your way but also allow you to covertly listen to the unbridled passion this town has for their ballclub.

Although this weekly column is dedicated to the Minutemen and the happenings of the FABL, it would be a mighty disservice on my part to not celebrate the announcement of Boston, as the host city of the 1944 Olympic Games. For the world to have the opportunity to descend upon our fine city fills Bostonians with an unmeasurable sense of civic pride. Of course, with the whole world dropping by for an extended stay, infrastructure will need to be improved or built from the ground up. Boston Minutemen owner Jesse Barton, as well as many other prominent city businessmen, are part of the infrastructure planning committee. While there has been no official word out of Barton’s office, various sources have whispered to ‘Ol “Doc” that part of Barton’s agenda is to convince the committee to approve the construction of a new stadium to replace Cunningham. During this current economic climate getting the city and its taxpaying base to cover the construction of a new stadium would be a near impossibility. However, if Barton can convince the committee that a new stadium is needed for the Olympic games then he just may be able to accomplish his goal. Of course, the fat cat could just finance his own stadium but that is just not how big business works in this country.

https://i.imgur.com/CQh0rUK.jpg

There is renewed optimism around the clubhouse at Kings County Park after the Brooklyn Kings finally climbed back over the breakeven mark with a 5-2 week to bump their record on the year to 27-26. A doubleheader win over the Cleveland Foresters will always lift spirits in Brooklyn and the Kings did just that yesterday. First it was the Bob Cummings (6-2, 2.42) show as the 26 year old continued his strong season with a complete game 7-1 victory in the opener that also saw Al Wheeler post his second straight two-hit game to raise his season average to .259. Joe Shaffner (5-6, 3.69) was equally impressive on the mound in the nightcap which ended up as a 4-1 victory for the good guys behind a 3-hit game from Frank Vance (.281,4,31), who seems to be shaking off the frost that had covered his twig much of the month after a scorching start to his season.

Part of the excitement can also be credited to the arrival of Jim Lightbody. Doug's little cousin has taken the city by storm with a .371 batting average and 4 extra base hits in his first 12 games as a big leaguer. He also has long-time Brooklyn observers swearing he looks just like Doug did as a rookie when he steps into the batters box. Lightbody's arrival has created quite a dilemma for Kings manager Powell Slocum.

Second base has long been the domain of John Langille, who without grumbling shifted over from his natural spot at the hot corner when Frank Vance joined the club in 1935. Since then Langille has turned himself into one of the best defensive second baseman in the game and is normally a pretty solid hitter as well but this season he is batting just .225 and shouldering much of the blame (along with Wheeler) for the Kings offensive woes. The young Lightbody boy is no where near as proficient as Langille in the field but with the Kings offense as it has been it appears Slocum has no choice but to bench Langille as long as Lightbody continues to hit.

That is just one of three challenges Brooklyn faces with the Lightbody clan. Doug is also a bit of a problem, but a very good one as he is having a fine season at the plate, hitting .298 and quickly closing in on his 1900th career base knock. He is defense is certainly subpar but if the Kings could survive Dan Barrell's glove at first base they can certainly do the same with Lightbody's. Lightbody has done so much for this franchise over the years and, had he stayed healthy could have accomplished so much more, so it is very difficult to send him to the bench or, heaven forbid, even part ways with him entirely. Unfortunately it may have to come to that at some point soon as the Kings have not one, but two incredibly talented first base prospects in Rochester knocking on the door. They tried unsuccessfully to move one of them, Chuck Adams who is ranked 8th by OSA, to the outfield but it was a dismal failure. The defensive struggles did not impact Adams at the plate where the 22 year old is batting .308 with 10 homers and 37 rbi's on the season. Tim Hopkins, all 6'5" of him, will now take his turn in the outfield to see if he could perhaps handle the position shift. "Tiny Tim" is a year and a half younger than Adams and ranked in the top 100 by OSA. He is batting .303 with 9 homers and 37 rbi's in his first taste of AAA action.

Even if one of them could shift to a corner outfield spot it does not really relieve the pressure the Kings management faces. The third Lightbody, Frank, has quietly informed the club he would like a trade if he cannot start for the team. The Kings much prefer Frank to remain with the club as he is an outstanding pinch-hitter (batting .471 in 17 pinch-hit ABs this season) and the Kings can't really sit down Alf Pestilli (.206,13,39) with the breakout season he is having. Then there is Joe Perret, another veteran that the Kings can't find a spot for now that his stint on the Disabled List is over. Good problems, but problems nonetheless for the Kings to deal with. Of course the focus so far this season has been entirely on trying to figure out why the team is struggling so badly and then to turn it around. But perhaps that issue is behind them for now. At least one can hope as we wait to see what next week will bring to the Brooklyn Kings, a club that never seems to do anything the easy way.

QUICK HITS

• Somehow with all of the firepower they have (Sal, Red Johnson, Nolde, Drake, LeMieux) the Dynamos are 15th out of 16 in runs scored so far this season. Only the Keystones have produced less than the Detroit offense's 229 runs. Yet they are still in second place because of their pitching, even with William Jones at 1-8 due to some hard luck. Frank Crawford's huge season last year is looking like no fluke at all and Sergio Gonzales is happy to be out of Washington and reunited with his former GM. Detroit has only surrendered 191 runs through their first 53 games. Somehow Washington, where pitchers go to die lately, has the second fewest runs against in the Fed with 232. In the CA the Stars are in first place despite allowing 315 runs against - more than anyone even the Keystones in the Fed and second most in the Ca behind only Montreal (319). And the Chiefs pitching is 7th in the Fed??? A lot of things feel upside down this season.
• The Dynamos offensive frustration is starting to boil over in the front office. There is plenty of blame to go around but a lot of it is being focused on 2B Ed Stewart. Detroit is beginning a search for a starting 2B and might be willing to part with some pitching prospects for the right player. Could there be a match with Brooklyn's John Langille, assuming Jim Lightbody looks like he can handle second base for the Kings?
• Eddie Quinn(8-3, 2.25) is one big reason Washington pitching is better this year. He won 18-games in 1935 with Cleveland and 1937 with the Eagles so success is not foreign to the man they call "Caveman" but he was awful last season. Don't know what it is about Washington but Eagles pitchers just can't string two good seasons together. Bill Anderson won 22 in 1936 for the Eagles but has been awful ever since and in 1937 it was Karl Johnson, now with Pittsburgh, who was a 20 game winner for Washington but had a much poor season a year ago.
• Don't count the Chiefs out. Yes they are still giving up too many runs but they took two of three from Pittsburgh recently and have gained 4 games on the front-running Miners to move to within 8 of the lead. Still a lot of work ahead to get back into the hunt but perhaps the tide is turning in Chicago. Rabbit Day (5-6, 4.14) is coming off two very strong outings against Boston and Washington even though they were sandwiched around a fairly rough start vs the Miners, but his offense helped him out and although Day did not factor in that decision Chicago won for him by a 10-7 score. Jim Lonardo has won 2 of 3 decisions since Chicago made it known he was available and he might have made it 3 straight if the defense didn't let him down against Philadelphia this week. If Day and Lonardo are back in peak form I like the Chiefs chances to rejoin the race.
• Al Wheeler (.259,10,37) continues to perform a little better as well since he was put on the block by the Kings. Certainly not back to his Whitney Award winning form but he is starting to heat up. So are the Kings, perhaps as they went 5-2 this week and are now over .500 and within 2.5 games of first in the Continental Association. The question is can Brooklyn string 2 strong weeks together, which is something they have not been able to do yet this season. It might be tough this week as the Kings head out on the road and they are just 8-13 playing away from Kings County Park this year.
• The Sailors almost no hit the Kings again but it wasn’t No-Hit Newell this time. Instead Herb Flynn tossed a 1-hit shutout in a 6-0 Sailors win. The only Brooklyn hit was a triple with 2 out in the bottom of the 8th and it surprisingly came off the bat of Brooklyn reliever Bert Henggeler. The Sailors no hit the Kings last year and also in 1935 with Newell being the author of both. This time around the Kings must have used up all their hits the previous night when they blasted the Sailors - and Newell- by a 9-3 count.
• On the farm Earl Kimmel has a 39 game and counting hit streak going for AA Dayton of the Eastern Association. The 21 year old Pioneers prospect was a 5th round pick in 1935 and is hitting .427 on the season. He just passed George Carnegie's 1897 38 gamer for the second longest streak in EA history. The record is 53 set by Bill Smith, while also with Dayton, in 1919.
• A breakout year at age 31 for long-time Brooklyn farmhand Bill Tucker. The first baseman leads all of professional baseball with 30 homers thru 49 games at Class A Springfield this season. This is his fourth season in Springfield and his career high for homers at that level was 36 hit two seasons ago. Tucker has never played above the AA level.

• Japanese authorities in Tientsin risk a showdown with Britain and France after they establish a blockade at the northern Chinese port city. Reports indicate there were also threats on the life of the British ambassador to China as tension heats up following London's refusal to hand over Chinese terrorists in the area who are accused of attacks on occupying Japanese forces.
• The United States is watching the situation in Tientsin with great concern. The US does not have a direct interest in the area but does do business through the British and French groups.
• The nearly 1000 Jewish refugees turned away by Cuba have avoided being sent back to Germany after four nations including Belgium and the Netherlands, agreed to grant temporary refuge and the United States agreed to pay for the costs of their maintenance.
• Reports out of Warsaw indicate the brother of the former Czechoslovak President has slipped into Poland and has formed an army of 18,000 Czechs who are preparing to aid Poland in case of a German-Polish war.
• Discovery of a widespread plot to assassinate King Carol led to Rumanian police arresting several Nazis.
• Fighting between rival union groups at an auto plant in Flint, Michigan left dozens injured as labor strife continues in several different US industries.

1939 Season
 

June 26, 1939

COUGARS ADD 4 TIME ALLEN AWARD WINNER

Jim Lonardo has been traded again but this time the 4-time Allen Award winning righthander won't have to go far as he was dealt from the Chicago Chiefs to their cross-town Continental Association rivals the Chicago Cougars. The move shows each team is making a statement about their targeted destination this season. For the defending World Champion Chiefs, it is the resignation that they will likely have to give up the battle this season and focus on another day. Lonardo (3-5, 3.42) won the Allen Award last season after a 25 victory campaign and was a huge reason the Chiefs won their second World Championship Series in three years. However, a dreadful start to the season in which Lonardo, who was acquired by the Chiefs from the New York Gothams prior to last season, was one of the few bright spots on a struggling Chiefs pitching staff has prompted the club to send the 35 year old packing again after just over a season at Whitney Park. The Chiefs seemed to be back on track recently with a couple of successful weeks that allowed them to shave 4 games off of their deficit behind front-running Pittsburgh but then they suffered through a 6 game losing streak this week, including 3 losses to a weak Washington squad and a pair to the Miners so suddenly the Chiefs are back to being 12 games out. Chiefs management decided now was the time to pull the trigger on the Lonardo deal, something they had been considering for several weeks.

The timing could not have been better for the Chicago Cougars to take a big step forward as a franchise by investing in the veteran Lonardo. The Continental Association race is wide open and the Cougars, despite being just a game over .500, are only 3.5 games back of first place Cleveland. The Cougars are also trending the right direction with 8 wins in their last 9 games and the team that has long been praised for it's farm system depth decided to sell a little more of it off in order to add one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball.

In return for Lonardo, who has a career record of 190-136, the Chiefs receive top-25 infield prospect Ducky Jordan and minor league pitcher Art Courtney. Jordan, who was the Cougars #3 prospect, was hitting .287 with 9 homers for AAA Milwaukee. The 25 year old is versatile - he can play any of the 4 infield spots, and has had a couple brief stints in the big leagues the past couple of seasons. Chiefs management, still looking for the replacement to retired legend Pete Layton at shortstop, has announced that Jordan will report to the big league club and be given a chance to win the shortstop job. Courtney is a 19 year old righthander selected in 9th round of last year's draft. He has struggled this season at Class C, posting a 1-7 record with a 6.43 era and did not rank in the Cougars top 30 prospects.
JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE : Great pickup for the Cougars who now have both of last year's Allan Award winners in their rotation with Lonardo joining 39 year old Dick Lyons, who claimed the CA award last year. The door is wide open in the CA this year with Brooklyn struggling and no one really taking control so the addition of Lonardo might just be the piece the Cougars need to come out on top. The cost was certainly something they could easily afford to absorb. Jordan might have been in their plans as the eventual replacement for 36 year old John Lawson (.309,9,40) at third base but Lawson is playing like he has no thoughts of going anywhere in the near future and, at 25 with only 24 big league games under his belt I worry if Jordan is perhaps not the prospect OSA and most scouts think he could be. The Chiefs made the most of a tough situation as I expect they hoped to get more for Lonardo, and rightly so, but his age perhaps scared off some potential suitors.

CONSECUTIVE 5-2 WEEKS HAS BOSTON 1.5 GAMES BACK OF PITTSBURGH

Courtesy of TWIFB contributor William 'Doc' Shaw of The Boston Globe

After 60 games the Boston Minutemen are ten games over the break even mark at 35-25. If anyone remembers, OSA predicted this club would finish 64-90 and share bottom position with St. Louis in the FA. In a hat tip to St. Louis, they are also exceeding expectations by hovering around the .500 mark. While 60 games does not even constitute half a season worth of action it is right around 39% of it. Boston would only have to win 30 more times over the course of the season to exceed OSA’s expectations. Of course, in Boston, it was never about staying out of last place but challenging for the Association crown.

The deal to secure Art Myers from Philadelphia has thus far turned out to be a sound baseball move for the Minutemen. Myers has posted a 5-1 record in Boston and can be counted on to pitch against the best competition the FA can offer. The player Boston gave up in Humphrey is looking really good at AAA Louisville as well. Humphrey has the potential to be an impact shortstop for the re-tooling Keystones down the road. This was a good baseball trade that helped both sides based on the current directions of the clubs. While Myers has been a feel good story so far in Boston another underlying factor has been the emergence of the offense. Currently, Boston ranks second in runs scored, first in team batting average, and second in OBP, OPS, WOBA and batting WAR. In short the offense is clicking.

Although I have been critical of Billy Bosharts rotation gaffes at times he deserves full marks for how he has juggled the lineups based on the handedness of the pitcher. So far the Minutemen are hitting .286 with a .353 OBP and posting a 25-16 record against right handed pitchers. If you are good against right handers in this league you will win a lot of games. Don’t let this nice stretch be confused for complacency though. Sources say Boston is still very interested in making a move to improve the offense even more if they can.

Looking specifically at this successful week we have to start in Chicago for the deciding game of the series against the Chiefs. Boston opted for Art Myers while Chicago chose to go with Rabbit Day in back to back days. Rabbit had thrown 109 pitches the day before in a 5-2 win and Chiefs manager Joe Ward opted to ride the hot hand. The result was Rabbit being pulled after 2.0 innings and throwing 39 pitches. Day allowed four hits and a run so he was still pretty effective. It was his replacement Jack Beach that the Minutemen torched for five earned in the 11-2 Boston victory. The Chicago game marked the end of a 12 game road trip for Boston where they posted a winning 7-5 record.

Following an off day it was time to welcome in the Gothams of New York for a three game series at Cunningham Field. Game one could not have gone better for New York as they slapped Boston starter Dick Higgins around for ten hits and six runs (only 2 of them earned) in an 8-4 win. Lew McClendon had two costly errors in this one to help power New York to the victory. Since the acquisition of Art Myers, John Edwards has been the odd man out and has seen his workload decrease over the last month and a half. The 23 year old righty is still considered a big part of the future in Boston so it has been important for his development to keep giving him opportunities to start games. Game two was one of those chances for John, and he made the most of it. Edwards (4-5) dazzled the New York lineup cruising to a complete game 4 hit victory. Offensively, Mel Alvarez and Chick Donnelly each hit triples and Bob Donoghue hit a first inning, two run homer (11) to put the Minutemen up early. In the final game of the series Ed Wood put the whole team on his shoulders as he went up against Oscar Morse for the Gothams. Not only did Wood pitch a complete game scattering five hits he also helped himself out offensively with a two run homer in the fourth inning of the 3-1 victory. Wood was the obvious choice to earn player of the game honors.

In the first game of a doubleheader against Detroit Art Myers was tabbed as the starter. This was a great baseball game as both Myers and Dynamos starter Jack Wood battled through the opponents potent lineups. Thanks to some defensive miscues by the Dynamos the Minutemen were able to tack on a pair of unearned runs on top of the two they did earn. Myers went eight strong and Hazeltine pitched a scoreless ninth to give Boston the 4-3 victory. In game two however, Dynamo stud Frank Crawford (10-1) stymied the Boston lineup by only giving up one extra base hit all game (double by Donnelly) in the series tying 3-2 win. In the final game of the week and series Higgins was looking for a measure of revenge after his awful performance four days prior against New York. Mack Sutton provided a big two run homer (10) in the seventh and actually fell a single short of the cycle in the 8-3 Boston win.

With an off day to start the week and no double header to make up for it the Minutemen will only play six times this coming week. Four of those games will be to close out June and get the club into the month of July. Both series will be at home with first up being the Pioneers of St. Louis followed once again by the Gothams. Looking ahead, the Minutemen will be playing five games against Pittsburgh in the month of July. The Minutemen have not played the Miners since they pulled off a two game sweep in Pittsburgh on May 6th and 7th.

In other news the 1939 FABL Amateur Draft has concluded. According to sources Boston brass feel like they did a fine job with this year's selections. ‘Ol “Doc” will have plenty more to say about the Boston selections down the road, but since none of the top players have agreed to contracts as of yet, they are not currently a part of the family. We can, however, list who was taken by the Minutemen.

QUICK HITS

• The Homerun leader in the Federal Association is young Detroit star Sal Pestilli with 16. In the Continental Association it is his older brother Alf of the Brooklyn Kings. There are talks the struggling Kings are considering moving 27 year old Alf because they feel a move is needed to wake the team out of it's year long slumber. What are the chances that Sal and Alf might be teammates before the trade deadline? Detroit's offense has struggled and you have to think Alf might give it the jolt it's looking for and the Dynamos might just have enough young talent to reunite the former Narragansett College teammates as big leaguers in the Detroit outfield.
• The Dynamos have decided that the future is now for at least an audition at 2B for Vince D'Alessandro. He will get some starts this week in Washington and maybe even in Pittsburgh as well. Elmer Nolde who had a great year last year is losing some playing time to Doc Love in LF. Elmer is a part of the Dynamo's offensive funk in '39.
• Detroit's GM is said to be looking at changes within the coaching staff, particularly hitting coach Jim Webb. Also there have been reports that the GM has reached out to former Cleveland manager Jim Wilson who he hired as manager there. Wilson abruptly retired at 36 after several GM changes in the off-season. Could he be a target to either manage or be on the coaching staff in 1940?
• The good news, Detroit finished its sweep of Pittsburgh on Monday with a 14-1 thumping of the Miners. SP Frank Crawford got the win in that one to improve to 9-1. The bad news is the Dynamos could have used a few of those runs scored on Monday as they flopped in losing both their road series because of the offense going 2-4. So after moving to within 1 game of first place, they find themselves in 3rd place 3 1/2 games out after the 3-4 week. SP Frank Crawford picked up another win in Boston to move to an FABL leading 10-1 record and a 1.82 ERA. Poor SP William Jones (1-9 3.55) went 6 innings and gave up just 2 runs in Sunday's game against Boston and was in line for his 2nd win leading 3-2. Then Curly Jones who has pitched well in relief had one of those games in the bottom of the 7th. The 3-2 lead vanished with a 6 run explosion and so did Jones chances of winning in an 8-3 loss.
• Washington this year has been a... strange beast. They simultaneously have 2 of the best and 2 of the worst starters in the league; with Jack Elder and certified old man Eddie Quinn emerging as two of the best pitchers in the business, posting a 3.34 and 2.35(!!) ERA, respectively; meanwhile, Bobo White and Bill Anderson have been equally bad, posting ERAs well above four and accounting for the lions share of Washington losses. Although long-time fans of Washington - yes there actually are a few of them - are not surprised especially with Anderson who has been occasionally great but far more often awful since coming over from Toronto in 1936.
• If you look only on the surface is there a worse trade in recent memory than the one the Washington Eagles made to send Mel Carrol to Cleveland for Sergio Gonzales and Mel Hancock Jr? Carrol hit over .400 a couple seasons ago and is presently leading the CA with a .375 batting average. What have Gonzales and Hancock Jr done for Washington? Well, nothing since both are gone. Gonzales is pitching great in Detroit (7-5, 3.17) and the Pup is with the New York Stars for whom he is batting .252. Dig a little deeper and it is not quite as bad for Washington since they did turn Gonzales into a fine young pitching prospect in Art Brandon but he was flipped quickly to Pittsburgh along with veteran Andy Carter for Leon Blackridge. Hancock was more or less a throw in with Moxie Pidgeon in the deal that brought pitching prospects Johnnie Jones, Jim Douglass and Bill Robison from New York. One could easily argue had the Eagles hung on to Carrol they could have included Carter in place of Hancock in New York deal for the young arms so, while it is a complicated series of transactions it really can be boiled down to would you have rather had Mel Carrol or Leon Blackridge playing third base for you? Blackridge is 23 and has promise but Carrol is still just 27 and arguably the best third baseman in the game.
• In Pittsburgh, SS Johnny Guzzo is hitting well enough, but his defense has fallen off a cliff and now he's just barely average there after years of thrilling the minor league crowds with his glove. It's disappointing that his bat finally came around at the same time his glove fell apart.
  So, word is Les Tucker is going to move back over to SS for a bit, while 3B will be manned by young Ben Cook, who is 24 and has skyrocketed up the prospect list the last few months and is sitting at #79 currently. The switch hitter hit .352/.420/.408 in 16 games for AA Birmingham, then .436/.484/.873 in 14 games for AAA St. Paul. He's gotten to the plate 32 times with a few starts at both 3rd and 1st, and has hit .393/.469/.500 so far in the FABL. He'll bat 8th all week as the Miners look to extend their lead in the FA while enjoying a homestand.
• Three one-run losses this week and a 2-5 week overall saw the St Louis Pioneers record dip below .500 for the first time this season. Pioneers skipper George Sparkman says "I really do not think we are a sub-.500 team so I hope the team picks things up the rest of the way."
• Missed opportunities are the story of the entire season for the Brooklyn offense, who were blanked in back to back games by the Chicago Cougars over the weekend. Sunday's 1-0 loss when the only run was a 5th inning solo homer by former King Mike Taylor off of Tom Barrell is a microcosm of the Brooklyn season. The Kings had bases loaded in the fourth inning with 2 out when it was still scoreless and could have broke the game open when John Langille hit what looked (by the OOTP graphics anyway) like a sure single but Carlos Montes made a sliding catch in center field after charging in hard to end the threat. Brooklyn had another shot in 6th after the Taylor homer when, with runners on the corners and 2 out, Frank Lightbody ripped another ball to center that looked like a sure hit to score the tying run only to see Montes make a diving catch. The Cougars centerfielder made a third diving play for the first out in the 8th inning. Finally in the top of the 9th after Alf Pestilli hits a 1-out single the guy you would normally want up in this situation - Al Wheeler- steps up but promptly becomes the 9th strikeout victim of Pete Papenfus, who pitched what might have been the best game of his young career in the victory.
• Remember Dan Rogers? The Kings first round pick in 1934 who dropped like a rock from 51st to close to 500th on the top prospect list in his first season. Well he was hitting .267 with 6 homers in 40 games at AAA Rochester and is in his final year before Brooklyn has to decide whether or not to place him on the 40-man roster when the Rule 5 draft comes around. Kings Scouting Director John Spears thinks he can be a pretty solid hitter so with an opening on their 24-man roster after sending Sergio Vergara down to get some starts and hopefully regain his confidence, Mr Rogers is now in the Kings County neighborhood.
• Count the Kings organization as one trying to do things the right way. They drafted catcher Curt Reed in the 14th round (the auto portion) last week but are encouraging the 17 year old to go the college route as he has a scholarship offer from Noble Jones. A Rochester, NY native, Reed was told by the Kings they have so many young catchers in the system already they would hate to deprive the kid an education at such a fine school for half a dozen years of riding the bus in the low minors. The Kings did make a contract offer to their top pick. Bronx Tech outfielder Rats McGonigle was taken 4th overall and has been given a signing bonus reported to be for $25,000. There is a chance McGonigle will bypass the minors altogether and report directly to Brooklyn once he is signed.
• Toronto's system underwent a major renovation with the draftees coming in; a couple of former MLers were outrighted, one DFA. Walter Pack was promoted to the big club after much consideration, slashing .396/.457/.728 could not be ignored any longer by management. Although Pack will not immediately force his way into the starting lineup some starters should be looking over their shoulders. In an associated move the pitching staff size was increased from 8 to 9 at manager Hank Leitzke's request, the bullpen has been horrid this season. Phil English may have finally had age catch up with him, one local scribe has said it looks like he is pitching BP. Toronto starters have not been performing to the standard set last season but there do not seem to be an viable options in the system at the moment.
• Although the season has been far from satisfactory the Wolves believe if they can find the right combination they feel they are just one extended winning streak away from the top of the CA. But that could also be said about everyone in the CA....well, except for Baltimore.
• Gothams fans are thrilled to see that Bunny Edwards' return to New York two weeks ago has gone a lot better than his first major league stint in May. In 3 starts since his return from AAA, Edwards is 3-0 with a 2.05 ERA in 22 innings. Edwards has brought some much needed stability to a shaky Gothams rotation.

• As Prime Minister Chamberlain insists Britain will get food and other essential supplies past the Japanese blockade in China, Japan reinforces it's barriers by erecting a 1000 volt electric wire barricade around the British and French concessions. Britain responds by moving two warships to the area as the United States officially sends a letter of protest to Tokyo.
• Tokyo also has to contend with renewed fighting with Mongolians along the border between Manchukuo and Soviet dominated outer Mongolia.
• The California coast was hit with it's worst earthquake since 1906. The quake centered near Pasadena caused considerable damage.

1939 season
 

July 3, 1939

DETROIT DOES DYNAMIC DEAL WITH BROOKLYN

The Detroit Dynamos made a big statement that they are "all in" on a pennant push this season after completing a seven player deal with the Brooklyn Kings late last night. The centerpieces of the the deal for Detroit are outfielder Alf Pestilli and 31 year old lefthander Mike Murphy at a cost of a pair of highly touted young prospects in pitcher Bill Willman and infielder Vince D'Alessandro.

The full details are Pestilli, Murphy and 20 year old minor league second baseman Joe York heading to Detroit with veteran reliever Curly Jones and young outfield prospect Ellison Sterner joining D'Alessandro and Willman on the trip east. Brooklyn also adds Detroit's first round pick next January and the Dynamos fourth rounder which is the opening round of the June phase of the 1940 draft.

The big story is Alf Pestilli now joins his younger brother Sal in the Detroit outfield. The 27 year old was leading the Continental Association in homers with 13 while batting .299 with 41 rbi's in what has proven to be a breakout season for him. The Dynamos hope this move helps kickstart their offense, one which was so strong a year ago but has struggled terribly this season. The 31 year old Murphy is no slouch either, with 3 all-star game appearances and a 115-69 record for his big league career.


Jiggs McGee's take: This is a pretty fair trade, with the Kings maybe getting the slight edge long term but Detroit wins in the short haul. Looking at the players sent to Detroit, obviously Alf Pestilli is having a strong season and reuniting with his brother, aside from the obvious morale boost in playing with Sal, should keep him motivated to continue his strong play. This acquisition gives the Dynamos a presumptive trio of Alf in LF, Sal in CF and Leon Drake in RF, moving Doc Love to the 4th OF spot for which he is probably best suited at this point in his career. Mike Murphy is a proven veteran arm who will give Detroit skipper George Theobald a fifth dependable starter as he improves an already solid quartet. The third piece is Joe York is the son of long-time former Dynamos star Dick York and following in his father's footsteps is a great story. Joe's not a shoo-in for a long-term FABL job, but he does have some upside and is still just 20 years old. if he pans out, this will look a lot better for the Dynamos than it does at first blush.

That is because the haul Detroit sent to Brooklyn is a big one. Pitcher Bill Willman is not Mike Murphy, but could be a serviceable back of the rotation arm for the Kings. At 23, he still has room to develop but he's currently not liable to be ready for FABL and is a better fit in Rochester where he can - the Kings hope - improve. Infielder Vince D'Alessandro is a nice pick-up for the Kings. He's not going to supplant Harry Barrell at short, and probably won't take the keystone spot currently looking like it's about to become the long-term territory of Jim Lightbody. So where does that leave Vince? As the heir presumptive to Frank Vance perhaps? This is likely where he will be best utilized. He won't have much pop, but should eventually become a capable FABL hitter and his field work is respectable too. OF Ellison Sterner is an intriguing piece. For starters, he hits right-handed, which is key for the southpaw-heavy Kings. For another, his bat is likely FABL-ready right now, at least according to Kings head scout John Spears who also feels Sterner has room to improve. He won't slug like the departed Alf Pestilli but should be, in all other ways, a fair replacement. Now we come to Curly Jones, who is back in Brooklyn for a second go-round. And Brooklyn was the site of the former first overall pick's best season (1937). Can he recapture the magic? Who knows, but he will be, at the very least, a decent right-handed arm for the bullpen who can also start when needed (and he wouldn't be a terrible starter either, though his stuff might occasionally let him down which is why he's likely going to earn his daily bread coming out of the pen). And to cap it off, the Kings got Detroit's 1st and 4th round picks in the next draft, which could yield nice returns as well.

Final thoughts: this helps both teams. The Dynamos get some additional pop and an arm to help catch the Miners (if they can, Pittsburgh is starting to look like a team of destiny). The Kings get an infusion of youth and right-handedness and while they take a short-term hit in talent, long-term they are likely to come out ahead when all the pieces are retired and a final summation can be made.

MINERS EXTEND LEAD

Their 10 game winning streak might have come to an end yesterday following a 2-1 loss to Detroit but the Miners latest hot streak has left them 3 games up on second place Boston and 5.5 ahead of Detroit. After getting off to a quick 5-1 start in April to open the season Pittsburgh has increased it's lead with back to back 18-11 months in both May and June. The Miners led the Federal Association in virtually every key offensive category and the pitching, especially the starting four of Charlie Stedman (9-7, 2.38), Lefty Allen (8-3, 3.24), Bill Ketterman (8-3, 4.46) and Karl Johnson (9-5, 3.79) has also been very solid.

JIGGS MCGEE'S ANNUAL ALL-STAR BALLOT IS REVEALED

The 7th annual All-Star game will be held in Cleveland in a little over two weeks so once again it is time to take a look at Jiggs McGee's all-star ballot. First up is the Federal Association.

FEDERAL ASSOCIATION

CATCHER: Tom Bird (.305,5,30) is having another strong season for the Chicago Chiefs and deserves to make the team but only as a backup to Pittsburgh catcher George Cleaves (.374,9,60) who leads the Fed in batting average and is a lock to make the Fed squad for the fifth time in the past six years. John Wicklund (.262,6,25) and Jack Flint (.281,6,44) have each appeared in two all-star games and are both having decent seasons in new locations this year - Detroit for Wicklund and the Gothams for Flint - but neither will displace Cleaves or Bird.

FIRST BASE: I mentioned in April after his outstanding spring that this could be a breakout year for Boston's Bob Donoghue (.350,12,50) and the 26 year old has certainly lived up to that billing so far. There are a number of first baseman having strong seasons including the Chiefs Ron Rattigan (.301,7,33) and Mahlon Strong (.312,4,25) in Pittsburgh if he could just stay healthy. The player I want to see on the team as Donoghue's understudy this year is a sentimental choice. Long-time Gothams star Bud Jameson (.349,3,32) has had his struggles in recent years but it would be great to see the 35 year old rewarded with what would surprisingly be his first all-star appearance.

SECOND BASE: He is not quite matching last season but Hank Barnett (.282,10,41) of the Chiefs gets the nod here despite the struggles his club has endured. I'll take Boston's Joe Nichols (.289,0,25) and his splendid defense as my backup but the race is close with a pair of youngsters in the Keystones Billy Woytek (.264,3,15) as well as Tommy Wilson (.316,3,21), who has done well in St Louis with the difficult task of replacing Freddie Jones. At the beginning of the season I would have picked Detroit's Ed Stewart (.234,2,17) as a likely candidate for his 5th all-star appearance but while his glove has been very good, Stewart is having a dreadful year at the plate and the Dynamos are looking to replace him.

SHORTSTOP: After much debate Detroit's Gil London (.310,2,23) gets my vote. For the backup I would select Mule Monier (.262,3,23) as the second year Gotham has been decent, but not as good as he was in a brief showing last year.

THIRD BASE: The Gothams infield will be something to see in a year or two and one of their young stars in Billy Dalton (.282,12,40) is already an all-star starter in my books. It was a tough choice but I think he deserves the nod over Frank LeMieux (.306,1,25) of Detroit, Pittsburgh's Les Tucker (.258,5,28) and 23 year old rookie Leon Blackridge (.308,4,30), who is quietly having a very good season in Washington after being trashed by his manager in spring training.

LEFT FIELD: Joe Owens (.339,2,21) got hurt the other day but hopefully it is just short term as the Pittsburgh lead-off man is a big reason for their offensive success and is my selection here. Bobby Small (.339,2,21) has not played a lot yet but he has come out of nowhere to be one of the few bright spots for the Chiefs this season. John Phillips (.309,5,16) is another nice surprise in New York.

CENTER FIELD: There are some very good centerfielders in the Fed such as Bobby Barrell (.286,11,38) of the Keystones, Sal Pestilli (.279,16,47) of Detroit and Pittsburgh's recent pickup Pablo Reyes (.316,5,47). All 3 have played in multiple all-star games and a case could be made for all three making the team as reserves this year but the starting centerfielder in my books has to be Boston's Chick Donnelly (.402,5,25) who is enjoying a career year as a 27 year old.

RIGHT FIELD: No shortage of right field candidates including Washington's Sam Brown (.321,10,40), Al Tucker (.320,5,45) of St Louis, Pittsburgh's Lew Seals (.300,7,57) and Cliff Moss (.324,9,34) from Chicago. I think a case could be easily made for any of the four as your starter but I am going to give my vote to Lew Seals who is enjoying a breakout season this year.

PITCHERS There are a lot of candidates here but we only can select three. Without a doubt my number one choice is Frank Crawford (12-1, 1.63) of Detroit, who had an outstanding season last year to lead Detroit's resurgence and has been even better this time around. Number two is another 12 game winner so far in Washington's Eddie Quinn (12-3, 2.49) who seems to have rediscovered the success he had a few years ago in Cleveland. There are quite a few I would like to add to the team and will make a special note about the Gothams Nate Spear (5-0, 1.28). Too bad he got hurt and has played so little or he might just have made his first all-star appearance. Pittsburgh's Lefty Allen (8-3, 3.24), Dick Higgins (9-5, 3.15) and Art Myers (9-3, 3.07) in Boston along with Charlie Wheeler (7-6, 2.98) in Detroit also are worth a look but the number three pitcher on my ballot will be Miners veteran Charlie Stedman (9-7, 2.38). The run support has often not been there over the years for Stedman and it is reflected in his won-loss record quite often but he has been very steady ever since joining the Miners three years ago. Does anyone else find it weird not to see a Chicago Chiefs pitcher on at least the shortlist, especially with Rabbit Day's (5-9, 4.38) absence from all-star consideration this year?

CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION

CATCHER: It is nice to see Mike Taylor (.306,5,30) having a solid season with the Cougars and even Fred Barrell (.260,1,22) and his powerful throwing arm is having a bit of a comeback year but they, as well as other candidates like Cleveland's Ken Vance (.324,0,29) and Woody Stone (.314,3,50) pale in comparison to Montreal's Adam Mullins (.356,5,53) who is an easy choice for my vote. I would take Stone as my backup given the choice but it would be close over Taylor.

FIRST BASE: I have a pair of sentimental choices here in veterans Dave Trowbridge (.354,5,45) of the Stars and Doug Lightbody (.283,3,18) who seems healthy again in Brooklyn. Neither can get my vote as much as I would love to give it to either of them, nor can Ray Ford (.302,7,33) of the Cougars. I can take some solace in being able to call Trowbridge my backup but the clear choice to start is without a doubt Toronto's Fred McCormick (.367,10,47) with Cleveland's Bill Moore (.391,3,29) getting special mention. Just a lack of games - he has played just 37 so far - kept the two-time Christian Trophy winner from Lubbock State from being considered.

SECOND BASE: I talked about him a couple of weeks ago and I see no reason to change my mind. Bob Smith (.344,5,45) of the Sailors gets my vote for his outstanding work both at the plate and in the field. Freddie Jones (.350,4,26) made the call very close in his first season with the Cougars after 7 strong years in St Louis but he will have to be content with coming off the bench if it was my call.

SHORTSTOP: Sentimentality may play a role here but I can't imagine an all-star game without a Barrell in it. Bobby is perhaps going to make the Fed side as a spare outfielder but I want to be sure we have one so my vote goes to Harry Barrell (.300,3,20) of Brooklyn who is having a solid year at the plate and another outstanding one with his glove. Barrell missed the '37 game but has been on the team for each of the other 5 all-star contests. He will make it this year but quite possibly as the backup behind Frank Davis (.353,1,35) who is having a terrific season for Montreal.

THIRD BASE: I believe Frank Vance (.270,4,33) is the only player to appear in all 6 previous all-star games. That will change this season as Vance is very unlikely to make the squad. Cleveland star Mel Carrol (.382,6,45) is an easy choice for the staring spot and one could debate between Ray Cochran (.324,3,23) of the Stars and the Cougars John Lawson (.307,11,45) for the backup spot. I'll give the nod to Lawson in my books.

LEFT FIELD: Here is a real quandary. Up until last night I would have voted for Alf Pestilli (.299,13,41) but he was just traded to Detroit so my vote has to shift to the Stars Moxie Pidgeon (.308,12,46). It would be Pidgeon's 5th all-star appearance as he has already made two for each association. There are some other good choices who deserve to be on the team but the outfield is always packed with talent. They include Joe Watson (.344,4,41) of Philadelphia, Leo Mitchell (.348,4,37) of the Cougars, Cleveland's Roy Bradley (.311,5,32) and Montreal youngster Bert Lass (.315,4,29)

CENTER FIELD: There is not really a dominant center fielder this year but I will give the vote to Howard Brown Jr. (.309,2,31) who joined Brooklyn from the Gothams over the winter. Don Homer (.306,0,26) of Philadelphia is also a possibility. Chink Stickels (.262,2,33) was the clear choice last season but he has struggled this year despite the Stars incredible offensive success. A note, if I was allowed I would not select a center fielder at all and give the recognition to another one of the many deserving corner guys.

RIGHT FIELD: Everyone in the league feels that Bill Barrett (.281,10,40) is ready to dominate for years to come but the 19 year old New York Stars outfielder, who recently enjoyed a 3-homer game, is not quite set to claim the starting spot in the all-star game yet. I will name him as a backup just because everyone wants to see this kid play but the nod as the starter goes to Montreal's Red Bond (.331,8,43). Brooklyn's Al Wheeler (.254,12,42) is having a down year by his standards but still has a dozen homers and Whit Williams (.299,7,41) is one of the few bright spots in Baltimore this season but both will come up short although may be considered for a reserve spot.

PITCHERS: Joe Hancock (9-5, 2.39) of Toronto is my starter. I also feel George Phillips (9-3, 4.26) of the Stars and veteran Chicago pitcher Dick Lyons (6-5, 3.14) are worthy of selection but to be honest there are not a lot of CA pitchers who have really stood out this season. Baltimore's Gus Goulding's (5-9, 3.71) comes close as does Art White (6-4, 3.65) of Brooklyn or Toronto's Bernie Johnson (4-7, 3.50). Cleveland's Lou Martino (4-1, 2.29) perhaps but he has pitched just 78 innings. Bob Walls (6-6, 3.49) comes very close as he has done well of late after overcoming a very rough start to the season but I would say the premier pitchers, or at least the pitchers posting premier stats this season, primarily reside in the Federal Association.

QUICK HITS

• Pennant tension hitting early in the Fed. Detroit manager George Theobald is old school, and certainly made that fact known to Lefty Allen after the Miners ace celebrated a little too vociferously (at least in Theobald's opinion) after blanking Detroit 1-0 on a 3-hitter. Theobald was on the field as quickly as his 76 year old legs could take him, finger wagging at Allen all the way to chastise the Pittsburgh pitcher. That drew a crowd and some choice words for Theobald in defense of his star lefty from Miners manager Dan Andrew. Plenty of milling about and verbal exchanges but fortunately cooler heads prevailed and it progressed no further. Theobald refused to comment on the incident afterwards but Allen, who improved to 8-3 on the season did confirm that it was regarding the celebration. "He basically told me I was being a lousy winner," Allen said. To which Andrew promptly added "And I told him he was being a lousy loser."
  The Miners also beat Detroit the next night but the Dynamos salvaged a game from the series with a 2-1 win on Sunday and now trail the Miners by 6 games.
• Boston must be wondering what it will take to catch the Miners. The Minutemen went 4-2 this week but still dropped another game in the standings to Pittsburgh and remain in second place but now 3 games back. Boston has won 8 of it's last 11 games but Pittsburgh is 10-1 over that span.
• The Pittsburgh Miners' outfield of Joe Owens, Pablo Reyes, and Lew Seals all have a chance at making the all star team. No team has ever had their entire OF make the midsummer classic and with the competition in the Fed this season it is almost a certainty that at best two of the 3 Miners will get the nod?
• 'It was fun while it lasted" lamented New York Gothams fans after the club's pitching imploded last week, dropping 7 straight ball games and getting outscored 63-21 in the process. The Gothams are now 6 games below the break even mark and what started as a pretty decent season in the debut of Gothams Stadium is in danger of ending very badly. Finding quality pitching has been a big problem in New York the past few years and with 23 year old Nate Spear (5-0, 1.28) slated to miss two more weeks there seems to be no one aside from veteran Oscar Morse (7-6, 3.70) capable of providing a quality start for the Gothams...and even Morse was not immune last week as the 36 year old was blasted by Pittsburgh in what was his worst outing so far this season.
• While certainly not to the extent of the Gothams, count St Louis as another team in the Fed that is struggling off late. The Pioneers have dropped 10 of their last 16 games and are now 10 back of Pittsburgh. They do feel lucky to even win 3 of their 7 contests last week considering their top three hitters combined to go 19-73(.260) with only 2 RBI's between them.
• The Montreal Saints have been extremely consistent this season, posting a 3-3 mark in April, 15-15 in May and now 15-14 for June. They also split their first two July games to remain 1 game over .500 on the year. There is worry in Quebec as Dilly Ward (.292,2,14), who was tabbed to take over for the traded Pablo Reyes patrolling center field is hurt for the fourth time this season. The 25 year old missed 3 weeks in spring with a bad back, was bothered by a sore calf in early May and shortly thereafter an elbow injury knocked him out of action for 6 weeks. He returns for 9 games in which he hits over .300 only to suffer a shoulder injury on the weekend that likely spells the end of his season.
• With 4 hits last week Doug Lightbody is up to 1899 for his career. Only Ira Williams with 2022 has had more hits in a Brooklyn uniform than The Mississippi Mouth. Brooklyn fans have wondered about the 35 year old's Hall of Fame chances. I think he falls just short but it is a shame what could have been had Lightbody not been so injury plagued throughout his career. Over the years Lightbody has missed well over 600 games with injuries so assuming the same hitting rate he would be well over 2,500 hits at this point and might even have had a shot at 3,000 before his career came to an end. Lightbody won a pair of batting titles (1927 & 1934), played on 4 pennant winners and 1 WCS winning Kings club and won the Whitney Award as a 23 year old in his second pro season. He led the CA in runs scored 3 times, OBP 4-times and triples twice. His 35 triples in 1928 before his legs gave out is the highest total we have seen since that season.
• New King infielder Jim Lightbody's swing has been compared to his cousin Doug but Kings fans are worried the youngster also shares Doug's penchant for injury. Jim is listed as day-to-day with a sprained thumb but since it is expected to take a few weeks to heal the Kings have put him on the disabled list as they don't want to take any chances with the 22 year old who is hitting .300 through his first 3 weeks of big league action. Jim's path to the big leagues was delayed last season when he missed 4 months with a leg injury.
• Not very often you can win a game when your offense only gives you one hit but that's what Brooklyn's Jack Goff did in his season debut for the Kings. Called up to replace the traded Mike Murphy, the 23 year old son of Kings bench coach Danny Goff, tossed a 6-hit shutout blanking the Philadelphia Sailors 1-0. The only run came when Fred Barrell walked to lead off the third inning, moved to second on Goff's sacrifice and scored on a Howard Brown Jr single that turned out to be the only hit Sailors starter Dutch Sheldon and reliever Merritt Thomas allowed all day. The plan was for Goff to go right back down to Rochester but his efforts earned him at least one more start with the big club.
• One more from Brooklyn. The Kings have confirmed that Rats McGonigle will be their starting centerfielder when they next take the field. That will be Tuesday in Baltimore and it will allow the Bronx Tech product to join Doug Lightbody, Freddie Jones and Sal Pestilli as players who bypassed the minors and went straight from college to the big leagues.

• Japan widens it's blockades in China ports but is also said to be seeking a solution with Britain for the situation in Tientsin.
• Japanese warplanes crossed into Soviet dominated Mongolia as heavy border fighting continues.
• Winston Churchill spoke at a luncheon this week, warning tensions in Europe are expected "to become most severe" over the next three months adding he wishes he "could convince Herr Hitler that the British nation and surely also the British Empire have reached the limit of their patience" with Germany.
• Millions of Poles swore a solemn oath at nationwide gatherings that "the united Polish people will never allow themselves to be cut off from the Baltic Sea" and vowed they will never yield Danzig. Meanwhile, Nazis say Hitler will visit Danzig later this month and they predict a peaceful return of the city to the Reich about the same time.
• Paris sees Europe drifting into serious crisis following reports Germany has called up 600,000 reservists and that Italian military equipment is entering Germany.
• Britain and France again warn the Reich they will back Poland against aggression.

1939 Season
 

July 10, 1939

THE MINUTEMEN ARE COMING! THE MINUTEMEN ARE COMING!

Don't look now but there is a revolution being staged against the Pittsburgh Miners expected rule of the Federal Association. The Boston Minutemen, winners of 6 straight including a pair over the Miners and 14 of their last 18 games, have pulled even with Pittsburgh and it's vaunted offense atop the Fed. While Boston was winning the Miners suffered through their second losing week of the season and second in the past 4 weeks.

It started for Pittsburgh with a trip to Philadelphia where the Miners did take two of three from the struggling Keystones but the July 4th game - the one Pittsburgh lost - was certainly stacked against them. It was a very emotional day for the Keystones and their fans, so emotional that star outfielder Bobby Barrell was kept out of the lineup after the ceremony to celebrate the career of Rankin Kellogg's was concluded. There wasn't a dry eye in the house as it was perhaps the last appearance the ailing Kellogg will ever make at Broad Street Park and his teammates, in particular Barrell, where certainly overcome with emotion as were some of the Pittsburgh players. Philadelphia won the game 8-1 for their only win of the week.

After taking the series finale in Philadelphia the Miners moved on to Cunningham Field where they were beaten twice by the surging Minutemen. Boston, fresh off taking two of three from the Eagles in Washington, returned home to beat Pittsburgh 6-5 on Thursday thanks to a 2-run 9th inning capped by Bob Corvin's game winning rbi single. The next day the Minutemen beat up Pittsburgh's Lefty Allen in a 9-3 victory that allowed Dick Higgins to run his record to 10-6 with the little talked about Corvin once again coming up big, delivering a bases-loaded 3-run double to open the scoring in the fourth inning. From there Boston welcome Philadelphia and handed the Keystones two more losses while Pittsburgh could manage just a split over the weekend in Washington. The all-star break is just a week away but before that we have a very big series coming up in the Federal Association as the Miners welcome Boston to Fitzpatrick Park for a 3-game set including a doubleheader to open the series on Tuesday.

Don't count Detroit out of the race either as the Dynamos won 5 straight games to move within 3.5 of the co-leaders. Alf Pestilli hit his first homerun since joining his brother Sal in the Detroit outfield while Sal, likely wanting to show up his big brother, hit 2 more this week to increase is FABL leading total to 18.

6-1 WEEK HAVE MINUTMEN SHARING TOP SPOT IN THE FED

Courtesy of William 'Doc' Shaw and The Boston Globe

After dropping the opening game of the week to Washington, the Minutemen reeled off six straight victories which included two against Pittsburgh, to pull even with the Miners atop the FA, with a 45-28 record. Currently, Boston is 7-2 for the month of July with a week to go before the all-star break. Although the week ended in glorious fashion it sure did not start off that way for Boston starter Dick Higgins. Higgins allowed four earned runs and although the offense made a furious comeback in the eighth inning the Minutemen still fell short by the score of 4-3. In game two of the series Mike Lee tried to right the ship for the Minutemen. Things started well enough as the offense scored two in the top of the first only to have Lee relinquish the cushion and the lead by allowing three runs in the bottom half of the frame. Boston’s offense couldn’t be silenced that easily though as they scored two more in the third to take the lead back. Washington would tie the game in the fourth but Boston would pull away with runs in the seventh and eighth innings. Boston would take the series the next day thanks in part to a homer by Mack Sutton (12th) and a strong outing from John Edwards.

With Washington out of the way it was time for the boys to head home to play the Miners. Art Myers took the ball for game one of the series and was pitching quite well until a costly error allowed four unearned runs to score. It was looking like The Miners were going to come away with the victory until the Minutemen rallied in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. LF Bob Corvin produced the walk-off winner for Boston. In the final game of the series a crowd of just over 10,000 people watched Dick Higgins (10-6) hold the Pittsburgh lineup in check as the Minutemen battered Pittsburgh starter Lefty Allen for six earned runs on their way to a 9-3 win. Bob Donoghue hit a two run homer (13th) off of Allen in the seventh sending him to the showers. Ed Wood’s only start of the week came in the opening game of a two game series against the Keystones. Wood was dominant as he held Philadelphia to three hits over eight innings. Wood left the game with a no-decision after eight complete, allowing Jim Hazeltine to collect the win on a Pete Day walk off single. Mike Lee (8-5) was the starter for the final game of the series and had his offense to thank for the win he would receive. The Minutemen would pound out ten runs on 11 hits in the 10-5 win.

Boston will now get a travel day as they head to Pittsburgh for three games in two days against the Miners. You can be sure the eyes of the FABL world will be following that series. After the series in Pittsburgh it will be another off day as the club will travel to Philadelphia to play the Keystones in the last series of the first half of the season.

WILLIAM 'DOC' SHAW'S ALL-STAR BALLOT

Since its inception in 1933 Ol’ Doc has had the pleasure of submitting a ballot for the annual FABL All-Star game. The ‘39 edition of the mid-summer classic will be held at Forester Stadium in Cleveland. Ol’ Doc feels like a pair of Minutemen have a shot at starting spots on the FA side of the ledger. Ol’ Doc’s method of selection is pretty simple. I look at the league leaderboards and make a decision. Pretty simple actually, but yet, every year it leads to debate within my baseball writing brethren. Here is how Ol’ Doc figures it this season.
FEDERAL ASSOCIATION:
Starting Pitchers: Frank Crawford, DET. Eddie Quinn, WASH.Charlie Stedman, PIT.
There has been some debate about which hurler deserves to lead the charge for the FA but to Ol’ doc it seems pretty straight forward. Frank Crawford has been the model of quality and consistency as he is 12-1 with a 1.63 ERA. Now Eddie Quinn in Washington is also having an outstanding season but to these old eyes Crawford is a bit better as he is a bit more efficient having only walked 28 batters while Eddie has more walks than strikeouts on the season. This year the honor should go to Crawford.

Catcher: George Cleaves, PIT.
This is another position that has drawn some controversy this season. Four time all-star Tom Bird is the perennial first name out of people’s mouths when one thinks of top backstops in the FA. However, this season Mr. Cleaves out of Pittsburgh has just been better in pretty much every offensive category. Without a doubt Bird will be on the team but the starting spot should go to Cleaves.

First Base: Bob Donoghue, BOS.
Writers in the New York region will probably pull for Bud Jameson here and in the nation's capital Harry Shumate will receive some support but the real clear cut player is “Mr. Clout” Bob Donoghue from your own Boston Minutemen. Donoghue is looking for his first all-star selection with a .350 average with 12 homers and 50 RBI’s. He also leads all FA first sackers in OBP. and slugging among other things. Whether it is in a starting role or not Donoghue is essentially guaranteed to make the squad.

Second Base: Hank Barnett, CHI.
There really is no debate here. There have been some slight rumblings out of Brooklyn about Joe Nichols' season in Boston this year. As much as we love Joe here in Boston, Ol' Doc prides himself on not looking at things through Minutemen glasses. Barnett is the clear and obvious choice. The best Nichols could hope for is a complementary role on the team, although that doesn’t seem likely either.

Third Base: Billy Dalton, NYG
Now before Boston fanatics prepare the tar and feathers for me the next time I walk into McGreevys for the omission of Mack Sutton, let me offer this. Everything that Mack excels at Dalton has been slightly better at this season. Also the things Sutton has yet to grasp, Dalton has done. Ol’ Doc is looking forward to the “Arkansas Artilleryman” making numerous all-star games, and he may just make this one as a reserve, but a starter he is not.

Shortstop: Gil London, DET
Miners fans would probably claim that Johnny Guzzo should be the starter at short for the FA over London but Ol’ Doc doesn’t see it that way. While Guzzo does lead all FA SS in home runs at four, that number doesn’t really hold much weight as there are several batters that are over the double digit mark already this season. What does matter to is that London has a batting average that is over 40 points better than Guzzo. London is also on base much more than Guzzo and is only slightly behind him in slugging percentage.

Left Field: Joe Owens, PIT
Ol’ Doc would love to be able to nominate Boston outfielder Pete Day here. Unfortunately, if we are going to use certain parameters for the exclusion of other players we have to do the same here for Day. In the important categories Owens has just been slightly better. In general, the FA is blessed with really solid outfielders, so it is even questionable if Day makes it as a reserve.

Center Field: Chick Donnelly, BOS.
This one is Ol’ Doc’s most controversial pick because Sal Pestilli’s power numbers play well for him here. I’m very confident Pestilli will find his way on the FA roster as well. Donnelly was the choice here because he is an on base machine and is hitting a whopping .402 on the season. This was really about celebrating a player that is having an above and beyond season thus far. Both men are deserving and if Pestilli ends up in the starters position it would be hard to argue that he does not deserve it as well.

Right Field: Lew Seals, PIT.
Mel Alvarez of Boston has the best average, Sam Brown in Washington the most homers, but Lew seals is easily the best all around player here. Seals gets on base a ton and produces with runners on base. He is easily the frontrunner in RF for the FA.

CONTINENTAL ASSOCITON
Starting Pitchers: Joe Hancock, TOR. Dick Lyons, CHI. Rufus Barrell II, BAL.
Hancock and Lyons were locks. It was the third pitcher that Ol’ Doc had trouble with. Lou Martino in Cleveland looks like a solid choice except his lack of innings leave him off the official ballot. Bob Walls in Toronto was another consideration but once again, not on the ballot. Lou Ellerston is considered a reliever. So what we were left to select from Rufus Barrell II was our choice. If someone makes it ahead of Barrell II this would not shock or upset me.

Catcher: Adam Mullins, MON.
This was an easy choice but look for Woody Stone from the Sailors to also get selected.

First Base: Fred McCormick, TOR.
40 year old Dave Trowbridge is a feel good story for the stars but McCormick is just better everywhere. This was also an easy choice.

Second Base: Freddie Jones, CHI.
If you are sensing a theme here about easy choices this is yet another one. “Frederick the Great” is a lock to make the start at 2nd base for th CA. It will be his fifth all-star selection.

Third Base: Mel Carrol, CLE
Much like at first base, 36 year old John Lawson is having a fine season for the Cougars, Carrol is just better. Offensively, Mel is a force to be reckoned with. It is hard to see anyone else getting the starting nod in the CA.

Shortstop: Frank Davis, MON.
Harry Barrell is the name you know, Frank Davis is the name you should know. Davis was acquired from a trade with Detroit in ‘37 and is enjoying a breakout season this year. Davis leads all SS in the CA in average, RBI’s, OBP and slugging. He is having a fantastic year and deserves to be the starter at short.

Left Field: Joe Watson, PHI
Finally a tougher choice. This would have been an easy pick for Alf Pestilli, but the Kings traded him west to Detroit, so to this voter that makes him ineligible for the selection. So without Pestilli in the mix it was a choice between Watson, Pidgeon in New York and Leo Mitchell in Chicago. This was a tough choice but in the end Watson was the choice because of his average, OBP and his extra base hits.

Center Field: Howard Brown Jr., BRK.
Two former Minutemen Dan Fowler (CLE) and Brown Jr. were in the mix with Chink Stickles for this selection. However, Ol’ Doc doesn’t like power without average and it was really hard for him to select Fowler with a .224 average and Stickles with a .262 average. That left Brown Jr. as the choice. Don Homer made a strong case as well.

Right Field: Red Bond, MON.
Bill Barrett is having a fine rookie season in New York and Al Wheeler can still muscle a ball out of the yard with the best of them but Red Bond has been the better all around performer. It seems very likely Bond will earn his first all-star appearance (and start) of his young career.

Well folks, there you have it. It will be interesting to see what the official choices are as they are to be announced next week. However it shakes out my prediction will be that the Federal Association will edge out the Continental Association for the victory.

DYNAMOS MAKE TWO MORE DEALS

The Detroit Dynamos are doing more negotiating lately than the city's automakers and the UAW. Just a week after acquiring slugger Alf Pestilli and lefthander Mike Murphy from the Brooklyn Kings the Dynamos were back at it again as they pulled off a pair of trades with New York teams. The first move saw the Dynamos partner up with the surprising New York Stars - a team trying to be this years version of last season miracle Detroit club - as they teamed up on a 6 player transaction. It was immediately followed by another Detroit move as the Dynamos partnered once again with the Brooklyn Kings with this one seeing 5 players change organizations.

The first deal saw Detroit ship veteran righthander William Jones (2-10, 3.41) along with AAA pitching prospect Lou Robertson and young AA third baseman Frank Cook to the Stars in exchange for three youngsters and a 4th round draft pick. The young players coming back to Detroit are highlighted by Constantine Peters, a 23 year old third baseman who was originally a lottery signing of the New York Gothams in 1938 and was batting .316 with 8 homers at AAA Los Angeles. Joining Peters is pitcher Frank Gordon, who learns he has traded on his 25th birthday. Gordon pitched briefly for the Stars last season but was 9-5 with a 5.18 era for Los Angeles in the offense happy Great Western League. The Stars continued what has been a trend this season of moving young pitching prospects by also sending 19 year old righthander Charlie Ashmore to Detroit. A fourth round pick last year, Ashmore was recently moved up from Class C to B by the Stars and was ranked just outside the top 100 prospects by OSA.

It was the addition of Peters that probably gave Detroit the confidence to make their second deal of the day as they sent their starting third baseman in 25 year old Frank LeMieux (.314,1,26) to the Kings along with a pair of young pitchers in 25 year old Stumpy Beaman (2-9, 4.97 at AAA Newark) and Ike O'Donnell (6-5, 4.31 at Class A), a 22 year old Michigan native who was a 1935 6th round pick by his hometown club. In return the Dynamos get older but also get plenty of talent for a push to catch Boston and Pittsburgh by adding 35 year old lefthander Joe Shaffner (5-9, 3.64) and they bring back former Detroit star third baseman Frank Vance (.273,4,35) who left Detroit for the Kings along with Al Wheeler in 1935.

JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE:Clearly Detroit needed both deals to come together to be able to do the Brooklyn trade. The Dynamos feel Pittsburgh is their main competition (although Boston has had something to say about that the last couple of weeks) and believe the key to beating the Miners is with lefthanded pitchers. Pittsburgh is just 10-9 vs lefty's as opposed to 35-19 vs RHP. Shaffner and Murphy are both much better than their records in Brooklyn indicated and I really like Detroit's pitching now. I am, to be honest, a little worried about Vance. His glove is sound-among the best third baseman anywhere - but I think he is a step down from LeMieux, not to mention 12 years older. For this season perhaps it makes sense as Vance has a wealth of post-season experience and was a fan favourite in his first go-round with the Dynamos.

From Brooklyn the deal makes sense as the Tom Barrell season ending injury convinced the Kings once and for all this season is write-off. Shaffner is 35 but still very effective and will be missed. LeMieux should replace Vance fine but the key to Brooklyn feeling comfortable with this deal a year or two from now relies on either Stumpy Beaman or the youngster Ike O'Donnell developing into a quality big league pitcher.

Don't sleep on the fact that the New York Stars made a statement here too. It does worry me a bit they parted ways with more young talent (they did add a pair of prospects as well) but I can't have it both ways and complain about teams like Baltimore or the Gothams stockpiling youth at the expense of competitiveness on one hand and blasting the Stars for dealing youth on the other. I wrote a year ago that the Stars had an incredible pool of talent and just needed a new GM to put all the pieces together. It is looking more and more like the new man in New York has done just that and I love the addition of William Jones to the Stars rotation. He is so much better than his 2-10 record in Detroit indicates and perhaps a return to the CA and maybe some run support from the potent Stars offense will bring that out. This is looking like a year full of surprises especially in the CA so what's to stop the New York Stars from pulling off the ultimate surprise in going from four straight losing seasons to the World Championship Series? It is still likely far too early to talk about that happening but the Stars are a better team now than they were before the deal was made. They might need to make another deal or two, as I would feel much more comfortable if they could improve upon Clark Car at second base and doing so might help more than the addition of Jones. The one downside with Jones and perhaps why the New York pitching has not doing better is Jones, and the rest of the starters, are all groundball pitchers and I do not have a lot of confidence in the territory that Car and shortstop Joe Angevine cover in the middle of the New York infield. I would love to see Angevine shifted to second base next spring and a true glove man installed at shortstop for the Stars a year from now. They have plenty of offense elsewhere so sacrificing a little for an outstanding shortstop might give their pitching staff the boost it needs.

FREDDIE FARHAT'S TAKEDetroit really had to do both deals to make the one with Brooklyn work long term. William Jones was the #11 rated pitcher according to OSA(#4 out of 5 on Detroit's staff behind Crawford, Gonzales, Wheeler with Mike Murphy #14). So the swap was #11 for #19 lefty Shaffner. Both are 35 so Detroit didn't feel like they were losing much with the swap of Shaffner for Jones.

With Jones going to the New York Stars (Pittsburgh among others were interested in him) the prize for Detroit was 3B Peters. That is where they were hung up. Detroit really wanted the 3B depth behind the aging Vance to cover for the solid hitting LeMieux going to Brooklyn. So the Dynamos traded some prospects for some older vets but tried to balance it out. With a young pitching surplus they traded some pieces but brought back a few and drafted Mangum who really isn't as far down the ladder as some in the Detroit organization first feared. If youngsters Grell or Mangum work their way into the top 50, Detroit is feeling pretty good about where they are at for the future while the veterans Crawford, Shaffner, and Murphy take them hopefully to the playoffs for a few years.

Detroit would have had great trouble completing the Brooklyn trade without the pieces coming back in the New York trade. Getting Peters was the key as he is multi-positional but someone I am counting on by 1941 to replace Vance as the everyday third sacker.

BROOKLYN REACTS TO THE SUDDEN CHANGE IN KINGS FORTUNES

Courtesy of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

What a difference a few months makes! The Brooklyn Kings entered this season a favourite in the eyes of most observers (including yours truly) to claim their fourth consecutive pennant - a feat never before accomplished by a Continental Association club. As we approach the all-star break the Kings have been anything but regal, posting a dreadful 32-38 record and sitting in the bottom half of the CA for the first time since 1933.

Despite the slow start up until this past week there was still some part of me, and I am sure some small part of many a Brooklyn supporter, who felt the club could still win the CA. Yes they just dealt Alf Pestilli and his 13 homers and parted way with Mike Murphy, but Murphy was struggling and the Kings had Art White and a rapidly improving Bob Cummings on the hill. Plus one just had a feeling that Al Wheeler would get going, maybe Bronx Tech rookie Rats McGonigle would be the spark the team needed and maybe Tom Barrell and Joe Shaffner would catch fire. Plus I have serious questions about the teams at the top of the CA right now.

But everything changed two days ago when Tom Barrell left the mound after 6 shutout innings in Montreal. The team would learn the next day Barrell's season was over and has career perhaps hung as limp as his battered right arm dangling from a destroyed shoulder. Doctors are confident that, with time to heal, Tom will be as good as new come spring but his season and with it the slim hopes of that record 4th pennant or extending their own record of five consecutive 90-win seasons were dashed.

There had been some talk the past few weeks that the Kings needed to shake things up. They tried to lure Bobby Barrell out of Philadelphia by offering the Keystones some young talent for the only one of the 5-big league playing Barrell brothers never to suit up in a Brooklyn uniform but that fell through. In hindsight it is probably a very good thing the Keystones wanted nothing to do with moving Bobby. Following another losing skid the Kings openly considered moving Al Wheeler but Wheeler told the team, both by his words and a strong week at the plate, that he had no desire to go anywhere else. Still the losses kept coming and the Kings finally made the decision to move Murphy and Pestilli to Detroit, adding more young talent and draft picks while also bringing Curly Jones back to the club.

That did not help either and another losing week ensued and it, coupled with the devastating injury to Tom Barrell, led the Kings to make another big move. Frank Vance and Joe Shaffner, a pair of Brooklyn's elder statesmen at 37 and 35 respectively were dispatched to Detroit for another group of young talent.

It is a new era for the Kings and a major makeover on the mound as the big three of Barrell, Murphy and Shaffner had been together since midway through the 1934 season and had combined to go 322-193 in a Brooklyn uniform, win 4 Allen Awards and make 9 all-star appearances. However with 2 traded and Barrell battered a new era begins with Art White and Bob Cummings as the 1-2 at the top of the rotation. The rest of the season will be an audition from Jack Goff, Sergio Vergera, Stumpy Beamon, Curly Jones and perhaps Bill Willman to see who will round out the rotation next year when the Kings have every intention to once again contend for the CA pennant.

With newly acquired Frank LaMieux handed the keys to 3B and Harry Barrell a fixture at shortstop the left side of the infield is set but John Langille will have to try and fend off youngsters Jim Lightbody and Vince D’Alessando if he wants to hang on to his second base job. Doug Lightbody will still play a lot at first as organization want to see the face of the franchise reach 2000 hits in a Brooklyn uniform (1899 presently) before he retires but expect top prospect Chuck Adams to get his at bats shortly as well. Tiny Tim Hopkins, like Adams a big bopping first baseman, is not very nimble but he is adapting to left field much better than the failed experiment with Adams went so expect to see him in Brooklyn shortly as well. McGonigle has center field as his job to lose and Al Wheeler has expressed a desire to remain a King so 2 of the 3 outfield spots are spoken for which does not leave a lot of at bats for Tiny Tim, Frank Lightbody and Howard Brown Jr, who may make the all-star team, to share. Perhaps we will see another deal or two made by Brooklyn before the end of the month, but even if they don't make any more moves this is now a much different team that what it was just a couple of months ago. The expectations of a title club, while abandoned this season, will be back next spring as the Kings have created a culture where winning is expected and, unlike the years and years when the organization appeared almost paralyzed by the Ghost of Ferdinand Hawkins, this team is committed to look forward not back.

QUICK HITS

• Rats McGonigle completed his non stop journey from the campus of Bronx Tech to Kings County with a 4-for-18 debut week including his first big league hit : a single off of Baltimore’s Lou Barker afterwards he promptly was caught attempting his first big league theft. All in all not a bad week for the player who is believed to be just the fourth to go straight from college to the big leagues: joining his Brooklyn teammate Doug Lightbody, Sal Pestilli of Detroit and Freddie Jones who debut with St Louis but now is with the Chicago Cougars.
• In case you are wondering how new Brooklyn outfielder Rats McGonigle got his nickname here is the story behind it. His real name is Cephus McGonigle and his father is a fire-and-brimstone preacher who wouldn't countenance anything close to swearing. So as a boy, young Cephus, when frustrated would use "Rats!" as an expletive-replacement. His friends quickly picked up on this and started calling him Rats. He turned out to like that better than being called Cephus. And his father, unsure about whether "Rats!" constituted foul language, never chastised his son for using it. But he still calls him Cephus.
• Is #1 pick Vic Carroll playing hardball with the Cannons or has he just not received an offer yet? Carroll, #6 pick Davey Robicheaux of the Keystones, an All-American from Bay State and #9 Bart Schneider of Cleveland are the only first rounders yet to report. Baltimore and Cleveland's second rounders have also not signed but all others have. Schneider, you might recall is one of triplets drafted this year out of a Detroit high school. The other two are both infielders and have each signed already. They were amazingly selected in succession - 7th, 8th and 9th in the January portion of the draft.
• One of them, Buddy Schneider made his pro debut at AAA Columbus and hit .321 with 2 homers and 11 RBI's. Not a bad 7 games for the 18 year old Boston prospect.
• It's very early but the Pioneers feel their draft went really well with their top three picks slotting into the top 56 prospects and they also have all of their guys signed and playing. 21 year old lefthander Mel Bianco, taken 10th overall out of Maryland State had a strong debut in Class B, fanning 9 and tossing a complete game 9-2 victory in his debut. 2nd rounder Bob Johnston Jr was also a Maryland State product where he was a first team All-American selection and he hit .476 with his first career pro homer at Class C Moline this week while St Louis native Harry Sharp - the All-American and Christian Trophy finalist from Red River State- has signed and will make his pro debut this week.
• With the injury to Joe Owens (4 weeks), former Washington Eagle Wally Flowers will get called up from AAA St. Paul where he's got a 169 OPS+. He'll share starts with Cy Bryant, Pinky Pierce and Henry Jones unless/until one of them gets hot and gets the majority of the starts.
• Ducky Jordan hit just .214 in his first 4 games with the Chiefs, but the positives were that he had a hit in 3 of the 4 games and he scored a run in each of the 4 games. And he showed a good glove at short as the Chiefs continue to try and find a replacement for the retired Pete Layton. Jordan was acquired in the deal that sent Jim Lonardo across town to the Cougars. Lonardo does not have a decision yet but he made two starts for the Cougars since the deal and his club won both of them.
• Chiefs might be rethinking the Lonardo deal as they now are without Al Miller. It has been a rough season (3-7, 4.10) for the 23 year old and now comes word his shoulder is acting up. Chiefs insiders insist it is nothing serious but they will rest the youngster who was 55-33 in his first 3 big league seasons prior to this year's struggles, just to be safe.
• Brooklyn also is likely lamenting the decision to move Mike Murphy to Detroit. Not just because the 31 year old lefthander looked great in his debut in St Louis but also because the Kings just lost ace Tom Barrell for the season when he blew out his elbow. It hasn't been a great year for the 31 year Barrell (7-6, 4.94) but he had been pitching much better of late and had a shutout going when he was forced to leave after 6 innings last week against Montreal. There is worry in Brooklyn that this is the type of injury some pitchers never recover from.
• The Wolves are at a cross roads. Trying to decide is which season, 1938 or 1939, is the outlier. If this season then the team will ride it out, chalk it up to experience, if it was last then it is time for change . This decision has to be made in short order. It will be easy to tell how management feels about the team, if Toronto is actively moving pieces from the 40-man then the GM believes 1939 reflects the real team.
• The New York Stars are leading the Continental Association but it is certainly not because of their defense. The Stars led the CA in errors with 98 and trail only the cross-town Gothams in all of FABL. One big reason is Clark Car who has committed 22 miscues already. Car, who came over from Baltimore just before the season started, finally finds his bat this week but causes 3 errors at 2 different positions in a 9-11 loss vs Baltimore. His errors were directly responsible for 2 runs. Not sure it should come as a surprise to the Stars brass. Car was a subpar defensive shortstop with Baltimore, and while he was stronger at second base he still booted an awful lot of balls there as well.

• Backing off a little, British Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs told the House of Commons today that Britain was obliged to resist aggression against Poland only in the event that there was a "clear threat" to Poland's independence. After a follow-up question asking if the policy included resistance to any attempt to change the status of the Free City of Danzig the Undersecretary would only refer his questioner to the "terms of our pledge to Poland, which Great Britain will certainly fulfill."
• Later in the week Prime Minister Chamberlain clarified London's position by telling Germany in a carefully worded statement also endorsed by France that Britain would stand by Poland in resisting any Nazi attempt to bring Danzig back into the Reich.
• A British warship anchored in the Yangtze River was suffered heavy damage after being hit by several errant bombs from Japanese warplanes in fighting with China. A US gunboat and the residence of the US Ambassador narrowly escaped being struck.
• New York City Mayor LaGuardia fired back at a Federal proposal to place a federal income tax on interest from State and municipal securities. LaGuardia warned "if you tax municipal bonds I'll tax every bit of real estate the Federal Government owns in New York City - and I'll collect it too."
• Five auto plants in Detroit are shut down as nearly 4,000 United Auto Workers Union members walk off the job

1939 Season
 

July 17, 1939

KELLOGG BIDS PREMATURE FAREWELL TO KEYSTONES

Courtesy of The Philadelphia Inquisitor

July 4, 1939 - PHILADELPHIA, PA -- Rankin Kellogg, the marvelous masher who suddenly and prematurely left the game he helped to transform, stood before the gathered crowd at Broad Street Park today. "I stand before you a humble man. Humble for your support over my career. Humble for the fight in front of me. If it weren't for you fans and the love of my family, I don't think I'd have the strength to fight another day."

Kellogg abruptly retired from the Keystones shortly after the conclusion of last season. Shortly after his shocking announcement, his diagnosis was revealed to be Myotonic Dystrophy, also known as Steinert Disease. Kellogg needed assistance up to the microphone from former teammates Bobby Barrell and Carl Ames before he addressed the crowd. It was evident his disease, which is degenerative, has already taken its toll.

It was a special, yet bittersweet, day for the Memphis Mauler. No Philadelphia Keystone will ever wear Kellogg's #30 on their back. Once a pillar of strength and masculinity, his numbers assured his entrance into the sport's Hall of Fame, a .335 batting average with 475 home runs and 1,841 runs batted in. Kellogg led the league in home runs six times and won Triple Crowns, as the league leader in batting average, home runs and runs batted in. He was also a metronome, missing only one game in his first 6 years and a total of 4 games missed in 12 years before missing 10 in season #13 and his finished his career by playing every game this past season. In all, Kellogg suited up in 2,143 out of a possible 2,157 regular season games.

Most importantly, in two of Kellogg's Triple Crown seasons, 1927 and 1933, the Keystones won it all. The current team barely resembles the club that won the World's Championship just six years ago. But, the Keystones turned back the clock in the game that followed the ceremony. First-place Pittsburgh was in town and the cross-state rivals went down in defeat. The Keystones won, 8-1, behind Pepper Tuttle, who scattered 10 hits in 8-1/3 innings for his second major-league win. Only Bobby Many and Grover Lee were members of that 1933 championship club that appeared in the game. Many had a bases-loaded double in the middle of a five-run 8th-inning that put the game out of reach.

In the game, Lee patrolled centerfield, spelling a visibly shaken Barrell. Ames, at this point a bench-player in the twilight of his solid career, also watched silently and pensively throughout Kellogg's speech and seemed dazed during the game. Ames was a teammate of Kellogg's for 14 seasons. Kellogg and Barrell are very close, two franchise cornerstones who helped each other on and off the field. Their reactions speak to how well-regarded he is and how fearful Barrell and Ames appeared on Kellogg's road ahead.

Here is the complete text of Kellogg's farewell address.

ALL STAR TEAMS ANNOUNCED

The rosters have been announced for the 7th annual All-Star Game which will be held next Tuesday at Forester Stadium in Cleveland. Every team except for the St Louis Pioneers, who failed to place a player on the squad for the first time in franchise history, will be represented. St Louis fans can cheer for a pair of former Pioneers who have been to plenty of all-star games when they were with the club as Fred McCormick and Freddie Jones will both suit up for the Continental side.

Here are the 1939 All-Stars:

Three CA stars: Harry Barrell of Brooklyn, John Lawson of the Chicago Cougars and Fred McCormick of Toronto were all chosen for the 6th time in their careers, which is the high water mark for All-Star appearances. The only other player to appear in 6 games is Frank Vance but his streak comes to an end as for the first time ever Vance was not selected for the mid-season classic. Vance, who was recently traded from Brooklyn back to Detroit, suited up for the Feds in 1933 and 1934 during his first stint in Detroit before playing for the Continental side the past four years. Here are the leaders in All-Star games played:
Bobby Barrell of the Philadelphia Keystones also misses the game and for him it is the second year in a row he was not selected after being named to the team for the first five games. With only Harry, this will mark the low-water point for Barrell brothers in the all-star game. The high mark was in 1936 when all five of the ballplaying brothers were selected to the team.

ALL-STARS BY TEAM

Three Federal Association teams along with the New York Stars lead the way with 5 representatives each. The Pittsburgh Miners become the first team to have all three of their starting outfielders named to the squad as Lew Seals and Joe Owens were named starters and center fielder Pablo Reyes was added as a reserve. Owens is injured and will not be able to play. The CA also has an injury to contend with as Harry Barrell got nicked up the other day and is unlikely to play in the game. The CA has just the one shortstop on the team however, as they went with 6 outfielders and 4 corner infielders while naming just 2 second baseman and Barrell as the lone shortstop.

Here are the representatives by team. The managers will be the defending pennant winners so Joe Ward of the Chiefs takes the reigns for the Federal Association while Brooklyn's Powell Slocum manages the Continental side for the third consecutive season.

It will be the first All-Star appearance for 21 players including four of the five New York Stars named to the club. In all, 11 CA players and 10 from the Federal Association are making their all-star debut:
First All-Star Game: Jack Elder and Leo Proctor, Washington, Jack Richardson and Gil London Detroit, Bob Donoghue and Mel Alvarez Boston, Marshall Strickland Keystones, Billy Dalton Gothams, Cliff Moss Chiefs, Lew Seals Pittsburgh.
Gus Goulding and Fred Galloway Baltimore, Lou Martino Cleveland, Bill Barrett, George Phillips and Ray Cochran Stars, Art White Brooklyn, Red Bond and Howie Snyder Montreal, Leo Mitchell Cougars, Joe Watson Sailors.

The Federal Association leads the series 4 wins to two but the Continental Stars have taken two of the last three games. Both of the past two all-star games have gone into extra innings with the Continental Association prevailing last year 5-4 thanks to a two-out double courtesy of the Sailors Bob Smith to plate Adam Mullins of Montreal with the game winning run in the top of the 13th inning. That came after the 19 inning marathon in 1937 in which the contest was tied 1-1 until the visiting stars from the Federal Association rallied for 3 runs in the top of the 19th and held on for a 4-2 victory.

MINUTEMEN TAKE LEAD IN FED

The Boston Minutemen have had the occasional close call when they challenged for a pennant but it's been a long time since there was this much excitement about the club's chances to win their first crown since 1915. The Minutemen hit the all-star break with the best record in baseball at 50-29 and lead the Pittsburgh Miners by two games and Detroit Dynamos by 3.5 atop the Federal Association standings.

Boston has won 16 of it's last 20 games and just recently saw a 10 game winning streak, one that included 5 victories over the Pittsburgh Miners, come to an end. It is those five wins, 2 at Cunningham Field two weeks ago and 3 more in enemy territory this past week, that have New Englanders in a frenzy about their ballclub. Minutemen fans have a new favourite son in Bob Corvin, a 25 year old who had played just 107 games prior to this season and spent much of the current season as a backup outfielder, was the hero of the two wins at home and was back to breaking Pittsburgh hearts again this past week. In the opener of last Tuesday's doubleheader Corvin had two hits including a run scoring double to lead Boston to a 4-2 win powered by some solid pitching from recent pickup Art Myers. In the nightcap the Minutemen spotted the Miners a quick 3-0 lead before rolling back to again double Pittsburgh, this time by an 8-4 count. The series sweep was completed the next day as Ed Wood (10-5, 3.72) tossed a 6-hit shutout in a 3-0 victory. Pittsburgh did get back on track once Boston left town and Washington arrived, but even a Miners sweep of the weekend series with the Eagles was not enough to catch the front-running Minutemen who took two of three in Philadelphia.

The Detroit Dynamos had a busy week with 8 games and won 6 of them to improve to 12-4 for July and their offense is showing signs of waking up. Besides the hitting of catchre John Wicklund, who was named Fed player of the week, it appears 1B Red Johnson is starting to figure out the adjustments that pitchers might have made on him. In July he is 23-for-65 with 4 doubles, 5 home runs and has driven in 17 RBI's . RF Leon Drake also appears to be coming out of his mini-slumber as well hitting 345 with 4 doubles and 2 triples. Detroit has moved up to 4th in total runs scored instead of in the bottom 2-3 which is where they have been all season and finally are starting to show some signs of the team that won 94 games last year.

It will be an exciting second half in both Associations as the Continental has 6 teams within 6.5 games of first place including a tie for top spot between Cleveland and the surprising New York Stars.

TRADE WINDS CONTINUE TO BLOW THROUGH DETROIT

There are plenty of rumblings throughout the league as we approach the July 31st trade deadline but it is the Detroit Dynamos who continue to make the most noise on that topic. The Dynamos have already been busy with 3 deals that would all be consider big moves done over the previous 2 weeks and they made two more moves at the start of the all-star break although neither was anywhere near as earth shattering as their previous work.

Detroit added bullpen depth with a minor deal with the Philadelphia Keystones that brings Don Attaway to the Dynamos. Attaway is a 4 time all-star and was the MVP of the marathon 1937 game but was waived by the Keystones. Philadelphia sources explain the club is looking to get younger, as Gene White is back from injury and Pepper Tuttle, who was promoted when White was hurt, is sticking around. White is taking Attaway's bullpen role. Detroit wanted to ensure they landed the 31 year old before he went fully through the waiver process so they sent a 10th round pick to Philadelphia for him. Attaway was 2-0 with one save and a career worst 6.09 era in 22 appearances this season.

The Dynamos then decided to do business with the other Philadelphia club, by acquiring 2B Chick Wilhelm from the Sailors. The Dynamo management team has liked Wilhelm for several seasons and with the logjam on the Sailors roster, they were able to make a deal work. The move saw pitcher Jack Wood and catcher Dave Doolittle, who were both in AAA Newark this past week, head to the Sailors. What this deal means for struggling 2B/3B Ed Stewart in Detroit remains to be seen but the acquisition of Wilhelm could mean the end of the run for homer happy Claude Merrill who burst on the scene several seasons ago hitting a lot of home runs and that's about it. Interesting note on Jack Wood, who was 3-4 with a 3.75 era during a stint in Detroit this season that included a no-hitter against the Keystones. Wood is quite likely the first pitcher to have thrown a no-hitter in the current season and have been traded 2 months later.

You might not think the Dynamos have much left to trade but that is not so says club insiders. Detroit is rumoured to be shopping several players including outfielder Elmer Nolde (.226,3,24) who has struggled this season and lost his starting job with the arrival of Alf Pestilli.

MINERS ADD PERRY

The Pittsburgh Miners made a small move to try and keep pace with the Detroit Dynamos stocking up on arms. The Miners added Roger Perry - a former Dynamos hurler - from the New York Gothams in exchange for a 6th round draft pick. Perry had some strong seasons early in his career with Cleveland and experienced a resurgence in Detroit last season when he posted a 16-5 record but struggled this season after a winter deal to the Gothams. The 31 year old lefthander was just 1-8 with a 5.17 era in New York.

WHEELER COURTED

Word out of Brooklyn is no fewer than three times have asked about Al Wheeler today. The 31 year old 5-time Whitney Award winner is having an awful season (by his standards), batting just .257 with 13 homers and 47 rbi's and stumbled through a 3-for-20 week heading into the break but the Kings have made it clear they are done dealing. Brooklyn Assistant General Manager Jim Golden says the club has not lost confidence in Al and feel he is still going to be a valuable piece to lead the club in the second half of the season and for many years to come.

QUICK HITS

• You can't ask for a doubleheader to go much better than last weeks twin bill did for Detroit. The Dynamos blasted New York by scores of 7-0 and 8-0 in the two games in what was a rough week for the New Yorkers, who went 2-5 and have dropped 17 of their last 21 contests.
• Detroit World columnist Freddie Farhat is worried he will jinx it as he points out that Detroit catcher John Wicklund has been on a tear since starting the season with a below .200 batting average. He won CA player of the week for the first time since April 1936 (3rd time in career) and is now hitting .296 on the season with a solid 7 home runs and 39 RBI's. With his bat heating up the club has put together a nice little streak of 11-3 the last 2 weeks.
• Looks like there is no debate who the FA starting pitcher should be in the All-Star game. Detroit's Frank Crawford is 15-1 with a 1.65 ERA which is almost a full run better than the next closest SP (Eddie Quinn 2.59). Crawford is 35-11 in his Dynamo’s career since coming over from the Keystones. Crawford last lost a game on May 17th to the Pittsburgh Miners by the score of 5-3. Since then in 14 starts (one start he left after facing 1 batter due to a finger blister) he is 12-0 with a 1.26 ERA. Some eastern seaboard media outlets had been clamoring for Eddie Quinn to get the start over Crawford.
• Looking at the All-Star selections the Pittsburgh Miners made history with all 3 of their starting OF's making the team. LF Joe Owens and RF Lew Seals were voted in, and CF Pablo Reyes looks like he was the last OF added to the squad. Quite the achievement for the Pittsburgh starting outfield group. Some might say the construction of the FA stars is a little lacking. With only 1 true SS and 3B on the squad things might get a little dicey.
• In the CA the ageless wonder 1B Dave Trowbridge was selected as a sub at age 40. Trowbridge is hitting .363 on the season and has driven in 51 RBI's matching last years season total at the break for the surprising New York Stars who share the CA lead with the Foresters.
• Boston fans are outraged that Dick Higgins was snubbed but the Minutemen organization say they caught word early that Higgins would be snubbed so he pitched in the last game before the break offering a complete game shutout. Higgins said he would rather help the club win it's first Association title since 1915 over pitching a single inning in a meaningless exhibition game.
• Philadelphia products Ed Baker, Art Myers, and Frank Crawford all made the All-Star team, but only Baker did so while still a Keystone as the others had been traded to contenders with Crawford in Detroit and Myers now toiling for Boston. Marshall Strickland was also named to the team as a sub so the Keystones did finish with 2 representatives.
• 3-3 week in Montreal before the All-Star game. The Saints started by sweeping Baltimore and then get sweep by the revamped Brooklyn Kings. Two of the losses were decided by single run and in the third Brooklyn plated 6th in the 8th inning to put it away. Montreal management is concerned with how the weekend went for the bullpen in giving up runs where normally have not in tight situations. The Saints are happy to see 3 Montreal players heading to the All-Star game. C Adam Mullins (.337,5,59) was a cinch to make his third all-star team, but it was a nice surprise for RF Red Bond (.335,10,53) who is getting out of the shadows and performing better every week. The bullpen squad is also honored to have 32 years old RP Howie Snyder going to the all-star game. For both Bond and Snyder it will be first time appearance at the ASG.
• The Saints are also happy with the start of a pair of their recent draft picks. First rounder Bill Greene, an outfielder from Brooklyn Catholic University was quickly promoted to AA Nashville after a stunning start at the A level. If his hot play keeps up don't rule out a September invitation to Parc Cartier for the 22 year old. 3rd pick 2B Bob Jennings is showing good skills at the B level but it is a different story for SP Ace Adams and SS Jesse Deshazer, who were the two other January selections for the Saints. Both have struggled in the early going at the pro level.
• We Three Kings as Bob Cummings, Art White and Harry Barrell make the all-star squad. As expected no Al Wheeler and the traded Frank Vance misses the ASG for the first time meaning no one will have been named to all 7 games. Harry is close as this is his 6th selection while Cummings makes his second appearance and for White it is his all-star debut.
• Kings have a 5-1 week with Rats McGonigle leading the way going 10-for-20 but then he gets hurt and sidelined 2 weeks. Surprisingly with all of the turmoil and trading Brooklyn is just 6.5 games out so, while it’s a long shot, perhaps the new look Kings might just keep their pennant streak going. However twice before this season the Kings had a 5 win week only in each case to follow it up by losing 5 the following week.
• Lost in all the trade excitement in Brooklyn was news the Kings agreed to a minor league contract with Jake Shadoan. The 31 year old led the CA in batting in 1933 and was an all-star in 1934 before moving on to Detroit 2 years ago. He is a veteran of 1051 FABL games including 908 with the Kings. Shadoan, after not being signed by an Indy League team last week following his release from Detroit, quickly agreed to a minor league deal with the Kings. He potentially could end up as a coach in the organization once his playing days are done. Brooklyn drafted Shadoan 7th overall in 1929 after he was twice named a second team All-American at Liberty College.

• Britain has in no uncertain terms warned Hitler that he is forbidden from attempting a coup in Danzig. Prime Minister Chamberlain announced that any attempt by Germany to change the current status of Danzig would be considered an act of aggression, giving Britain and France no alterative but to intervene on Poland's behalf.
• Britain continues to prepare for war, activating 12,000 more reserve forces and boosted her annual war expenditure another $850 million bringing it close to the $4 billion mark.
• More than 50,000 excited and yelling Japanese demonstrated for 2 hours in front of Great Britain's Tokio Embassy. It was called one of the greatest exhibitions of feeling against any foreign nation in Japan's history. They were demanding Britain stop aiding China and withdraw from the Far East.
• A Senate Foreign Relations committee voted for postponement of President Roosevelt's neutrality legislation amendments. The President had hoped the legislation would remain as it allowed the US to assist Great Britain and France with materials in any war against the Axis powers.
• The Mayor of Minneapolis asked the Army to halt WPA strike violence in his city and announced that "in order to avert civil war" the city no longer would be responsible for the operation of WPA projects. President Roosevelt warned WPA workers "You cannot strike against the government" but strikes continued over provisions in the present relief law scrapping some wage payments for workers who did not exceed 130 hours of work per month.
• Some are urging the British government to consider means of boosting that nation's birth rate after the examples of Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy, who's country's populations are both growing at a much quicker rate than Britain's.

1939 All-Star Game
 

July 24, 1939

MCCORMICK LEADS CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION TO ALL-STAR VICTORY

There is something about Fred McCormick and winning all-star games. McCormick is not just the first to be named the Most Valuable Player in two all-star games as for the second year in a row he claimed the award following the Continental Association's 6-3 doubling of Federal stars in Cleveland last Tuesday but he has also become something of a good luck charm as well. McCormick, you see is the only player to be on the winning side for 6 all-star contests without tasting defeat. He played for the Federal side in 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1937 while with St Louis and the Feds won each of those games. He was not selected to the 1936 team and that was the first time the Federal Association came up on the losing end. Prior to the 1938 season McCormick was dealt from the Pioneers to Toronto and he has been the MVP and led the Continental stars to wins in each of the last two games.

The boxscore from the 1935 game is lost to time but in his other three all-star games for the Federal side McCormick did not enjoy much personal success. He was used as a pinch-hitter in both '33 and '34 and went 0-for-1 each game. 1937 was a 19 inning affair that saw McCormick play the entire game but went 0-for-8 with 5 strikeouts. However, once he switched to the CA his bat has been working overtime. First it was the 3-for-6 performance last year with a pair of doubles and 2 rbi's in a 5-4 victory in 14 innings. This time around he was even more impressive with a 3-for-3 game that featured a double and two triples plus he was walked twice. McCormick also drove in a pair of runs and scored once himself in a 6-3 win for his Continental Association side.

McCormick got started quickly with a 2-out triple in the bottom of the first inning but the game remained scoreless when Fed starter Frank Crawford of Detroit got Joe Watson to pop out and end the threat. It was the Fed's who actually struck first as Sal Pestilli led off the top of the third with a solo homerun off of Gus Goulding. McCormick erased that lead quickly when he hit his second triple, this one to score the Sailors Bob Smith, in the bottom of the third and the Toronto star would score on a Joe Watson ground out to give the CA the lead 2-1.

It was a brief lead as Goulding, the young Baltimore hurler, got into trouble in the fourth by allowing 2 runs on 3 hits including Sal Pestilli's second rbi of the day before CA manager Powell Slocum went to the pen and called on Lou Martino to limit the damage to a 3-2 Federal Association lead.

The game stayed 3-2 until the bottom of the 7th when, with Boston's Art Myers now on the mound for the Feds, Mel Carrol led off with a single and moved to second on a McCormick walk. A fly ball from Watson was deep enough to move Carrol to third and he raced home to tie the game on John Lawson's sacrifice fly. Myers stayed on to pitch the eighth inning and a lead-off walk to Fred Galloway led to trouble as the Continental stars took the lead on a 2-out pinch-hit double off the bat of 40 year old Dave Trowbridge. Pittsburgh's Charlie Stedman took over for Myers but he was quickly greeted by a Mel Carrol single to score Trowbridge and then McCormick ripped his third extra-base hit of the game, a double to plate Carrol and put the Continental stars up 6-3. Brooklyn's Bob Cummings closed out the game when he came on with 1 on and 1 out in the ninth but retired Sal Pestilli on a fly ball and then struck out Tom Bird to end the game. Cummings, who was the winner a year ago, earned the save while his Brooklyn teammate Art White was credited with the victory. Boston's Myers was tagged with the loss.

The Series now sits at 4 wins to three in favour of the Federal Association.

DYNAMOS SWEEP MINUTEMEN BUT INJURIES DAMPEN EXCITEMENT OF WEEK

A week ago the Boston Minutemen were celebrating knocking off the Federal Association leaders when they replaced Pittsburgh in top spot with a 3-game sweep of the Miners. This week the Minutemen were on the other side of things as they looked sluggish coming out of the all-star break and were swept in a 3-game series at Thompson Field in Detroit. The three wins did not allow Detroit to overtake Boston for top spot in the Fed but when the dust settled at the end of the week Detroit was just a half game back of Boston.

The Dynamos offense is picking up steam as they scored 29 runs in 4 games since the break including outscoring Boston 12-8 and 7-4 in the first two games. The third game of the series featured much better pitching from both sides and Detroit also took that one, by a 2-1 score in 13 innings with one of the new Detroit players (although he is also an old Dynamo star as well) Frank Vance being the hero with a walk-off rbi double. That win did prove costly for Detroit as Leon Drake (.283,3,34) left the game with an injury and will miss 6 weeks.

The injury bug bit the Dynamos organization pretty hard last week as it will be 1-2 weeks for starter Sergio Gonzales and 2nd round draft pick Alfie Balcazar is done for the season with a knee injury suffered in a minor league game. Still at 16-4 in July the positives greatly outweigh the negatives in Detroit this month. Detroit has a big series starting Tuesday with Pittsburgh but before then the Dynamos have a Monday date with Philadelphia, after beating the Keystones 9-8 in 10 innings yesterday. With the injury to Gonzales there is a tough decision on who starts the game tomorrow against the Keystones. Jack Richardson has a dead arm for 3 days and Ron Coles has pitched 3 straight days in relief. Detroit had hoped to hold lefty Mike Murphy until the series opener with the Miners Tuesday but he just might have to take the hill Monday against the Keystones.

As they head to Detroit, for the first time this season the Miners appear to be in trouble. Pittsburgh dropped 4 straight games after the break, including a 3 game sweep in Chicago, before finally winning the second game in yesterday's doubleheader in St Louis. This on the heels of 5 losses in the span of seven days to Boston. Pittsburgh is just 5-11 over the past two and a half weeks with 4 of those victories coming against Washington. The Miners desperately need a big series in Detroit to turn their fortunes around and get back on track.
The Chiefs look like they may finally be showing signs of shaking out of their season long slump as only Detroit and Boston have outperformed them in July.
The New York Stars hopes of claiming their first CA crown since 1932 took a bit of a blow this week when teenage star Bill Barrett (.285,10,48) suffered a sprained ankle and is expected to miss close to two months. His absence will be felt but at least the Stars have enough outfield depth that they should be able to minimize the impact. New York sits one game behind the Cleveland Foresters as the two clubs continue to surprise observers with their play this year.

Freddie Farhat of The Detroit World summed the CA up this way:

QUICK HITS

• The Brooklyn Kings swept the Philadelphia Sailors to get over .500 but then lost both ends of a Sunday twin bill to Cougars and slip back below the break even mark. Good news in Brooklyn is rookie Sergio Vergara threw a shutout for his first big league win, another win for Jack Goff to improve to 3-1, two homers for Al Wheeler and newcomers fare well as Frank LeMieux goes 7-for-16 and Stumpy Beaman wins his start with a decent outing.
• Looks like Sam Orr's career in Toronto may be over has he has been waived after refusing a demotion to the minors. The 31 year old Orr was in his 9th season with the Wolves but was hitting just .235 this year and has struggled at the plate the previous two seasons as well. "Mr Versatility" Tom Frederick gets the call from Buffalo where the 23 year old pride of Hammond College was hitting .311 for the Nickels. Frederick can play any position except catcher and shortstop but the second base job is his to claim after Orr's departure.
• There is also much speculation north of the border that Hank Leitzke is on very thin ice in Toronto as well. The 62 year old is in his 5th season managing the Wolves and had previous managerial stops with the Foresters and Cougars. After the 88-66 run a year ago one would have thought Leitzke could write his own contract in Toronto but this season has been every bit the nightmare that last year was a dream for the Wolves. At 36-46 they are ahead of only traditional cellar dweller Baltimore in the CA.
• The St Louis Pioneers debut two more rookies last week. 2B Artie D'Alessandro is now the every day second baseman joining fellow rookies SS Ivan Cameron and 3B Tommy Wilson(who was pushed to 3B) on the infield. D'Alessandro hit just .176 in his first five games but he scored four runs and collected four RBI. Recently draft SP Harry Sharp made his ML debut after just two games in AAA. Sharp was not sharp allowing six runs and 11 hits in just seven innings against Pittsburgh.
• 18 year old Tommie Wagner had a day to remember. The Montreal Saints prospect set an Upper Mississippi Valley Association (Class C) record with 7 hits in helping Dubuque to a 12 inning 14-12 victory over Burlington. He capped his record breaking day with a walk off 3-run homer in the bottom of the 12th. The previous UMVA single game hit mark was 6th accomplished 5 times, most recently by Chuck Johnson who is now with the Gothams. By the way only one player ever had 7 hits in a big league game. That was Andy Stoddard who did it in 1926 while playing for Baltimore.

• Despite Tokio calling for Britain to withdraw support for China, Prime Minister Chamberlain says the British government "would not and could not" reverse it's foreign policy in the Far East at "the demand of another power."
• Nazi officials reject a warlike solution of the Danzig problem and believe a peaceful return of the Free City to the Reich will be achieved soon with the indirect aid of Great Britain.
• London responds indignantly about what it called "fantastic and irresponsible talk" of an impending agreement with Germany to save European peace, adding there have been no negotiations of any kind with the Reich about Danzig.
• International spying is the cause for the greatest increase in the bureau's work according to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in meetings this week.

1939 Season
 

July 31, 1939

STARS SHINE IN CONTINENTAL PLAY

New York's Continental Association entry should officially change it's name to "The Surprising New York Stars" as that adjective has been used all season to describe the club that has risen from the depths of the CA this season. Despite playing without young star Bill Barrett, who will be sidelined another 6 weeks with an ankle injury, the Stars completed a 3-game sweep of the nearly as surprising Cleveland Foresters over the weekend to extend their lead on Cleveland to 3.5 games.

How New York manages to keep on winning is as big a surprise as the fact the club, which finished 6th in the CA last year and 7th each of the prior two seasons, is at the top of the CA. New York's offense is good, led by vet Moxie Pidgeon (.311,15,64) and the ancient Dave Trowbridge (.357,8,58) who is having one of the best years of his career at age 40, but it is hardly the best in the CA. Their pitching is barely adequate but that is in no small part to their defense, which has been awful at times, yet they keep on defying the odds and winning ballgames - 5 straight now and 52 already this season against just 36 losses.

New York's +12 run differential is only the 4th best in the CA and they are a full 7 games better than their Pythagorean Record suggests they should be, by far the biggest surplus in their league. A big reason for that can be traced to their 15-5 mark in one run games, also the best in either Association by a wide margin, and their 7-2 mark in extra innings contests is tops in the CA. So whether it is clutch hitting, the bullpen coming up big when it is needed or just plain old dumb luck the bottom line is the New York Stars have found ways to win and well - surprise - the rest of the Continental Association.

There are still a long couple of months ahead but the Stars are doing their best to replace the description "Surprising" in front of their name with "Pennant-Winning." Can they do it? As the wins in tight games continue to mount, including a pair of 1-run extra inning wins over the Foresters on the weekend, it is getting harder and harder to discount the Stars as just 'a lucky team who's luck is bound to run out eventually."

ANOTHER ROUGH WEEK FOR PITTSBURGH

Count the Pittsburgh Miners as the team most relieved to see July come to an end. When the month started Pittsburgh had a FABL best 41-23 record and led the Boston Minutemen by 4 games and the third place Detroit Dynamos by 7. Over the ensuing 31 days the Miners stumbled thru an 10-17 month that included 5 consecutive losses to Boston. Since the all-star break the Miners are 2-9 and now find themselves third in the Federal Association, trailing the front running Minutemen by 4.5 games.

What happened? The main pieces of the offense continued to produce as the Cleaves brothers and Mahlon Strong had solid months and all three were, for a change, healthy. Even Wally Flowers, who replaced the injured Joe Owens in the outfield for much of the month, has done a solid job. However, the other half of their lineup seemed to disappear. Pablo Reyes, who was acquired from Montreal over the winter, hit just .183 in July after his batting average at the end of June was .318. Lew Seals was hitting .291 at the end of June and made the all-star team but in July his batting average was only .194. Shortstop Johnny Guzzo missed a lot of time but finally returned in mid-July unfortunately it looks like he forgot to bring his bat as Guzzo is hitting just .138 since his return.

With half of the offense sputtering the Miners are not giving their pitching staff the run support they did earlier in the season and as a result Bill Ketterman and Charlie Stedman combined to go 1-8 in July while Lefty Allen and Karl Johnson, who did get much better run support then either Ketterman or Stedman, each posted a 4-3 record.

Stedman and Ketterman's ERA has gone up in July as compared to their April-June totals but the decrease in run support for those two has been a major factor the Miners are 2-11 in games either of those two started in July. Last week in Detroit the Miners did give Stedman some runs, scoring 5 times off Detroit ace Frank Crawford (17-1, 2.18) but Stedman allowed 5 of his own before turning the ball over to Art Brandon in the ninth who proceeded to give up a 3-run walk-off homer Harry Woodruff handing Detroit an 8-5 victory. The next day the Miners outhit Detroit 9-7 but lost 5-3 as Karl Johnson surrendered 3 gopher balls to Detroit batters. Finally the bleeding stop, at least temporarily in the series finale as Lefty Allen was aided by George Cleaves clutch 2-run single in the top of the 9th to allow Pittsburgh to salvage a game in the series with a 5-3 victory over their own. The slump continued with the Miners as they left Detroit, following them to New York where they dropped 2 of 3 to the Gothams. August is a new month and the Miners hope it reminds them more of May or June, when they went 18-11 in each of them, much more so than the month that just passed - one Pittsburgh fans hope can be quickly forgotten. They will get their chance right away as after an off-day today the Miners have another 3-game showdown with Detroit, but this time it is at Fitzpatrick Park where they are 28-11 which is the best home mark in the Federal Association. Perhaps the key to solving the slump is much more simple than looking at run support, or the back half of the batting order. Could a return to form for Pittsburgh be as easy as a return to Fitzpatrick Park? Pittsburgh has played just 39 home games this season - lowest in the Fed - compared to 52 on the road including 19 in July. In August 18 of their 27 games are at Fitzpatrick Park. Perhaps some home cooking is all the Miners need to get back on track?

PESTILLI HITS HIS 100TH HOMER

by Jiggs McGee
Detroit star outfielder Sal Pestilli hit his 100th career homerun just 376 games in to his big league career. The 23 year old is already a 3-time all-star and won his first of what will likely be many Whitney Awards last year. He led the Federal Association in homers each of his first two years and is well on his way to doing that again this time around. It is hard to fairly compare Pestilli's start to that of homerun king Max Morris as Morris was a pitcher in his early days and played in a much different era at that time but Pestilli is ahead of the homerun pace to Rankin Kellogg, who was 24 at the end of his third big league season and had hit 96 of what would end up being his 475 career homers. Al Wheeler, who is number 3 all-time in homers behind Morris and Kellogg, began his career in Detroit, just like Pestilli and was a year younger than Sal when he made his big league debut. In his first three seasons Wheeler hit 91 round-trippers but did not lead his association in homers until his 5th season.

The Pestilli conversation prompted many around the league to wonder what made have happened had Detroit stuck with it's initial plans in the 1936 draft and selected pitcher Johnnie Jones instead of Pestilli. It was felt at the time the Dynamos minds were made up to take the pitcher but increasing media pressure from several sources including yours truly and comments from scouting legend Rufus Barrell prompted the Dynamos to change their tune shortly before draft day and take the two-time Christian Trophy winner out of Narragansett College.

Entering the draft both Pestilli and Jones had a well deserved reputation to be considered with the first pick. Pestilli was a 3-time All-American who owned the highest career batting average in AIAA history but Jones was a very highly thought of high school lefthander out of Minneapolis. Three years later and Pestilli is the young leader of a championship contender while Jones is still struggling in AA after being traded over the winter. In Jones defense he is still just 21 and despite being completely messed with by bad management in New York, he still has incredible upside.

Just imagine how different the Dynamos and several other teams might have been had Detroit taken Johnnie Jones instead of Pestilli with the first pick of the 1936 draft? If Pestilli was still there at #2 would Baltimore have grabbed him or would they still have traded down in a curious move that netted them Al Jennings at 5 when they were hoping I believe to land Billy Woytek, who went 3rd to the Keystones.

So if Jones went 1 to Detroit and Pestilli #2 to Detroit how much better could the Cannons offense have been? Al Jennings is a week shy of his 25th birthday, still in AA and looks like a bust. And does that mean the Keystones would have taken Walt Messer as the heir to Rankin Kellogg at #3 or would they have stuck with Woytek? Jones went 4th to the Stars but maybe they take the one of Woytek/Messer that Philadelphia did not, or do they still go with a pitcher in which case either Pete Papenfus or Jim Morrison are with the Stars instead of Cougars and Toronto respectively.

Had they taken Jones would Detroit have had it's great resurgence last year or would the Dynamos still be in rebuild mode as one would think Pestilli's emergence certainly was the impetus behind Detroit's dealing of prospects for veteran pieces that continues to this day. Might the CA look much different as well if Baltimore went on the buying spree trying to build a team around Pestilli? The Stars could also be much different as they would not have had Jones to send to Washington as a key piece in the Moxie Pidgeon deal.

When Rufus Barrell speaks, people usually listen and Dynamos fans must be glad that their management team did in this case. Baltimore fans are left wondering what might have been, had Detroit stuck with a pitcher. One has to think there is no way the Cannons would be on the verge of their 6th consecutive last place finish had they landed Pestilli with the second pick in 1936.

It is this writer's opinion that there has been no draft decision in the past decade, and maybe ever, that had a bigger impact on two franchises. Detroit is a contender again only because they selected Pestilli instead of Jones on that December day in 1936. Yes the Dynamos made plenty of other big moves to get where they are but I argue few of them would have happened had they not had Pestilli to build around.

QUICK HITS

• Pittsburgh's George Cleaves (170) and Tom Bird (162) of the Chiefs are at the top of the Fed in wRC+ (Bird is tied with Chick Donnelly at 162). It's quite unusual to have two catchers that are this good playing at the same time. For July, Bird hit .402/.490/.671 for a wRC+ of 212 (just ahead of Red Johnson's 204). Johnson's 7 home runs in July might prove the difference, but Bird would be a good choice for Batter of the Month.
• Tough break for the Brooklyn Kings. Just as they are showing signs of waking up with 13 wins in their last 17 games the player they can probably least afford to lose goes down with an injury. Shortstop Harry Barrell (.307,3,29) will miss a month. Rookie Terry Cox (.379,0,3) has looked very good at the plate in limited action but there are plenty of worries in Brooklyn if his defense at shortstop will be adequate.
• A deal that seemed to have made everyone happy. Frank Vance is batting .452 since his return to Detroit while Frank LeMieux is batting .350 in his short stint so far in Brooklyn. The Kings are also thrilled with Stumpy Beaman's 2-0 record since the deal.
• Highly touted Brooklyn rookie righthander Sergio Vergara is only 2-5 with a 4.97 era on the season but two of his last 3 starts have been complete game 6-hit shutouts. Just needs some consistency as the start in between the two goose-eggs Vergara allowed 7 runs (although only 4 earned) and 10 hits in 6 innings of a 7-1 loss.
• The New York Stars think that Clark Car seems to finally have figured out how to play defense. The new team jitters have subsided and hes back into the solid fielder category. Still needs to get that bat swinging, but the defense was what i was after the most. Hank Jones is taking full advantage of being back in the lineup as the main right fielder till Bill Barrett gets back. Only 74 PA so far but batting a solid .385 with a 1.017 OPS.
• Ducky Jordan is headed to Fort Wayne to work on his swing away from the bright lights of Chicago. Since coming over from the Cougars to the Chiefs, Jordan is hitting .190/.279/.241 (a wRC+ of 41), so the search for a shortstop continues in Chicago.
• Hal Sharp made the Pioneers out of spring as a pinch hitter/5th OF. He didn't have any starts until Art Cascone went down with fractured cheek bone of July 7. Since then he has started 17 games and he's hit .377 with a .450 OB% as a starter.
• Doug Lightbody had 8 more hits last week to give him 1918 on his career and push him past Jack Miller into 78th place all-time. 2000 might be a longshot this year for Lightbody, who is one of several active players approaching that milestone. Carl Ames of the Keystones has 1944, Gothams Bud Jameson sits at 1936 and Moxie Pidgeon of the Stars has 1934. Miners Jack Cleaves is also close to that group with 1889.
  John Lawson of the Cougars leads all active players with 2420 hits. 6 others are over 2000. They are Jim Hampton and Bob Martin of the Chiefs, Cleveland's Charlie Barry, Dave Trowbridge of the Stars and Frank Vance, who is back with Detroit now. The last one is Lou Kelly of the Cougars who joined the 2000 hit club earlier this season.
• Speaking of Pidgeon, the much travelled 32 year old outfielder hit his 244th career homer last week, tying him with former Brooklyn catcher Paul Tattersall for 8th all-time. Tattersall, like Pidgeon at least so far, played for 4 teams in his FABL career.
• Missed last week was Al Wheeler notching his 350th career home run. Both 349 and 350 came off of Doc 'No-Hit" Newell in a 14-0 Kings win. Of Wheeler's 350 homers, which is 3rd most all-time behind only Max Morris and Rankin Kellogg, more have come off of Newell than any other pitcher. Wheeler has taken Newell deep 11 times in his career. Number two on Wheeler's list is Jim Lonardo, who has surrendered 8 homers to Wheeler.

• Britain agrees to recognize Japan's war in China but did not go as far as to recognize Japanese sovereignty over any Chinese territory. However, friction remains high in Shanghai after Japanese forces held four British soldiers for 2 hours when they were detained while attempting to repair a barbed-wire barricade at the entrance to British territory.
• The United States says it will not negotiate a new trade agreement with Japan until there is a satisfactory settlement of political differences between the two countries. Japan is barred from the purchase of war materials from the U.S. but is a key seller of gold and silver to the States.
• Extra police were assigned to guard the US and British Embassies in Japan as anti-American protests escalate in Tokio.
• The Irish Republican Army is being blamed after 16 were hurt, one fatally, following an explosion in one of London's most crowded railway stations.
• Senator Robert Taft has thrown his hat in the ring seeking the Republican nomination for President in 1940. He is the son of William Howard Taft, who was the 27th President of the United States and staunchly opposed to the US getting involved with the disputes in Europe.
• More violence with striking autoworkers. This time in Cleveland were a clash between 5,000 pickets and police left scores injured.

1939 August begins
 

AUGUST 7, 1939

NEW MONTH, NEW MINERS

Happy to get a dreadful July behind them the Pittsburgh Miners started August with a bang, as the bats were booming to the tune of 36 runs in 6 games and 5 victories for the Miners. Pittsburgh limped through the tail end of July, dropping 9 of their final 12 but last Tuesday it was a completely different story as Lefty Allen out-dueled new Detroit starter Mike Murphy in a 3-0 Pittsburgh victory to get August off to a good start for the Pennsylvania gang. The next day Detroit did return the favour with Frank Crawford winning his league leading 18th game in a 3-0 shutout of hard-luck Charlie Stedman and the Miners but instead of a prolonged losing streak the Miners responded with 4 straight victories: one over Detroit to take the series and then a 3-game sweep of the struggling New York Gothams.

The result is with the 5-1 week the Miners are back to within 2 games of the Federal Association lead which is jointly held by Detroit with the Boston Minutemen just a half game back of the Dynamos.

In the Continental Association things are also heating up as the Brooklyn Kings, the hottest team since the all-star break with 13 wins in 19 games, are suddenly just 3 games out of first place. The Kings and Philadelphia Sailors share third spot with the Cleveland Foresters and New York Stars tied for the lead. The Montreal Saints are still in the mix as well, at just 3.5 off the leaders pace.

BARRY RETURNS HOME IN DEADLINE BEATING DEAL

With all of the excitement in the weeks leading up to the July 31st deadline last Monday it comes as little surprise that deadline day itself was very quiet on the trade front. Not only was the day itself a rare dark day as all 16 clubs were off but it also saw just one big league deal made. On the surface it looked like a fairly minor trade as the Cleveland Foresters sent aging third baseman Charlie Barry back to the team he began his career, moving Barry to the Boston Minutemen in exchange for
24 year old minor league outfielder Cal Howe and a 6th round draft pick. However, if one dives deeper that move could, under certain circumstances end up having quite an impact on the two pennant races.

Barry is 40 years old and clearly nearing the end of an outstanding career that began with the Minutemen in 1924 before sending him to Cleveland just over 5 years ago. Along the way he has collected nearly 2300 hits, won a batting title, a World Championship and made 3 all-star teams. The player Cleveland receives is a 24 year old outfielder who was sitting on the bench in AAA Columbus. Cal Howe was a third round pick out of North Carolina Tech in 1936 who did play 19 games for the Minutemen a year ago, batting .235. This season he was hitting .310 in Columbus but deemed only good enough to start 5 games. OSA has felt he has some offensive potential but had not been given the opportunity in Boston. Perhaps a change in scenery will allow that potential to bloom.
JIGGS MCGEE's TAKE: Before you think this was purely a sentimental move to bring a fan favourite back to Boston for a few pinch-hit appearances as the Minutemen try to win their first pennant since 1915 one should look closer at Barry. Yes he is 40 years old but he is hitting .340 while almost exclusively facing lefthanders and was platooning at first base for the Foresters with Bill Moore. Boston probably would have preferred it if Barry was a lefthanded hitter as he would have been an ideal third base pairing with fellow RHB Mack Sutton (.217,13,46), who has tremendous power but as of yet the 22 year old has been unable to get on base consistently. I would think Barry will get some starts when Sutton is struggling as he was the week before the deadline when he went just 4-for-21. If nothing else Barry gives the Minutemen a dangerous bat off the bench and some added insurance were something to happen to often injured first baseman Bob Donoghue (.341,18,74), who is having a breakout season at 26.

The deal makes great sense from Boston's end at a fairly low cost. I am confounded though in trying to figure out why Cleveland felt the need to unload Barry at time when they seem to be in the thick of a pennant chase. The Foresters had a tough week heading into the deadline as a 3-game sweep suffered at the hands of New York left them 3.5 games back of the first place Stars but the race in the CA is wide open and the Foresters have to still think they are part of it. So why deal Barry, who has looked very good in a platoon with Bill Moore at first base, and receive nothing that will help them in their pennant pursuit this year? Barry was a valuable piece in Cleveland, maybe not beyond this season but certainly for the next two months and this move can't help but be looked at by Foresters players and opponents alike as the team's management has little confidence in it's ability to challenge for the CA crown this year. One has to think that the club happiest to see this move made might just be the New York Stars.

COUGARS ADD JOHNNIE JONES IN MINOR LEAGUE DEAL

Just last week it was discussed how much different the fates of several organizations might have turned out had the Detroit Dynamos selected Johnnie Jones instead of Sal Pestilli with the first pick in the 1936 draft. Well Jones is back in the news this week as the Washington Eagles dealt the 21 year old lefthander to the Chicago Cougars in exchange for minor leaguers Chubby Hall and Les Scott. Jones was 8-11 with a 5.21 era at AA this season while the 22 year old Hall, an outfielder selected in the third round in 1935, was hitting .372 with 16 homers after splitting the season between A and AA. Scott is a 21 year old infielder who was selected in the fourth round in 1936 and is batting .271 at the Class B level.

JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE:This one shocks me. I get the Eagles wanted some offense - which in itself seems like a strange thing to say about a team that traditionally had loads of offense but little pitching - but I really have to wonder why they gave up on Jones so quickly. The Stars organization messed Jones up, playing him sparingly and pitching him out of the pen when they did, and yes he has struggled with his control and avoiding bats with his pitches at AA but this trade just doesn't seem well thought out by the Eagles.

Over the winter they traded a fair bit of their offense in moving Moxie Pidgeon (along with Mel Hancock Jr. and a decent depth pitcher in Robert Curry) for three pitching prospects with Jones being the best of the three. Now 6 months later they send Jones for an outfielder they hope one day might compare to Pidgeon.

Hall certainly is a talented outfielder and OSA has the two ranked nearly dead even on the prospect pipeline but in truth pitchers ranked in the top 25 are a heck of a lot more valuable than corner outfielders. I am also not sure what the urgency was on the Eagles part to get this deal done as the clock struck midnight on the trade deadline. Perhaps if they wanted to move him Washington would have been wiser to wait until the season was over and see what the open market might have brought in return. I have a hunch it could have been a lot more than just a comparably ranked outfield prospect.

Based on his performance the past couple of season Jones does not come without risk but outfielders like Hall are much easier to find than pitching prospects with Jones' pedigree. A risk well worth taking on Chicago's part and the Cougars staff could certainly be something if Jones pans out. In Jones and Pete Papenfus they have a pair of potentially great 21 year old arms who were selected 2 picks apart in the '36 draft.

ANOTHER LOST SEASON IN NEW YORK

Courtesy of The New York World Telegram

Over in Manhattan the Stars are shocking the CA sitting in first place as we move through the dog days of August. Down in Brooklyn the Kings have fought off a slow start and find themselves three games back. And here in Queens the Gothams sit in their shiny new ballpark in 7th place again. A shiny new park that has more empty seats by the week. Fan interest is waning. One must wonder, what's next for the Gothams?

Sure the offense is decent for a FA ballclub. Youngsters Billy Dallton and Mule Monier are having solid seasons. Aging vet Bud Jameson has found the fountain of youth, the outfield is producing. So what went wrong? Maybe it was Rufus Barrell, maybe someone else who once said, 'Baseball is 90% pitching'. If that is true it certainly explains the Gothams ongoing troubles. Basically, there is no pitching. Sure, veteran Oscar Morse gives you a mediocre start every few days. And a few days of grumbling and self-serving comments in between. Sure, young Nate Spear has been pretty much untouchable when he can drag his body to the mound. Sure it's exciting to dream about the possibilities of Bunny Edwards, when he's not getting batted around the big new stadium. However, most certainly, there is nothing at all behind them. A parade of less than competent young men trudging to the mound, then heading to the showers several innings later. You've seen them, Killebrew, Birdwell, Gentry, Wise, etc.

Where has it gone wrong? Apparently ownership is not blaming manager Ed Ziehl who was recently handed a 3 year extension and a raise. There's only one person who can have the finger of fate pointing towards him. GM Tom Ward is on the hottest of hot seats. For three years we've heard about the young talent on the way to New York. The #1 farm system, the endless stream of prospects on the way. We've been impressed by Monier and Dalton, much less so by Brewer and Edwards. Something better happen soon. One wonders of Ward gets another season. Owner Leland Winthrop is getting impatient. Gothams fans are getting impatient. And maybe a little jealous of their crosstown rivals. Something must give. Soon.

LIGHT, HEAT AND POWER

Courtesy of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Night baseball, to coin a phrase, is here to stay. Seriously, none of us ever doubted that after Kings owner Daniel Prescott put on his first performance at Kings County Ballpark last year, following the lead of the Marshall clan in Cleveland. Few, however, have realized just how smashing a success has been scored by baseball under the bulbs.

The Associated Press batted out a flock of figures yesterday which indicate that the 41 night games around the league this year will draw close to 800,000 paying fans. With all of the additional turnstile tremors it is easy to see that there will only be more evening encounters going forward.

Cleveland owner Ricky Marshall and the Kings' Prescott certainly deserves the bulk of the credit and plenty of gratitude from their fellow ballclub barons. Night baseball was strictly sticks stuff, good enough to save the minors from the fate of the American Buffalo, but was hardly considered in keeping with the dignity of major league ball. That is until Ricky Marshall came along and got it started in Cleveland with Prescott quickly following in Brooklyn.

Later this season Prescott, always a man to try something new, will put on the first televised major league games in the contest between the Cleveland Foresters and the Kings slated for Saturday September 2nd. Television, of course, has not reached the point where the major league magnates are forced to ponder another problem, but the experiment probably will result in priceless publicity for the Brooklyn club.

The magnates can thank Prescott for night ball, but they probably do not listen ear-to-ear with him on radio. Washington, the Boston club and the two new York clubs are rumoured considering dropping the bars on broadcasting next year. The magnates, however, cannot blame Prescott for that situation. He did not introduce the microphone to baseball.

Prescott probably will tell you that radio is helping Kings County. That remains to be seen. This department believes the most important factors in Brooklyn's bumper attendance the past have decade are the improved ballclub, regularly a title contender, and in the introduction of night ball. It will be interesting to see what sort of impact television may one day have on the game.

QUICK HITS

• The Brooklyn Kings are back in the pennant race after they won 17 of their last 23 games, thanks in no small part to spending much of that time at home where they are 33-20. On the road it is a different story as the Kings are a less than stellar 17-25 away from Kings County. So a big test of whether or not they are going to make a run at a record fourth consecutive CA pennant comes this week as Brooklyn visits Philadelphia and Cleveland for 7 games.
• Are the New York Stars a victim of TWIFB cover jinx? Stars got top billing in last week's issue only to have a tough 1-6 sim in meetings with Cleveland and the Philadelphia Sailors this week.
• Stars skipper Otto Schmidt scoffs at the notion of a jinx. "Well we were due for a bad week," admitted the rookie manager. "And things were picking up at the end of the week losing then winning 1 run contests. Rough patches happen. And to be fair, we barely beat Cleveland in 2 of the games last week through sheer good luck."
• A big part of the Stars problem last week is that veterans Dave Trowbridge and Ray Cochran have gone ice cold. They were New York's top hitters and having them both not produce at the same time is an issue.
• Bright future for Montreal? For the third month in a row the rookie of the month award goes to a Saints player. After 3B Mark Burns won the award in May and June, this time SP Bill Stewart is getting the honor. Stewart, a 23 year old, started the season in Minneapolis and was called back to Montreal in June. Since then he has been fantastic showing a FABL record of 6-0, 3.95 ERA, 110ERA+ with a 5.2 K/9 in 12 games.
• The Pittsburgh Miners’ bats got cooking again this past week. But poor, hard luck Charlie Stedman. 9-11 with a 2.79 era. Miners were shut out by Detroit in Stedman's start last week. That makes 13 of his 24 starts that Pittsburgh has scored 3 runs or less. In comparison the Miners have only scored 3 times or less in 6 of Bill Ketterman's 21 starts, 7 of Lefty Allen's 26 starts and 8 of Karl Johnson's 23.
• Taking 2 of three from both the Keystones and Boston this week got the St Louis Pioneers back to .500. Since the all star break they have won five of six series losing 2/3 at home vs Boston being the only blemish but as mentioned above St Louis made up for it by winning two of three in Boston this past week. However, it was a rough week for the two newest Pioneer rookies. Hometown boy Harry Sharp (0-3, 7.71) was sent down to Oakland and another rookie, Cal Roe, will take his place. Artie D'Alessandro hit .050 for the week but he will keep his spot for now despite the fact the 22 year old second baseman is hitting just .211 18 games into his big league career.
• The Pioneers have a chance to push their record over .500 against Washington. The Eagles owned the Pioneers early in the season taking 5 of the first 6 between the teams, but Pioneers battled back to win 5 of the last 7.
• The Eagles have decided to sit down second baseman Johnnie Sundberg (.227,5,52). Rookie Karl O'Reilly, who is batting .364 in 13 games since being called up from Kansas City, will take over as the starting second baseman. The Eagles also recalled 25 year old outfielder Jim Hanshaw, who is hitting .299 in 37 big league games spread over the past two seasons. Washington had a nice June, going 16-13 but since then are 14-19 including a FABL worst 6-12 since the all-star break.
• Looks like the Chicago Chiefs finally answered their wake-up call. Since July 1st the Chiefs are 21-13 but it is likely too late to be a factor in this year's Federal Association race.
• Are things looking up for Baltimore fans? The Cannons are 9-7 since the break. A far cry from Brooklyn's 13-6 or the 12-6 mark St Louis and the Chiefs share but much better than the Keystones and Wolves (6-11) or Washington (6-12) but I can't remember the last time I noticed Baltimore over .500 in anything I looked at.
• The success of night games was addressed by Brooklyn Eagle columnist Jimmy Woods. It is not just the Kings that have been playing night games. Cleveland, Pittsburgh, the Chicago Chiefs, the New York Stars, Toronto and Washington all have lights in their stadiums and it is just a matter of time before more teams join them.
• Another sign of why Toronto is struggling so much this season. 21 year old George Garrison, who showed some promise last year, was being counted on to have a big season but the youngster is on his way back to Buffalo for what is hoped to be a confidence boost after a 5-10, 4.42 start to the season with the Wolves.

• Croats invite Hitler to enter Yugoslavia. That message came from the Croatian leader Vladko Machek who vowed that Croatia would secede from Yugoslavia unless it's autonomy demands were met.
• Danzig continues to see unrest and is in conflict with Polish customs guard over exports but so far little is being said about the situation from Germany.
• British Parliament adjourned for a two-month vacation this week after hearing Prime Minister Chamberlain warn Japan that Great Britain may find it necessary "in certain circumstances" to send a fleet to the Far East. Chamberlain adds "I do not say this as a threat but only as a warning."
• In a new book entitled "The Fate of Man" noted author H.G. Wells predicts World woe and says humanity is doomed if it doesn't reform. Wells calls Hitler "an unqualified horror", Chamberlain "essentially ignorant, narrow-minded and subconsciously timid" and Japan's rulers "Nazis without a Hitler."
• In the latest strike related violence in the United States, heavily armed National Guard troops to put down an "insurrection" involving 400 striking workers and nearly as many vigilantes at the site of the Federal Government's dam and tunnel project in Colorado's Blue River Canyon.