See You on the Flipside
 

A couple of the EL's bigger-name pitchers have had entirely diametric starts to the 1978 season.

Birmingham's Dave Barnhill wins his first seven decisions before finally taking a loss.



Meanwhile, 1973 Stovey Medallist Gene Collins of the Cuban Stars West starts the season 0-7 before finally nailing down a W.



What odds they meet at 7-7??

Struggle Street
 

Continued underperformance by the BYs in the early part of this season, barely above 500 and a few games back of the Dodgers in a tightly-packed FC American.

Not difficult to see why.



On offence, their big names are doing OK and Coleman is giving them plenty of spark at the top of the lineup, but then the rest are adding little if anything - guys like Gilliam and Henderson need to get it going and fast. The pitching isn't so easy a fix, and may well be their downfall again this year if they don't address the problem soon.

Still, with the quality on their books, sometimes all it takes is a game like this one to get them headed in the right direction. We'll see.

May 1978 Recap
 

The Grays make an early surge and you just feel if they can continue to press their advantage they may indeed shake off the Athletics, who look their only true challenger at the moment. The other three races remain tight.



Monthly Award Winners

• FC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Mike Easler (Black Barons) 354 / 4 HR / 28 RBI.
• FC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Jose Rijo (Red Sox) 5-1 / 3.22 / 50 K / 50.1 IP.
• FC ROOKIE OF THE MONTH: Monte Irvin (Bacharach Giants) 326 / 2 HR / 18 RBI.
• WC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Eric Chavez (American Giants) 354 / 7 HR / 23 RBI.
• WC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Juan Marichal (Buckeyes) 6-1 / 2.35 / 41 K / 61.1 IP.
• WC ROOKIE OF THE MONTH: Alex Fernandez (Motown Stars) 4-2 / 2.43 / 44 K / 55.2 IP.

Points of Interest

• A big trade late in the month, with the LibStars trading Davey Lopes and Thurman Jennings to the Black Barons for Johnny Markham and Luis Robert.

Still super close across the board, with the long-downtrodden House of David finally putting together a decent campaign in the FRC National and currently tied for the lead with the Bears.



Monthly Award Winners

• CAC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Edwin Encarnacion (White Sox) 348 / 10 HR / 23 RBI.
• CAC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Luis Tiant (Marcos) 5-1 / 2.54 / 46 K / 49.2 IP.
• FRC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Charlie Neal (Grays) 400 / 10 HR / 36 RBI.
• FRC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Pedro Feliciano (Wolves) 1-0 / 0.93 / 8 SV / 9 K / 9.2 IP.

Homestead Fast
 

As I mentioned, the Grays are looking strong entering the midseason section and these are the sorts of wins that really keep the wind in a club's sails.

Carewsing
 

Meanwhile, Rod Carew becomes the EL's founding member of the 2000-hit Club. He's a fair way ahead of his nearest rival, but should have company before too long.

Stat Check: W
 

https://i.imgur.com/QIZB3rB.png

CC is the all-time leader at the time of posting.

Out of the Shadows: Mitchell Murray
 

When it comes to the subject of today's OotS feature, I'm afraid legendary US Poet Laureate Meghan Trainor was wrong.

When it comes to my love of Mitchell Murray, it's all about that face.


It's a face that makes me think he and I, had our paths ever crossed, would have become buds and got up to adventurous things. Adventurous enough perhaps to warrant a biopic about the strange brotherhood-like bond between the middle-aged pasty redheaded white dude from Australia and the former NeL catcher. Were he still alive, I see Michael K. Williams (Omar from The Wire) starring, but as he isn't then Don Cheadle in the Mitch role and Jason Clarke as yours truly. I expect multiple Oscar wins and Bobblehead Dolls.

Anyhoo... clearly it is time for my meds and perhaps to revisit the recommended dosage.

Point being, Mitchel Murray is right up there with my favourite of all NeLers. Not because of any oversized talent or career achievements on his part, although he was a fair player and enjoyed his share of success on the field.

But rather, because of that face.

The man it belonged to was born 1896 (his January 28 birthday is just two days after my own, clearly one of the many building blocks of our broman... OK, OK, sorry) in Wyoming OH and spent 13 season all told in the NeL in a career mainly spanning the 1920s and that is most closely associated with the St. Louis Stars.

Seamheads gives him a 295/365/417 career slash with a 104 OPS+ and shows the mid-20s as his peak. EC's MLE allocates him slightly over 20 career WAR, 4 of which came in 1924 alone. Jim Riley gives him a decent blurb that mentions his game smarts and defensive prowess while playing down his hitting. I'm thinking a slight downgrade on Russell Martin, who has a similarly lovable mug, although Don Slaught features high on his Similarity Scores and might therefore be a more realistic comparison on stats alone.

Mitchell died at just 44 years of age, the circumstances of which I am yet to unearth. Roll credits and polish those statuettes.

In the EL, Mitchell was taken 35th overall by the ABCs in the 1970 Draft and spent four seasons at Indy in a backup role before being traded in his walk year to the Black Yankees. Single season stints at each of the Cuban Stars clubs followed that, and then he joined the Giants as a FA at the start of the current season, his age-31.

Fair to say he has so far exceeded expectations at St. Louis, slashing a mighty 350/412/517 with 3 HR and 25 RBI as I post this. He was signed on a one-year deal, but hopefully this gets him another bite at the cherry for '79. Whatever the case, we're with you Mitch my man and will be looking on eagerly.

PS Thanks to my (real) friend LSt for his efforts in doing the impossible and replicating MM's visage in his FaceGen, efforts not reflected anywhere near adequately due to my using a Mac.

Stat Check: SV
 

https://i.imgur.com/XOistff.png

This is also currently the all-time leaderboard.

Mount Everett
 

Ferocious is the only way I can describe how the 1978 Eclipse League is playing out. So many teams in the hunt, so many quality players in the league performing up to expectations.

And, on occasions like this nifty 128 GSc performance by Carl Everett, exceeding them. You also might have noticed how ShoTime is back to his best, dominating with both bat and ball. As at the time of this post, he leads the WC in both home runs with 20 and strikeouts with 131.

June 1978 Recap
 

What a difference a month makes! The BYs (16-10) and Monarchs (20-6) make huge moves, while both the Grays and MoStars are challenged, look about to falter, then right themselves and kick away again. The latter of these clubs is currently riding a 9-game win streak, all but negating the strong effort by the ABCs to make up ground with a 10-game streak of their own. With the four teams on top now looking so strong, we may well see them kick away if the other clubs aren't careful.

It's like a '72 redo this year, with both Martin Dihigo and Shohei Ohtani on a two-way rampage - can they repeat the feat?

Detroit's Ervin Santana has already racked up an amazing 16 wins against just two losses and we're not even at the midpoint yet. Is CC's 28 win record under threat?



Monthly Award Winners

• FC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Barry Bonds (Black Yankees) 344 / 7 HR / 15 RBI.
• FC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Edsall Walker (Monarchs) 5-1 / 2.13 / 29 K / 50.2 IP.
• FC ROOKIE OF THE MONTH: Victor Greenidge (Royal Giants) 3-2 / 1.74 / 4 SV / 10 K / 10.1 IP.
• WC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Miguel Cabrera (Grays) 393 / 7 HR / 22 RBI.
• WC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Ervin Santana (Motown Stars) 6-0 / 1.79 / 38 K / 50.1 IP.
• WC ROOKIE OF THE MONTH: Barney Morris (Buckeyes) 4-2 / 3.52 / 42 K / 46 IP.

Points of Interest

• Very quiet on the trade and contract fronts to this point - a late flurry as we approach the Deadline wouldn't surprise.
• One move is made, as the LibStars pick up rental Aledmys Diaz and backup Armando Marsans for next to nothing from the East.

Top 20s - overall



Top 20s - NeLers


Super tight still, with that CAC American race set to be an absolute doozy.

• CAC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Bobby Marshall (Black Crackers) 301 / 11 HR / 26 RBI.
• CAC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Corey Thurman (Stars) 5-1 / 2.90 / 27 K / 40.1 IP.
• FRC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Emil Brown (Hornets) 305 / 8 HR / 27 RBI.
• FRC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Glen Ellis (Grays) 4-1 / 1.29 / 5 SV / 6 K / 14 IP.

EL Top 100 Prospects
 

Brooklyn's Kevin Mitchell takes the top spot and, given his club's performance to this point, shouldn't be too far away from his EL debut, one would think. Two-way NeLer Darius Bea - whom the game erroneously imports as "Bill" with some hinky stats; interestingly, Jim Riley also refers to him by that name in his book - is ranked second.



Not quite sure how the East can manage to have had one of the worst records in the league these past few years yet also have the worst farm system. That takes a special kind of skill.

Leader of the Pack
 

His career is winding down and his production tapering off, but Jose Abreu of the AGs becomes the EL's first 300-HR player.



Plenty hot on his tail, most of whom will end up way beyond his final tally. I'll move the milestone up to 400 now. With LTMs locked at only a relatively moderate HR clip, I'm expecting this list to top out at around the 650-700 mark, but we'll see.

Transit League All-Stars, 1978
 

Atlanta's Bobby Marshall wins the Derby over Choo-Choo Coleman, while Indy's Jesus Guzman is named MVP as the FC wins the ASG 7-5.

1978 EL All-Star / Prospects Squads and Games
 

The stars of today:



And tomorrow:


HR Derby winner

Eric Davis (Grays) def Shohei Ohtani (Buckeyes)

ASG result

Fleet 5, Weldy 3

ASG MVP

Barry Bonds (Black Yankees)


Prospects Game result

Fleet 4, Weldy 2 (10 innings)

Prospects Game MVP

Dee Brown (Black Crackers)

Stat Check: 3B
 

https://i.imgur.com/dWhuy8T.png

This is also the current leaderboard at the time of posting.

Bully Boy Jenkins
 

It almost seems unfair, picking on an East club that looks headed for the worst season in EL history. All the same, I'm sure Fergie and his ABCs will take it in what is turning out to be a disappointing campaign for them as well. It is the league's first no-no since '75.



FYI, the run scored when Art Pennington walked, advanced to second on an out and then came in on an error.

A Marathon, Not a Sprint
 

From memory, this is the longest game in EL history (devs, would love to have these sorts of items kept somewhere and readily accessible in future versions), both in terms of time (7+ hours) and innings (24). Note also the superb performance in relief by Sam Cooper, who hurls 7+ no-hit innings.

Stat Check: SHO
 

https://i.imgur.com/HbCG7lZ.png

This is also the current all-time leaderboard.

July 1978 Recap
 

While the Grays and Monarchs consolidate their leads, neither can consider themselves home free just yet. All the same, you'd rather be them than either the BYs or MoStars, each of whom struggles in July and now finds itself in a tight stretch run tussle.



Monthly Award Winners

• FC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Barry Bonds (Black Yankees) 316 / 5 HR / 23 RBI.
• FC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Edsall Walker (Monarchs) 5-1 / 2.15 / 24 K / 46 IP.
• FC ROOKIE OF THE MONTH: Edgar Wesley (Crawfords) 337 / 0 HR / 14 RBI.
• WC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Eric Davis (Grays) 381 / 5 HR / 15 RBI.
• WC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Juan Marichal (Buckeyes) 5-0 / 2.84 / 28 K / 44.1 IP.
• WC ROOKIE OF THE MONTH: Antonio Senzatela (East) 4-1 / 1.93 / 22 K / 42 IP.

Points of Interest

• Hilldale's Guillermo Moscoso is lost for the remainder when he tears his UCL.
• As foregrounded, the Trade Deadline does indeed bring about a flourish of trades, with the following the key moves:

Akron looking good, the other three still in contention.



Monthly Award Winners

• CAC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Buddy Armour (Choo-Choos) 339 / 5 HR / 20 RBI.
• CAC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Cardell Camper (Browns) 4-0 / 2.58 / 33 K / 45.1 IP.
• FRC BATTER OF THE MONTH: Jimsey Roussell (Bears) 437 / 5 HR / 18 RBI.
• FRC PITCHER OF THE MONTH: Alfonso Pulido (Habañeros) 4-0 / 2.48 / 28 K / 32.2 IP.

Out of the Shadows: Art Pennington
 

Memphis-born Art "Superman" Pennington ended up spending more time in organised baseball post-"integration" than he did in the NeL, but for whatever reason(s) just never made the final jump to the bigs. There are plenty others with a similar story.

His NeL career began in 1941 aged just 18 at the club he is most closely associated with, the American Giants. He struggled for the most part in those early years, hitting sub-250 in '41, '42 and '43. Finally, everything came together for him in '44 and '45, the latter of which was a true breakout year as he slashed 331/432/460 with a 166 OPS+.

Money led to his switch to the Mexican League, where he spent the next three seasons playing for a host of teams before returning with his new wife to the US. He reportedly played for the AGs in the early part of the 1949 season, although sadly this is almost the Dark Ages of NeL stats and Seamheads shows no entries for him after 1945.

Midway through that year, the AGs sold him to Portland of the AAA PCL, the closest Art would ever get to the Show, and then - after two more seasons back in Chicago - starred for Keokuk in the Three-I League. A mooted deal with the Browns for the 1953 campaign never went anywhere and he instead spent the remainder of his career playing in a number of Latin American countries. He died aged 93 in 2017.

In the EL, Art was taken 116th overall in the 1970 Draft by the Cuban Stars West organisation, then traded to their East brethren just a year later, who traded him again the following year to Memphis. After four years with the Red Sox, including being a member of their 1974 Championship team and winning a Slick Award the following year, Art became a Free-Agent and signed a juicy 6-year deal prior to the 1976 season that saw him return to the East, his current club at the time of writing.

While not essentially a TTO player, Art's hitting profile is certainly skewed to power rather than contact. His career line over his eight seasons to date is 230/313/356, while he has reached double-digits in HR the past five seasons including the one currently in progress, with 22 in 1975 being his peak. His bWAR sits a shade above 10 all told midway thru his age-26 season.