THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL
Monday September 14, 1936
This is the debut of which will hopefully be a regular column in the The Figment Sporting Journal. Figment baseball sims one week of game day five days a week (Monday-Friday) so the hope is I can find time to update you daily on the key happenings in the greatest baseball league in the world.
700 FOR MIGHTY MO!
The biggest news this week comes out of Montreal as Max Morris reached the 700 homerun plateau.
The 41 year old Morris, who has won 8 Whitney Awards as MVP, 4 in each league, went down in July with an elbow injury that some feared might end his pursuit of 700 homeruns two shy but Morris returned to the lineup on August 31st and belted homer 699 three days later. Once he got his 700th in Montreal on Wednesday, Might Mo wasted little time adding to his total by smacking another one on Thursday. How dominant is Morris as a home run hitter? Number two on the all-time list is Rankin Kellogg of the Philadelphia Keystones, who sits 260 homers behind Morris. Brooklyn's Al Wheeler recently surpassed former Saints and Keystones great Hal Eason to move into third all-time but Wheeler has just 274 career homers.
Here is a trivia question I am still trying to figure out the answer to.
Prior to Max Morris becoming the homerun king who was the all time leader? I am thinking Morris took over the lead late in the 1921 season which he finished with 126 homers. That would be enough for him to surpass Martin Thomas, who hit 124 between 1886-1904. But looking closer I think the answer could also be Paul Tattersall who also finished 1921 with 126 round-trippers which tied him with Morris at 2 ahead of Martin Thomas. Obviously Morris took off from there but without a league file and box scores from that season we will never know if Tattersall or Morris was the one to first surpass Thomas for the career HR lead or if Tattersall was ahead of Morris at any point early in the 1922 campaign in which Morris hit a single season record 59 while Tattersall belted 36 for Brooklyn.
We do know when Morris hit his then single season record 53 in 1921 the mark he broke was co-held by Tattersall and himself as each swatted 26 in 1920. The previous mark was 23 established by Ed Kurwood of the Keystones in 1917.
PUTTING THE BARRELL ON THE LONGBALL
Speaking of homeruns Bobby Barrell hit 3 more homers last week. Barrell has hit 6 homers in the first two weeks of September to give him 52 on the season. Imagine what he could have done with some support in the Philadelphia lineup but his fellow Keystone Kruncher Rankin Kellogg had a terrible slump to start the season, although Kellogg has been red-hot of late and the 33 year old first baseman hit 10 homers in the past 18 games to raise his season total to 34.
GETTING YOUR MASTERS
Looks like Joe Masters, who led the Chiefs to the 1928 FA pennant is back with Whitney Nine strictly to impart wisdom and provide moral support. Re-signed by the Chiefs in August after being cut by Detroit, Masters has yet to appear in a game for Chicago. Being groomed for a future coaching role perhaps but it would be nice to see the 1928 MVP and FABL single season rbi record holder get at least 1 more at bat as a Chief before his career comes to an end. Masters is hitting just .222 this season with 1 homer and 7 RBIs from his brief stay in Detroit.
BIG MONEY IS BIG ANGRY
As for Detroit, word is Big Money is big time angry after ex-Brooklyn skipper Walt Bailey was signed to take over the reigns of the Chicago Cougars this week. The Detroit owner Eddie 'Big Money" Thompson seemed to be pushing for the Dynamos to sign Bailey as soon as the Brooklyn Kings let him go in May after that club hit a terrible swoon.
According to renowned Detroit World reporter
Fast Freddie Farhat Thomson is very close to cleaning house once more in Detroit, just over a year after DD Martin left Cleveland to run the struggling Dynamos franchise. Detroit’s tragic number to wrap up the 1st overall pick in the draft is just 4. Detroit skipper Tom Bray’s tragic number is 7 as far as avoiding Owner Eddie Thompson demand of losing no more than 98 games. The Dynamo’s will have to go 5-6 or better over the last 11. The other half of the equation of scoring 5 runs a game is at 4.4. The team will have to score 62 in its last 11 to reach the mark
KINGS FEELING THE HEAT?
We may just have a pennant race after all as the
Curse of Ferdinand Hawkins appears to be on the verge of rearing it's ugly head in Brooklyn once more. The Kings, who have had two successive final week collapses to lose the pennant to Cleveland the past two seasons, are likely feeling the heat again after a 2-5 week that allowed the Foresters to creep within 5 games of the front-running Kings. It makes the 2 games the club's will play at Kings County Ballpark on Tuesday and Wednesday this week extremely important. A Cleveland sweep might just send the Kings into another tailspin and Cleveland back to the World Championship Series.
If the Kings and Chiefs do reach the Series we can expect to see a game one matchup of arguably the 2 best pitchers in the game today. Rabbit Day(189-112) and Tom Barrell (93-38) have faced each other just twice before with Day coming out on top on both occasions.
Their first meeting came in the final month of Barrell's rookie campaign, 1932. Day was masterful for Baltimore on that afternoon, tossing a complete game 3-hitter for his 19th win of the season as the Cannons blanked the Kings 2-0. Barrell was nearly as good, scattering 6 hits over 8 innings but taking the loss to drop to 8-3. The rematch came the following season in July, Day's last year Baltimore before the trade to the Gothams. Neither was as sharp as they were in the initial meeting but both went the distance that day in Baltimore. Barrell had a slow start and was victimized by a pair of first inning errors, including one from his brother Dan that allowed the Cannons to plate 4 runs, all unearned in the opening frame. Tom would settle down after surrendering 4 hits in the first and would allow just 2 more hits the rest of the way but Day allowed just 2 runs, both earned, on 9 Brooklyn hits to get the 4-2 win. In case of another Cleveland comeback I should also mention that Foresters ace Dean Astle has faced Rabbit Day just once in his career, and tossed a complete game shutout to win 4-0. It was May 16, 1933 and Astle pitched an 8-hit shutout in what was his big league debut. So quite a start beating Rabbit Day 4-0 in your first FABL game. That was the only time they met.