January 9, 1939
KEYSTONES LOOK TO INDY LEAGUES FOR KELLOGG'S REPLACEMENT
After the initial shock of Rankin Kellogg's sudden retirement due to life threatening health issues the Philadelphia Keystones have begun the process of trying to fill Kellogg's sizeable shoes at first base. One possible candidate will be a 22 year old slugger by the name of Sig Stofer. The Keystones made the Stofer the first player selected in the Independent Team player acquisition draft. Stofer has loads of power and hit 28 homers in 1937 playing Class A ball in the Saints organization but there is concern about his ability to make sufficient contact to warrant his name being penciled in the lineup every day.
Nicknamed 'The Boardwalk Bopper' one could easily see the graduate of nearby Atlantic City High School becoming a fan favourite in Philadelphia. He was originally a 6th round selection of the Montreal Saints in 1934 and Keystones Assistant General Manager George Mitchell admitted the club considered drafting him at the time. "I remember Stofer in the draft and that was at about the time we started to think (the Keystones) need to make plans for after Kellogg. The fact that he is from A.C. was not lost on (us) either."
Instead Stofer ended up in the Montreal organization but was surprisingly released early last season after two pretty solid years with the organization. He caught on with Houston of the Lone Star Association and hit .265 with 4 homers in 109 games for the AA Bulls. Stofer will get an opportunity to challenge for Kellogg's old spot but he will have competition.
The Keystones have the following candidates in mind:
- Don Ward - he would have to move from 3B to 1B, as he lost most of his playing time to George Wright in the second half of the season. His numbers took a dive last year, but my scout still likes him.
- Sig Stofer - just acquired and has light-tower power. He will be given an even-money shot to win the spot.
- John Turner - acquired last offseason in the Minor League Draft, hit .301 with 71 RBI
- Lloyd Stevens - high-end prospect who may be ticketed for AAA, but he will get two chances to make the team - on the mound and in the field. He is a 3B by trade, but he will get time at 1B in the Spring.
This could be an interesting season for the Keystones as the club is expected to give several highly touted prospects the opportunity to shine at the big league level. 20 year old second baseman Billy Woytek is already up, hitting .213 with 3 homers in a brief stint last season, and according to the pipeline we should be seeing third baseman Hank Koblenz along with pitchers Lloyd Stevens and Pepper Tuttle at some point this season as well. Stevens will be one to watch as his future is likely on the mound but he is also a very solid hitter.
As for the rest of the Indy team draft there was not a lot of action with only 4 teams electing to select a player.
Former Baltimore Cannons lottery signee Ed Greenwood was selected second by the Montreal Saints. The 23 year old center fielder was immediately released after the draft in 1937 by the Cannons and spent this past season with Dallas of the Lone Star Association, hitting .326 with 21 stolen bases.
St Louis continued it's recent trend of adding young arms with the decision to select 24 year old Doc Barker from Waco of the Lone Star Association. A relief specialist, Baker has averaged over 50 appearances a season in that league the past 3 years. He was originally a Baltimore selection in the 13th round of the 1932 draft.
Finally the Detroit Dynamos kept the pattern of selecting Baltimore cast-offs going with the decision to pick 29 year old infielder Bill Ball. Ball was originally drafted 5th overall by the Cannons in 1927 and played 521 big league games for the club, hitting just .244. Unlike the other three selections which were focused on trying to find a late blooming prospect, the Dynamos choice was clearly to add some middle infield defensive talent to the team. The defensive skills are there for Ball, but he was cut loose by the Cannons last summer after hitting just .109 in 35 games. He went to Hollywood of the AAA Great Western League and batted .381 in 12 games for the Heroes but his chances of playing regularly in Detroit are likely very slim.
DYNAMOS SEND PERRY PACKING
The Detroit Dynamos, now faced with a pitching logjam after the deal last week to acquire Sergio Gonzales, cleared some space by sending Roger Perry to the New York Gothams in exchange for minor league shortstop Vince D'Alessandro. D'Alessandro is a solid prospect, ranked 76th by OSA but only 7th in a very deep Gothams system. A 6th round pick in 1934 out of high school in Springfield, Illinois he may be better suited defensively to move to either second or third base but should be a reliable big league hitter according to the league scouting service. The 31 year old Perry was 16-5 with a 3.70 era in a very strong season for the Dynamos last year after coming over from Cleveland. He has a lifetime big league mark of 90-46 and should challenge for the top spot in the Gothams rotation.
JIGGS MCGEE'S TAKE - While I get Detroit has a logjam on the mound and plans to go with a 4-man rotation while also trying to find room to keep youngsters Stumpy Beamon and Jack Wood on the big league roster I do worry the decision to move Perry might have been made a little early. He has pitched very well throughout his career, especially for the current Dynamos GM in both Cleveland and Detroit, and it would be nice to have him in your back pocket in case an injury hit or one of the veteran arms (William Jones, Frank Crawford or Gonzales) struggled. D'Alessandro is a nice pickup but not essential to the Dynamos future. Perry, on the other hand, could be essential to a Dynamos pennant hunt if something happens with one of the 4 starters they plan to run with.
As for New York it is a nice add. Perry will provide veteran experience on the mound and stands a good chance of displacing Oscar Morse as the Opening Day starter at the Gothams brand new park.
WINTER DRAFT COVERAGE
The FABL draft is back to taking place in the winter, well at least partly, like it did from it's beginnings in 1911 until the mid-1930s when it switched to a June date to better align with the high school and college schedules. A new format introduced this season has the first three rounds of players being selected in January including an all-new regional round three where teams are only allowed to selecting players from their home state or neighbouring states with the remaining 22 rounds staying as a June selection date. Players selected in January will remain with their college or high school club until after the June draft at which time they may sign with the organization that selected them. Gone also is the player's lottery format which was an effort to avoid the negative effect the in-game Mock Draft has on stats-only leagues and this new 3 round format is designed to counteract the mock while also giving the individual teams more freedom in their draft strategy.
The Baltimore Cannons started the draft off by selecting, as they usually do with their top pick, a pitcher. This time it was 20 year old Vic Carroll who went 8-4 last season for Richmond State and is 16-6 over two years with the Colonials. The New York City product is expected to be a very good pitcher, perhaps even an ace one day but many were still surprised that the Cannons opted for Carroll over another New Yorker in Collegiate High School third baseman Wally Fuller.
Count the Cannons rivals, well geographically at least as they haven't met in the World Championship Series since back to back years in 1913 and 1914, the Washington Eagles as among those surprised to see Fuller still on the board when they selected immediately after Baltimore. Eagles brass sees Fuller in a couple of seasons being the guy to fill the role at third vacated by the trading of Whitney Award winner Mel Carrol to Cleveland over the summer. New Washington Assistant General Manager joe Dittrich summed up Washington's selection this way.
"Wally Fuller was an obvious #1 pick that somehow dropped to us, he looks to be the best pure hitter of the draft, getting on base a New York state record 64% of the time. He did this primarily by hitting singles, though anyone watching his games would know he frequently forced pitchers to pitch to him, often pulling them into hitters counts, or else working a pitchers count full."
It really should come as little surprise the Cannons, who have finished last in the Continental Association the past five seasons, went with a pitcher at the top of the first round. Excluding the past two years when the old players lottery format was in place the Cannons have selected in the top five of the draft 8 times and on all but one of those occasions selected a pitcher.
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BALTIMORE CANNONS TOP FIVE DRAFT PICKS
1939 Vic Carroll P 1st
1936 Al Jennings CF 5th
1935 Rufus Barrell II P 1st
1934 Gus Goulding P 2nd
1933 John Edwards P 3rd
1923 Rabbit Day P 5th
1922 Bob Miller P 5th
1918 Delos Dunn P 4th
Dunn lasted just two seasons in Baltimore before being dealt to the Gothams in 1923 and finished his career with a 94-94 record. Miller was one of two pitchers the Cannons selected in the first round in 1922 (Jim Hitchcock was the other and went 26-24 in his career) and spent his entire 12 year big league career with Baltimore posting a 99-123 career mark. Day won the first two of his 3 career Allan Awards in a Baltimore uniform before being dealt to the Gothams and later the Chiefs. Edwards, Goulding and Barrell have all struggled so far in their careers. The 22 year old Edwards was dispatched to Boston last winter for some much needed offensive help and went 15-15 for the Minutemen after going 13-21 as a Cannon over the two seasons prior to the deal. Goulding is now 25 years old and 34-42 for his career. He still has plenty of promise but at least so far, like his former St Blane teammate Bobo White who went first overall that year to Washington, each has failed to live up to the lofty expectations after they dominated the college ranks. Barrell is just 21 and the next generation of baseball's first family so there is still plenty of time for him to develop into the superstar pitcher everyone expects but he did have a rough introduction to the big leagues last season going 1-9 with a 6.15 era in 11 starts for the Cannons. The lone exception to the trend of selecting pitchers is 1936 first rounder Al Jennings. The second team All-American selection out of Gates University has yet to make his big league debut but did finish last season with a 20 game stint in AAA.
Incidentally the last time the Cannons took a New York City High School pitcher in the first round it worked out pretty well. That was way back in 1916 when they drafted Max Wilder 10th overall out of New York High School in the old feeder era days. Wilder retired following the 1935 season with a 157-137 career record although he spent just the first five and a half of his 14 big league seasons with Baltimore. One would expect Baltimore would be quite happy to see Carroll have a career that mirrors Wilder's.
Here is the complete list of 1939 first round selections:
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1939 FIRST ROUND RESULTS
PICK TEAM POS PLAYER AGE SCHOOL BIRTHPLACE
1 Baltimore Cannons SP Vic Carroll 20 Richmond State New York, NY
2 Washington Eagles 3B Wally Fuller 17 Collegiate HS, NYC New York, NY
3 Montreal Saints CF Bill Greene 21 Brooklyn Catholic Providence, RI
4 Brooklyn Kings CF Rats McGonigle 20 Bronx Tech Stringer, MS
5 Detroit Dynamos SP Marcus Mangum 18 Louisa (KY) HS Louisa, KY
6 Phil. Keystones 3B Davey Robicheaux 21 Bay State Bayou La Batre, AL
7 Chicago Cougars SS Skipper Schneider 18 Northwestern HS, Detroit Detroit, MI
8 Boston Minutemen 2B Buddy Schneider 18 Northwestern HS, Detroit Detroit, MI
9 Cleveland Foresters SP Bart Schneider 18 Northwestern HS, Detroit Detroit, MI
10 St. Louis Pioneers SP Mal Bianco 21 Maryland State Brooklyn, NY
11 Phil. Sailors SS Johnny Zeidman 21 McNair University Little Rock, AR
12 Montreal Saints SP Ace Adams 21 CCLA San Gabriel, CA
13 Toronto Wolves OF Hank Giordano 18 Crisfield (MD) HS Crisfield, MD
14 Washington Eagles 2B Bob Mark 21 Central Kentucky Akron, OH
15 Brooklyn Kings 3B Whitey Dorsch 17 Moline (IL) HS Moline, IL
16 Chicago Chiefs CF John McNichols 17 Passaic (NJ) HS Passaic, NJ
SCHNEIDER BOYS MAKE HISTORY
FABL has had it's share of brother acts including the Barrell's, the Cleaves boys, the Pestilli clan and the Lightbody's to name just four, but never before have a pair of siblings been selected in the same draft. That changed this year and in a big way as the Schneider triplets made history with all 3 of them being selected in succession midway through the first round of this year's draft.
First up was William "Billy" Schneider, better known as Skipper. A shortstop at Detroit's Northwestern High School the eldest, by mere minutes of course, of the Schneider boys was taken 7th overall by the Chicago Cougars. Immediately after hearing Skipper had been selected the Schneider family received a telegram from Boston letting them know that Robert "Buddy" Schneider was drafted 8th by the Boston Minutemen. Buddy and Skipper are considered to almost be identical players on the ballfield, both capable of playing a number of positions but Buddy settled in at second base for Northwestern High alongside his brother Skipper at shortstop. The duo also both bat lefthanded, having been taught by their grandfather who just happens to be a former long-time pitching coach of the Philadelphia Sailors. Billy Schneider was a catcher by trade but appeared in just 3 games at the big league level in the late 1800s. He made his real mark on the game primarily as a pitching coach, spending 20 years at the role with the Sailors but was also a coach in Boston and Toronto after spending one season as the manager of the Washington Eagles.
While Skipper was named after his grandfather it was the third Schneider youngster who most benefited from Grandpa's coaching skills as Bart Schneider is the ace of Northwestern High's pitching staff posting a 24-4 record to go along with a 1.10 era over his three seasons as a starter at the school. It is only fitting that the trio, who have always played baseball together growing up, were drafted in succession with the Cleveland Forester completing the task by taking Bart with the 9th pick of the opening round. Soon the boys will be scattered across the minor league landscape as they report to different organization's but before that happens in June they will have one final season together starring for Detroit's Northwestern High School Colts.
QUICK HITS
- Each of the first four players selected in the new January phase of the baseball draft have ties to the New York City area. First overall pick Vic Carroll of Richmond State played his high school ball in New York while second choice Wally Fuller is currently the star third baseman for Collegiate High School in New York while third and fourth selections Bill Greene and Rats McGonigle are the center fielders at Brooklyn Catholic University and Bronx Technical College respectively.
- The path that led the Brooklyn Kings to the decision to select Rats McGonigle fourth overall is a winding one. The 20 year old center fielder seems like a huge risk this high in the draft as he has not played even a single inning of high school or college ball but a pair of former Kings were instrumental in steering the sandlot star from Stringer, Mississippi to the club. McGonigle was first spotted as a 17 year old playing semi-pro ball in his home state by ex-King and Mississippi A&M outfielder Clarence Hall. Hall, recognizing McGonigle's immense potential, took the youth under his wing and helped develop his game while also attempting to get him admitted to A&M. His lack of a formal high school education precluded the Generals from accepting him but while he worked on his studies, both on and off the field, McGonigle's legend grew and he picked up the moniker "The Ringer from Stringer" in both a nod to his hometown and his rising baseball acumen.
Hall used his connections to former Brooklyn teammate Clarence Flanders, now the head baseball coach at Bronx Technical College, and McGonigle was admitted to the school in September and will suit up for the Flying Dutchmen in the spring before joining the Kings organization. Flanders, who spent five seasons as a pitcher with the Kings and one with Cleveland has managerial ties in his blood as his great-uncle Ray Flanders was a long-time FABL manager with Brooklyn and the Philadelphia Sailors. The younger Flanders ensured that John Spears and the rest of the Kings scouting staff had plenty of opportunity to witness McGonigle in practice during the fall. So with a hearty endorsement from both Hall and Flanders, the Kings selected Rats McGonigle 4th overall despite his lack of organized baseball experience.
- Hall of Fame ballots are due soon. Most will remain anonymous but Percy Sutherland did make his selections public. Word has leaked out that Rankin Kellogg and Ossie Julious will be two of the up to six in total who will be enshrined this month. Sutherland is calling for Jim Ward, Zebulon Banks and Jim Golden to also earn an invite to the Hall, which is being constructed in Boone County, Illinois - birthplace of Hall of Famer and FABL founder William Whitney. All are good choices and deserve to join the Hall at some point but there also should be plenty of support for perhaps the greatest shortstop of all-time Calvin Kidd.
The Week That Was
Current events from the week ending 01/08/1939
- The 76th Congress began today in a manner distinctly reminiscent of Hollywood which included a dry run opening ceremony rehearsal that was filmed for newsreels. The actual pounding of the gavel to call the House to order did not occur until an hour later after the film crews had moved on.
- The first order of business for Congress will be to react to FDR's urging to ramp up defense spending in order to meet a world challenge of dictatorial aggression. A tax rise is expected but the stock market reacted well to plans for more spending.
- Felix Frankfurter, professor of law at Harvard University was appointed to the Supreme Court bench making him the third jurist to be named by President Roosevelt.
- The US blacklists Japan, halting all sales of either airplanes or bombs to that country because of the Japanese army bombings of civilians in China.
- Czech forces attacked Hungarian soldiers at the border city of Munkacs, which is in the territory that the Czechs ceded to Hungary 2 months ago. There are fears it will lead to a general war between the two nations.