[Tiger Fan]

MAY 11, 1942

STARS SHINING BRIGHTLY

In what is looking like a repeat of last season the New York Stars are racing out to the front of the Continental Association standings thanks to a winning streak that has now stretched to 11 games. At this point a year ago the Stars sported a 20-6 record but eventually would be surpassed by the Chicago Cougars for the Continental crown. They are nearly as hot this time around, with their 19-7 start the best in either league and good for a 4.5 game lead on Brooklyn and Philadelphia with the Cougars 5.5 off the pace.

A year ago it was the incredible start of Bill Barrett that keyed the offense. Barrett (.316,2,11), who says this is his final season and he will enlist in the fall, has still been very good but not as dominant as he was a year ago. Dave Trowbridge (.261,3,16) is merely average this season - still quite an accomplishment for someone who will turn 44 years of age in August. The Stars of this season are no where near as overwhelming as they were at this time last year and there may be a fair bit of good fortune following them at the moment - they are 7-2 in 1-run games- and while their +37 run differential is certainly impressive the club with the second best run differential in either league is the Toronto Wolves and they presently sit a game below the breakeven mark. The old Greek math wizard has the Stars a couple of games better than their expected win total (and Brooklyn 4 up on what it should be) while the Wolves at 13-14 are underperforming in the win department by 4 games. Perhaps, like last season, it might not last but for now fans at Dyckman Park can get excited about another quick start for their Stars.

The team that might be playing with the biggest horseshoe tucked in their back pocket is the Philadelphia Keystones. The Fed squad is 14-12 but has allowed 14 runs more than it has scored this season, worst in the Fed with the exception of Detroit, and the Keystones are just a game out of top spot thanks in no small part to going 5-0 in extra innings and 10-1 in contests decided by just a single run.

CANNONS NEED TO SHAKE THINGS UP

SO THIS IS WHAT LIVING IN BALTIMORE WAS LIKE

How things have come full circle. The Cannons came to Cincinnati a little over two years ago as the laughing stock of FABL, a sad-sack franchise liberated from Baltimore, but wearing the albatross of 6 straight last place finishes in the Continental Association around their neck. Mr. Tice, the soap magnate who brought baseball back to Cincinnati nearly 50 years after his grandfather's passing cost the city a chance to be a part of the birth of FABL, seemed to pull all the right strings that first winter. He added a veteran GM with championship experience from Brooklyn, the winningest manager in FABL history in George Theobald, the most famous scout the sport has ever known in Rufus Barrell and together that quartet made several moves to upgrade the team and the result was nearly a miracle. They ended up in third place but for much of that glorious summer the Cincinnati Cannons were the kings of the Continental Association.

Big things were expected of 1941 but those plans hit several roadblocks. First Theobald, approaching his 79th birthday decided to leave the manager's chair and strictly work in his other role as a minority owner of the club. Theobald handpicked his replacement and by all accounts that man, Ad Doria, will one day be a very good manager but perhaps that day has not yet arrived and Doria still has some learning to do. The team struggled early when newly acquired all-star catcher Adam Mullins got hurt in the opening week and slugger Moxie Pidgeon had a slow start. Just as Mullins was returning and Pidgeon began to break out of his early season slumber disaster struck. In a matter of just a few weeks Vic Carroll, Bill Sohl and Deuce Barrell - the holy trinity of the Cincinnati pitching staff - all suffered long-term injuries. The club did finish fourth but unlike the previous season the Cannons were never really in contention.

The blows kept coming after the season ended. First came word that Carroll's wonky elbow was not healing and he would need an additional 7 months beyond the 4 he lost during the season in order to complete his recovery. Scouting Director Deuce Barrell looked at Carroll a week ago when the 23 year old began throwing again and there are fears the former All-American from Richmond State who was taken first overall in 1939 has suffered irreparable damage to his right wing. Then came news that Bill Sohl, another All-American taken second overall a year later, committed to spending the duration of the war in the Navy as a physical education teacher. Suddenly the rotation, that just a few months earlier seemed a dream trio, was down to just Deuce Barrell and a collection of fillers. But that wasn't all the bad news the Cannons had to endure. The attack on Pearl Harbor cost many lives and changed our country, so it's impact on baseball is trivial at best, but the Cannons were hit harder than most teams with news that Mike T. Taylor and Charley McCullough each immediately enlisted in the days following the attack. Each of the 16 FABL ballclubs lost players but the Cannons were suddenly without their all-star second baseman and a young outfielder on the cusp of all-star recognition.

There were no capable replacements for McCullough's bat at the top of the lineup, and setbacks to outfielder Bob Griffith's countless injuries derailed their replacement plans for Taylor. With Carroll and Sohl gone (although Carroll is going to pitch in AAA next week and if all goes well may be in Cincinnati before the month ends) the pitching staff has an ace in Barrell, but little behind him. Butch Smith (0-6, 5.56), who had been counted on to be the #4 starter if all went according to plan, has been awful this season in the number 2 role after back to back 17 win campaigns, which only further compounds the troubles. Barrell is 6-1 on the year while the rest of the staff is 3-18 and the Cannons are back to channeling their Baltimore days with the worst record in baseball.

The owner is frustrated as Mike Tice expected a .500 season from this group. He is a demanding man, who made his fortune in soap and now seems prepared to clean house at Tice Memorial Stadium. The GM is frustrated and vows to consider any and all trade offers although one expects only Bill Barrett himself or a package deal involving Red Johnson and Sal Pestilli from Detroit would be enough to convince the Cannons to part ways with their young star. But everyone else, perhaps even all-star catcher Adam Mullins, could be had if the price was right. And it seems for some, most notably the much travelled but always very consistent Moxie Pidgeon, their days in Cincinnati are very much numbered.

HAVE THE CANNONS GOT IT ALL WRONG?

Having heard Cincinnati’s plan to stage a 'fire sale' started me thinking on the wisdom of doing the typical "my team is underachieving this year" sell-off. As you all know, I am usually against this strategy but right now I'm not sure. It's very, very difficult to say "I can't win in the next four years" because my opinion is that every single team in FABL has a shot to win one from now until the end of the war simply because the rosters are going to be in flux (to say the least). So... with that in mind, is it better to sell off as the Cannons is thinking of doing, or hold on - guys they deal away might not end up in the military and therefore prove a lot more useful (and make their "can't win one" statement false). Anyone the Cannons get back might be gone too over the next few years so today's prospect might come back from war changed for the worse (or better, could be either one). On the other hand, is it better for a team that has a shot in '42 to sell off prospects in an effort to win one now knowing that next year the team might be a lot weaker... or could be relatively stronger if the draft & enlistments hit the other contenders harder than they do you?

I guess I'm saying I don't know whether it's smart or dumb to sell off right now. But doing it because you think you can't win during the war is probably not a good reason because we don't know how the war is going to impact each team. Remember, in 1918 the Chicago Cougars came from 5th place the year before to win a pennant and in that other reality the St. Louis Browns went to the World Series in 1944. If that can happen, anything can happen.

CANNONS GM SPEAKS OUT ON TRADE TALK

By Cannons Management - As an organization the Cincinnati Cannons have made it known around the league that we are open to making some moves designed to better position our club for the long haul. It is clear with our off-season losses, coupled with an embarrassing start to the season in which we have the worst record in the league, we need to re-evaluate our priorities and focus on what we feel is the best course to make the Cannons a successful team in the long-term.

We are looking at it as attempting to duplicate what was accomplished by the management team when we were in Brooklyn. Build a consistent winner and we spent 5-6 years at the top or within a game and the Kings even now are still very competitive. Cincinnati, with the right breaks and the right players staying put, and the right ones (from our perspective) leaving the other teams for the war, could potentially pull a miracle one-off and win a series. But the odds of that seem very long and as such is that gamble, or perhaps a better word is 'hope' as gamble still implies there is at least some fighting chance of it happening, for everything to break right, both for us and against our opponents worth passing up the potential for long-term success that the right deal or series of deals might help ensure. We agree if we knew the Cannons had a great shot at winning a World Championship Series in the next year or two it would be well worth sacrificing long-term to get there. But, in this case our shot is hardly great looking at the current cast.

However, if we were to aim to build around Deuce Barrell, and young outfield prospect Dick Blaszak, and Charlie Griffith and Rick York, maybe Win Hamby plus we have Bill Sohl and Mike T Taylor coming back from the war in a few seasons as 27 year olds, McCullough at age 29. Plus Mullins at 32 or so and capable of playing 1B if not catching everyday. Add in the couple of prospects we might add for moving some guys like Pidgeon now, and hopefully a few good draft picks and the Cannons are now a potential powerhouse.

So do we hope for a miracle in the next two years or plan for something that has perhaps a 50/50 chance of looking pretty close to what we envision. Of that we are not sure. As John Brinker points out the uncertainty of the war makes it a tougher call but what we are sure of is that our current group is underachieving and the dynasty we built in Brooklyn had it's foundation put in place with two huge trades that sent Tom Barrell and Milt Fritz away when the team was struggling.

Perhaps the choice of the phrase 'Fire Sale' was extreme, but it did get the league talking. And no, it is a near impossibility that Deuce Barrell goes anywhere. As we told Ernie Herr of the Cincinnati Post it would take a Bill Barrett or the Detroit offensive assembly-line duo of Johnson and Pestilli to get us to consider moving Deuce. But there are certainly are others we will move, players who perhaps could be a better fit elsewhere and help us make the Cannons a team to be feared, something that has not happened in well over a decade.

BROOKLYN BENEFIT GAME TRIBUTE TO PRESCOTT'S PROMOTIONAL GENIUS

The Navy seems to have done all right for itself in the Coral Sea. And without any sacrilegious intent, it might be written that our Navy did all right for itself at Kings County Stadium on Saturday afternoon. The Brooklyn Kings did all right too. Well, not on the field where they fell behind early and got hammered 11-4, but this story is not of the dizzy-mad struggle between the famed interborough rivals. It is about the occasion itself.

For this was the first of 16 FABL games to be played this year for the benefit of service organizations and 15 other big league owners might be interested in the way Kings magnate Daniel Prescott did it. As an event, the affair was an unqualified success from start to finish, a terrific promotional enterprise by Prescott and his staff. Brooklyn bugs rose to the occasion like the loyal baseball fans they are, but it required real salesmanship to lift the gate receipts to what surely constitutes a record for the Flatbush ballpark.

When, in the fifth inning, Prescott reached across the top of the Brooklyn dugout and presented a check to the Navy officer who was helping co-ordinate things, the officer was limp as rag and finished for the day once he glanced at the number on the check. In all, it totaled $58,808 and later a second check for $1,053.25 - proceeds from the day's receipts for scorecard sales was also presented. There remain still some unaudited checks in the club's business office that will bring the total benefits to the Navy Relief Society to more than $60,000.

--- THOUSANDS OF PAID TICKETS NOT TURNED IN AT THE GATE ---

The check that was presented to the Navy was based upon ticket sales to 42,822 fans. That would be an all-time high at Kings County Ballpark. But of course that many weren't there. You couldn't get that many in the stadium without pouring thousands all over the outfield as the park seating capacity is 32,000. The stands were about half full - the actual attendance was just over 18,000. So where are the rest of the tickets? Prescott grins. "A lot of them are right in my office." he said. "They were bought and paid for and then returned."

"What would you say," asked Kings office manager Jack Collins, "if I told you that a thousand of them are in Trinidad? That's a fact. A contractor bought that many and sent them to his employees as souvenirs. We were in no danger of getting into a jam. All those tickets were sold, but we knew within a few hundred just how many of them would actually be used."

Everybody in the park entered on a paid ticket. Players and umpires paid to see themselves in action. The Brooklyn club purchased tickets for all of the park help. Newspapermen, Western Union operators, special police all contributed to the Navy fund by buying their own admission.

There were officers of the U.S.S. Prairie State and 450 midshipmen of the class to graduate as ensigns four days later. Also 500 bluejackets from a Navy receiving ship anchored in the Hudson. They didn't buy their own tickets, but they entered on paid tickets nevertheless. Their admission was subscribed by civilians who, in response to Prescott's radio appeals, mailed in 4,200 checks to purchase tickets to the game for service men. Each check was made out to Prescott and Daniel vowed that he would personally endorse each one.

There was a bit of a rhubarb in procedure right up until a couple of hours before the opening pitch. In it's original form, the game technically consisted of a charity contribution on the part of the Stars and Kings. But it seems the Treasury Department allows only five per cent of corporation contributions to charity, and levies taxes on the rest. Neither club was prepared for a 'take' like that. FABL President Sam Belton tried to iron on the details with the Treasury Department but was told the ruling could not be waived. In the end Prescott worked out an angle of his own. He made a contract with the Navy Relief Society which made that organization, instead of the ball clubs, the actual promoter of the game. At 11 am, Prescott learned to his great glee that this move made everything lovely in Washington.

• Ed Bowman seems to be settling in. For the past week he was 2-0 allowing just 4 earned runs over 16 innings, striking out 6 and walking just 3. That's three consecutive solid efforts after being thrashed his first two ML appearances.
• Despite an "off" week Mule Monier continues to lead the majors with a .394 average.
• Down on the farm - Former #1 pick Frank Bunch Jr is off to a good start at AAA Toledo. The Port Jervis, NY first sacker is hitting .361, with an .847 OPS. As in the past the concern is that the 22 year old shows no home run stroke having managed only 3 career homers and non at higher than A ball.
• Former 2nd round pick Ed Stoddard is slashing .344/.432/.531 at Toledo. Top 100 SPs Monk Adams and Marcus Mangum have 3.80 and 3.10 ERAs respectively in 4 starts each at AA Reading.

• Deuce Barrell 6-1, 2.01 era. The rest of the Cannons staff 3-18, 4.53 led by Butch Smith, a 17 game winner each of the last two seasons, being 0-6 with a 5.56 era. We are just a month into the season and the Cannons are already 11 games out of first place.
• If anyone is thinking it's just another quick start from the New York Stars and they will fade like they did last year. Keep in mind that superstar Bill Barrett hasn't gotten hot yet...and last season he practically carried the team all by himself the first half of the season. So if Barrett gets going, look out.
• From Percy Sutherland's weekly column in the Chicago Times-Herald. Looking at run differential, the CA should settle down to be a race between the Stars, Wolves, and Cougars:
  
• Bad news for the Stars in learning that their top prospect Elijah Bourdeau gets hit with the AA curse and fractures his foot the same week he moves up.
• While not much talk about after the down week for Toronto, but Hank Giordano is making it tough to keep him down on the farm, .449/.473/.725 in first 70 AB in Buffalo. Larry Vestal performs well in his first week of action on a rehab assignment, the OF is going to get crowded in a hurry in Toronto. Some tough decisions are going to have to be made..... In other minor league news Tom Weaver suffers a career ending arm injury.
• We see where the Chicago Chiefs troubles lie. The Chiefs are 2-8 against Boston, Pittsburgh and St Louis but 13-3 against the rest of the Fed. The Chiefs also have played 18 of the first 26 games on the road. Still they've arrived back in Chicago with a 1/2 game lead.
• Alf Pestilli hit .500 on the week with 3 home runs and continues to be the best Pestilli brother in the early going this year. Alf had 8 home runs in 117 games last season. He currently has 7 home runs in 20 games this year. Reminds me of Alf's very good 1939 season when he hit 23 homers and batted .299 splitting the year between Brooklyn and Detroit.
• Charlie Bingham is having a forgettable month of May for the Chiefs. Last week, he pitched 3 innings, gave up 7 walks, 9 hits, and 11 runs. For the month he is 0-3 with a 10.80 ERA. Bingham will skip at least his next start. 25-year-old Sam Vaughan will get the assignment against Boston on Wednesday. Vaughan relieved Bingham when he was knocked out in the 3rd inning in Boston last week. Vaughan pitched 5.2 innings, striking out 5, and allowing only a single run.
• In that Boston game last Thursday, Bingham had the bases loaded with 1 out in the 3rd. He walks the next 3 batters before being relieved by Vaughan. Bingham faced 8 batters in 3rd, walking 5 of them. The knuckleball was either not working at all or working too well.
• One of Fred McCormick's close friends says it is unlikely Fred returns to Toronto once the war is over. I don't know whether Fred figures the war will be of such long duration that his form would be gone forever or what. But that's the word on his future. We do know that Fred started some attractive business ventures will still in St Louis and perhaps he is considering further developing those once the struggle is over.
• It looks like night games at Dyckman Stadium are a go as recent testing indicated there would be no issues with the New York Stars playing evening contests after some minor modifications were made to the stadium's lights.
• William Stockdale believes the full major league schedules, including the 21 night games in Columbia Stadium -home park of his Washington Eagles - will be played this year. After 1942, Washington's baseball sage will not predict. Mr. Stockdale does not believe that the cancellation of night games along the Atlantic seaboard, should they be deemed necessary, affecting Boston and New York would extend as far south as Washington. They are so careful in that area that the Keystones were recently instructed to pull the shades on the windows of their coach in travelling after dark along the shore from Boston heading back home to Philadelphia.
• Pittsburgh baseball writers have passed a rule that everyone in the press box must buy a Defense stamp each day.
• T.R. Goins returned to the playing field for the first time since retiring from the Cleveland Foresters at the end of the 1938 season. Goins caught an inning and grounded out in his only plate appearance as the Great Lakes Naval Training team fell 6-3 in an exhibition contest with the AAA Milwaukee Blues on Wednesday.
• Ray Allen, who went 12-18 for Boston over a few seasons a little over a decade ago, and is now a 41 year old veteran of 8 seasons in the Lone Star Association, is the latest player to join the military. The long-time Austin Violets lefthander was drafted last week.
• It was mentioned last month that pro hockey might be on thin ice due to Canada's version of Selective Service, but some are saying not so fast. It sounds like the sport might still be a go in the winter, although without many of it's big names just like baseball. One ambitious North American Hockey Confederation owner is suggesting the league offer to operate with all profits going to war relief funds over and above a weekly wage to each player...in that way the magnate points out, entertainment would be provided, the rinks would not suffer financial troubles and franchises would remain alive. Would that be an option the FABL bosses might consider should it come to a point where suspending play is given serious consideration?

Baseball received it's 'green light', similar go-ahead signals have been give to other sports- such as yachting, for instance - and now Jack Joyner, the Cumberland University sports publicist, suggests that intercollegiate sports should be granted some sign of official approval. That might help the gate receipts a bit but from here it hardly seems necessary. The Army and Navy have given college athletes their okay by grabbing up so many of them for such jobs as flying fighter planes. It that isn't enough here's the word from an ex-sports writer how helping administer the Navy V-5 training program: "We know of no better way to make a good flier tough, self-confident, self-reliant and a fearless competitor than through competitive athletics supervised and directed by the best coaches and leaders in the business."

College coaches have been using the lure of flying fighter planes in their pitches to recruits. Annapolis Maritime assistant coach, who got his start at Alabama Poly says it is so much different recruiting players for the Navigators. "I don't have competition now when I start my sales talk. Used to be I had to contend with Mississippi A&M or Bluegrass State when I went after a boy. It's different now. There is no talk of other schools. It's just if they go with me I tell them they'll be playing on the best team in the world - Uncle Sam's team."

OFF TACKLE- Detroit City College has some big holes to fill as the Knights, who went 6-1-1 last season, suffered big losses with graduating seniors and others leaving for the war. The Knights are much more optimistic about another successful season after seeing their newcomers in action during their spring camp, held last weekend. The school is especially excited with a half dozen freshman, who will be eligible to play for the varsity team next season thanks to a new AIAA rule that has been adopted by the Great Lakes Alliance. Minnesota Tech, St Magnus and Central Ohio are once again expected to be Detroit City's biggest rivals in their loop....Say what you will about the AFA being the pinnacle of pro football but the best football teams in the fall will be wearing U.S. uniforms. Much has already been written and said about how strong Great Lakes Training School will be when autumn comes again but the army has answered the call as well, recruiting several of the best college players in the nation over the past few years.

The Week That Was
Current events from the week ending 5/10/1942

• Corregidor and it's three sister fortresses, America's islet bastions in Manilla Bay, surrendered this week with a garrison of upwards of 6,500 American troops after holding strong against overwhelming odds for 27 days. It is suspected that General Wainwright is one of the captured.
• Reinforced Japanese columns striking northward from Lashio to within 15 miles of the China border were repulsed in severe fighting.
• 11 Japanese ships were reported sunk and 6 more heavily damaged in the greatest naval battle of the war, waging in the Coral Sea.
  
• The R.A.F. and Luftwaffe exchanged stiff blows in daylight raids over France and England.
  
• British troops routed French forces loyal to Vichy and the Nazis in capturing the French base in Madagascar. The US braces for a protest from the Vichy government that could come in military, naval or written form.
• German firing squads killed scores of civilians throughout occupied Europe as the Gestapo extends it's ruthless campaign to stamp out anti-Nazi disorders.
• Vice President Henry A. Wallace warns an attack may be made on Alaska by Axis forces in the next few months. Wallace indicates the attack may come from the Japanese and coincide with a blitz on South America from Nazi planes from Africa.
• The base gasoline rationing, for non-essential drivers along the east coast has been set at 3 gallons per week.