OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - All things Figment - from the pages of The Figment Sporting Journal

Jiggs McGee · 05-18-2022, 12:15 PM

JUNE 15, 1942

THE SAINTS ARE MARCHING!

It has been more than a decade since the Montreal Saints were last considered a factor in the Continental Association pennant race but thanks to 12 wins in their last 16 games combined with some stumbles by the front-running New York Stars and the Montreal nine may just have an impact on the pennant race this season. You have to go back to 1930 when Montreal finished tied for second place with the then Baltimore based Cannons, two games back of the Philadelphia Sailors, to find the last time Saints finished less than a dozen games out of first place. There is a long ways left to go of course, but there is hope in Montreal - something that has been in very short supply for many years.

None of the soothsayers expected much out of Montreal this time around, no one in the TWIFB prediction issue pegged Montreal higher than 6th place but the Saints are a surprising third at the moment and have shaved 6 and a half games off the New York Stars lead in a little over two weeks. Montreal is still 7 games back but their offense is rolling and the pitching has been for the most part solid.

The Stars meanwhile, have become a carbon copy of last year's club - one that rolled out to a huge start only to give it all away as they cooled as soon as the weather started heating up. This year's version was 35-10 after the first game of a doubleheader with Brooklyn on May 30th but since then have gone 4-11. The Chicago Cougars are second, 6 games back of New York and one up on Montreal, but like the Stars the Cougars have cooled in June with just 4 wins in their last 13 contests.

*** FEDERAL ASSOCIATION ***

After several weeks of looking up at the Boston Minutemen, the Philadelphia Keystones now take their turn atop the Federal Association standings. A 5-2 week allows Philadelphia to grab a half game lead on Boston with surging Pittsburgh, winners of 14 of their last 19 games, in third place two back. Thanks to taking two of three last week on the road from both Philadelphia and Boston, the New York Gothams are still in the thick of the race. The Chicago Chiefs, returning home after a rough road trip, and the slumping St Louis Pioneers are both falling off the pace, at least at the moment. Chicago struggled through a 6-15 road trip while St Louis has dropped 13 of it's last 17 games

ANGEVINE ENLISTS IN NAVY

Following in the footsteps of teammate Bill Barrett, New York Stars shortstop Joe Angevine has enlisted in the Navy and will report for training in late October once the baseball season ends. Barrett, the Stars 22 year old outfielder and 1941 Whitney Award winner, announced earlier this year he was enlisting at the end of the season and Angevine, his 26 year old teammate, recently revealed he too has joined the Navy.

The shortstop from Austin, Texas is in his fifth season with the Stars and hitting .298 through 60 games. He was originally a second round selection of the Boston Minutemen in 1933 but dealt to the Stars a year later in a move that brought veteran pitcher Charlie Stedman to Boston.

HARRIS DRAFTED: In other military service related news the Cincinnati Cannons have confirmed that minor league outfielder Roy Harris has been called by Selective Service and reported to the Army last week. The 23 year old former second round pick was having a fine season at AAA Indianapolis, hitting .340 and on the verge of a promotion to the big league club.

MILESTONES FOR BARRELL AND MARTIN

A pair of Federal Association veterans reached milestones last week as Bobby Barrell of the Philadelphia Keystones smacked his 300th homerun while Chicago Chiefs veteran Bob Martin finally reached the century mark in round-trippers. Barrell's 300th, and FABL leading 14th of the season, came off of Detroit rookie Johnny Witt in the 6th inning of the Keystones 6-5 victory over the Dynamos last Monday. Barrell added two more homers before the week came to an end and is only the 4th player in FABL history to reach the 300 plateau, joining his legendary teammate Rankin Kellogg, Hall of Famer Max Morris and Brooklyn slugger Al Wheeler. The 31 year old, with 16 homers in 58 games this season, appears to be headed for his best homerun year since 1936 when he slugged 53. His production dipped dramatically after that following a much-publicized gunshot wound and he has not topped 25 in a single campaign since.

Martin's 100th was a long-time coming as the homer he hit in an 18-0 trampling of Del Burns and the Washington Eagles on Friday. It was Martin's first homerun since October 6, 1939 when his fifth and final blast of that season was the 99th of his career. The homerless drought sounds longer than it actually was in terms of games because Martin had spent much of that time on the injured list, so he went 102 games between homers.

He finally struck out! In his 218th trip to the plate this season, the league's best active pitcher George Garrison managed to sneak a 1-2 pitch past Skipper Schneider, who swung and missed for the first out of the 3rd inning. His now 0.4 K% is still the best in the league, with just Montreal's Jake Hughes (0.8) and Cincinnati's Adam Mullins (0.9) below 1% as well. Both of them have struck out twice. The 21-year-old shortstop is in the midst of another great season, hitting .292/.346/.388 (108 OPS+) and ranks 2nd in the CA for WAR at 3.3
Note: Tickets are still available for Saturday's Army and Navy relief fund game at Cougars Park against Toronto. The game will be preceded by an exhibition between military teams that will see Allan Award winner Pete Papenfus make his return to Chicago and pitch for the Great Lakes naval squad.

For the first time in over a decade the Montreal Saints are above the .500 mark at this stage of the season. A 5-1 week leaves the surging Saints with a 33-29 record and closes them to within 7 games of the slumping New York Stars. Can the team hold up to finish over .500 for the season? That in itself will be a big step for this young team but Saints skipper Homer Moore has fans in La Belle Province dreaming of more, perhaps even a pennant race.

Not all is positive this week as the club learned that they will be without outfielder Heinie Billings (.250,1,15) for three weeks after the 25 year old suffered a sprained knee. Billings was the starting right fielder for the last month and the leader in stolen base for Montréal. Veteran Vic Crawford (.271,2,12) will get a chance to play everyday during that time. Pitcher Karl Weiss (3-4, 4.37) is sidelined for 4 days with a sore shoulder and with the Sunday double headers being too much for a 4 man rotation it means Jimmy Mayse will be summoned from Minneapolis where he was 4-2, 3.00 for the AAA Lumberjacks. Mayse will get at least one start in Montreal in what will be his second chance in FABL. The 25 year old lefthander, a 1937 first round pick, was 0-2, 6.75 in six appearances for Montreal last season.

Mule Monier wins FA Player of the Week award. He hit .571 with 6 runs scored and 9 RBI. Monier is leading the majors with a .380 avg.
Walt Messer takes over the major league lead with 49 RBI. He's also 2nd in the FA with 13 homers.
The team's 4-2 week have them 3 games out with a 34-30 record
Down on the Farm: Billy Clark of Class C Rock Island was named Player of the Week. The 20-year-old 2B was 10-25 with 3 homers. The 1939 7th round pick is having a breakout season hitting .330/.437/.567. A move to Class B Fresno seems to be in his near future.

TALES FROM THE WOLVES DEN

Toronto is heating up, finally, as the team is 10-4 in June. The past week was particularly satisfying as the Wolves managed to to close out a two week home stand taking series from both the Cougars and Stars bringing their season record to 31-32. They now head out on a road trip not returning to the friendly confines of Dominion Stadium until the last day of June.

Manager Charlie Reed seems to pushing all the right buttons, Ockie Holliday is showing signs of life hitting .467 over the past week. He will be eased back into the everyday lineup as Hal Wood .312/.359/.422 has earned a semi-regular playing time. Wood's versatility has allowed Joe Bell to be optioned to Buffalo with Frank Huddleston's return from an extended period on the DL. There was a debate on which player to send down but the staff thought Al Jensen's clubhouse influence coupled with Bell playing every day at AAA gave the most overall benefit to the Wolves. In an unrelated move Homer Betts was sent down after not hitting a lick as Clarence Howerton's backup (.109/.174/.109). Roscoe Zeiler will now be the backup C with the ability to help the bullpen in mop up situations if a game gets away from a SP.

Charlie Reed hopes to see a bit of a power increase from Pack, Westfall, and/or Holliday. Charlie Artuso is currently leads the team with 4 round trippers.

Interesting to note that in his recent column Archie Irwin of the Chicago Daily News labelled Toronto's George Garrison the best pitcher in the league (well, except for Navy officer Pete Papenfus). Garrison is a very good pitcher but I am not sure I would call him the best pitcher. Irwin has his reasons and explains them thusly : "Garrison is second to Papenfus. Reason being is pretty much since the 1939 season, he's ranked top 3 in the top 20 pitchers regardless of performance and the last two seasons he's been #1 or #2. He's young and dominating this season, hard thrower with elite stuff. Feels like the kind of guy people would use the eye test on and think "this guy is amazing" regardless of his stats. His peripheral stats have always been really impressive and the advance stats love him."
The Chicago Chiefs are happy to finally be home after struggling through a very difficult 6-15 road trip that saw them fall 6 games off the Federal Association pace. The good news is they are home until after the all-star break. The bad news is they will be without centerfielder Bill May (.310,2,28) for 2 months after May suffered a fractured wrist in a loss to Washington Saturday.
Rabbit Day (4-7, 4.15) is in danger of having just the second losing season of his storied career. The 38 year old went 14-16 for the Chiefs in 1939 but has posted a record of at least .500 in each of his other 14 seasons. Day, the winningest active pitcher, is 284-185 for his career and recently tied Bill Temple for 14th all-time in wins.
Day is also just 4 walks away from issuing 1,600 free passes in his career. Only George Hill, Bob Johnston and Aaron Wright have walked more.
John Lawson (.253,3,32) had 6 more hits for the Chicago Cougars last week and is now 23 away from becoming just the 11th player in FABL history to record 3,000 career hits.
Brooklyn's Al Wheeler recently passed Hall of Famer Zebulon Banks to move into 3rd place all-time with 1,589 rbi's. Lawson, who at 1,528 rbi's is 37 behind Banks, may also catch the former Keystones great this season.
Del Lyons pursuit of the all-time saves record will have to be put on pause after the soon to be 37 year old Brooklyn lefthander hurt his pitching arm and is expected to be sidelined until at least mid-August. Lyons, who has 152 career saves and is 12 back of Stan Waters record, was leading FABL this season with 11 of them.
The best pitching performance (by game score) of the season was Montreal's Jake DeYoung in a start against Cleveland on 5/14. DeYoung went 10 innings, walked none, struck out 6, gave up 3 hits and no runs. He got a no decision for his effort as Montreal then lost the 1-0 game in the 11th.
Everyone keeps waiting for the Detroit Dynamos to get hot and get back into contention in the Fed. Detroit is just too good of a ballclub to be stuck in last place, even with the Fed being as deep and competitive as it is.
John Brinker of the New York Mirror notes that "It seems like this season has seen some surprising streakiness in both leagues. Detroit's certainly much better than a last-place club, as is Cincinnati in the CA. The Stars' hot streak was very noticeable but Montreal is on a nice run, the Pioneers had a good run... it's been an interesting first two months to say the least." Brinker also feels loss of so many players to the military also has shaken things up and forced people to use their depth more. Obviously some teams have more depth than others.
The youngsters are now going in for a new gambling game. They wager that three sluggers, such as Bill Barrett, Bobby Barrell and one other will combine for 6 or more hits on a given day. If they win, they collect at 7 to 1.

BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR BASEBALL IN JAPAN

Much like in America the sport of baseball is continuing to be played in Japan despite the war. Japanese clubs have also lost many players to the military but the game goes on, at least for now. The Japanese Baseball Association is in it's 5th season with the Yokohama Kingfishers being the dominant club, winning 3 of the first four league titles including last season. The Kingfishers are in the mix again this year, sitting 4 games back of the front-running Tokio Cannons as the league approaches the midway point of it's 84 game schedule. The Cannons were the last place club in the initial season but have advanced one spot each year, finishing 5th in 1939, 4th in 1940 and third last year.

ARMY ALL-STARS TO PLAY GRID PRO TEAMS

Uncle Sam's Army will pit the pick of it's football playing soldiers - former college and professional greats - against some of the country's mightiest professional teams in six weeks of benefit games starting in August. The Army spokesman also confirmed that in addition to several pro clubs, the Army stars will face a number of college outfits prior to the start of the professional and college seasons.

The army will put two teams into action - one in the western half of the country, the other in the East- and has scheduled it's first game against the Washington Wasps in mid-August while the Wasps are in California for their preseason training camp. The Eastern outfit is slated to face the New York Football Stars at the Bigsby Oval the same weekend and then take on the Boston Americans at Cunningham Field. A third team, separate from the original two squads and possibly reinforced by navy and marine players, is tentatively scheduled to play in the annual Chicago game against a squad of college all-stars, replace the professional team that normally participates in that game.

The Week That Was
Current events from the week ending 6/14/1942

Britain warns all French citizens to leave the Axis-held coastal area in preparation for 'coming military operations' as the R.A.F. renewed punishing attacks in force on enemy targets in Europe.
Czech patriots have stepped up sabotage efforts as anti-German outbreaks continue in the country. Reinhard Heydrich, a high ranking SS officer has died from his wounds sustained in an assassination attempt. In response the Germans have executed 300 Czech patriots since the May 27th attack.
President Roosevelt asked Congress for an addition appropriation of $40 billon - the largest in history- to bring projected American expenditures in WWII to more than $200 billon.
United States forces are seeking to regain contact with the crippled Japanese main fleet as it limps westward towards Japan, while other units are battering Japanese naval forces in the Hawaii-Dutch Harbor area.
Britain and Russia have signed a 20 year military and post-war pact and agreed on the "urgent necessity" of opening up a second front against the Axis in western Europe. President Roosevelt also confirmed that he and Soviet representatives are in agreement creating a second front must be done quickly.
A fleet of US bombers with American crews carried out a raid on Rumania's oil fields, eight days after the United States formally declared war against Nazi-dominated Rumania, as well as against Bulgaria and Hungary.

05-18-2022, 12:15 PM	#430
Jiggs McGee All Star Reserve Join Date: Dec 2019 Posts: 677	June 15, 1942 JUNE 15, 1942 THE SAINTS ARE MARCHING! It has been more than a decade since the Montreal Saints were last considered a factor in the Continental Association pennant race but thanks to 12 wins in their last 16 games combined with some stumbles by the front-running New York Stars and the Montreal nine may just have an impact on the pennant race this season. You have to go back to 1930 when Montreal finished tied for second place with the then Baltimore based Cannons, two games back of the Philadelphia Sailors, to find the last time Saints finished less than a dozen games out of first place. There is a long ways left to go of course, but there is hope in Montreal - something that has been in very short supply for many years. None of the soothsayers expected much out of Montreal this time around, no one in the TWIFB prediction issue pegged Montreal higher than 6th place but the Saints are a surprising third at the moment and have shaved 6 and a half games off the New York Stars lead in a little over two weeks. Montreal is still 7 games back but their offense is rolling and the pitching has been for the most part solid. The Stars meanwhile, have become a carbon copy of last year's club - one that rolled out to a huge start only to give it all away as they cooled as soon as the weather started heating up. This year's version was 35-10 after the first game of a doubleheader with Brooklyn on May 30th but since then have gone 4-11. The Chicago Cougars are second, 6 games back of New York and one up on Montreal, but like the Stars the Cougars have cooled in June with just 4 wins in their last 13 contests. * FEDERAL ASSOCIATION * After several weeks of looking up at the Boston Minutemen, the Philadelphia Keystones now take their turn atop the Federal Association standings. A 5-2 week allows Philadelphia to grab a half game lead on Boston with surging Pittsburgh, winners of 14 of their last 19 games, in third place two back. Thanks to taking two of three last week on the road from both Philadelphia and Boston, the New York Gothams are still in the thick of the race. The Chicago Chiefs, returning home after a rough road trip, and the slumping St Louis Pioneers are both falling off the pace, at least at the moment. Chicago struggled through a 6-15 road trip while St Louis has dropped 13 of it's last 17 games ANGEVINE ENLISTS IN NAVY Following in the footsteps of teammate Bill Barrett, New York Stars shortstop Joe Angevine has enlisted in the Navy and will report for training in late October once the baseball season ends. Barrett, the Stars 22 year old outfielder and 1941 Whitney Award winner, announced earlier this year he was enlisting at the end of the season and Angevine, his 26 year old teammate, recently revealed he too has joined the Navy. The shortstop from Austin, Texas is in his fifth season with the Stars and hitting .298 through 60 games. He was originally a second round selection of the Boston Minutemen in 1933 but dealt to the Stars a year later in a move that brought veteran pitcher Charlie Stedman to Boston. HARRIS DRAFTED: In other military service related news the Cincinnati Cannons have confirmed that minor league outfielder Roy Harris has been called by Selective Service and reported to the Army last week. The 23 year old former second round pick was having a fine season at AAA Indianapolis, hitting .340 and on the verge of a promotion to the big league club. MILESTONES FOR BARRELL AND MARTIN A pair of Federal Association veterans reached milestones last week as Bobby Barrell of the Philadelphia Keystones smacked his 300th homerun while Chicago Chiefs veteran Bob Martin finally reached the century mark in round-trippers. Barrell's 300th, and FABL leading 14th of the season, came off of Detroit rookie Johnny Witt in the 6th inning of the Keystones 6-5 victory over the Dynamos last Monday. Barrell added two more homers before the week came to an end and is only the 4th player in FABL history to reach the 300 plateau, joining his legendary teammate Rankin Kellogg, Hall of Famer Max Morris and Brooklyn slugger Al Wheeler. The 31 year old, with 16 homers in 58 games this season, appears to be headed for his best homerun year since 1936 when he slugged 53. His production dipped dramatically after that following a much-publicized gunshot wound and he has not topped 25 in a single campaign since. Martin's 100th was a long-time coming as the homer he hit in an 18-0 trampling of Del Burns and the Washington Eagles on Friday. It was Martin's first homerun since October 6, 1939 when his fifth and final blast of that season was the 99th of his career. The homerless drought sounds longer than it actually was in terms of games because Martin had spent much of that time on the injured list, so he went 102 games between homers. He finally struck out! In his 218th trip to the plate this season, the league's best active pitcher George Garrison managed to sneak a 1-2 pitch past Skipper Schneider, who swung and missed for the first out of the 3rd inning. His now 0.4 K% is still the best in the league, with just Montreal's Jake Hughes (0.8) and Cincinnati's Adam Mullins (0.9) below 1% as well. Both of them have struck out twice. The 21-year-old shortstop is in the midst of another great season, hitting .292/.346/.388 (108 OPS+) and ranks 2nd in the CA for WAR at 3.3 Note: Tickets are still available for Saturday's Army and Navy relief fund game at Cougars Park against Toronto. The game will be preceded by an exhibition between military teams that will see Allan Award winner Pete Papenfus make his return to Chicago and pitch for the Great Lakes naval squad. For the first time in over a decade the Montreal Saints are above the .500 mark at this stage of the season. A 5-1 week leaves the surging Saints with a 33-29 record and closes them to within 7 games of the slumping New York Stars. Can the team hold up to finish over .500 for the season? That in itself will be a big step for this young team but Saints skipper Homer Moore has fans in La Belle Province dreaming of more, perhaps even a pennant race. Not all is positive this week as the club learned that they will be without outfielder Heinie Billings (.250,1,15) for three weeks after the 25 year old suffered a sprained knee. Billings was the starting right fielder for the last month and the leader in stolen base for Montréal. Veteran Vic Crawford (.271,2,12) will get a chance to play everyday during that time. Pitcher Karl Weiss (3-4, 4.37) is sidelined for 4 days with a sore shoulder and with the Sunday double headers being too much for a 4 man rotation it means Jimmy Mayse will be summoned from Minneapolis where he was 4-2, 3.00 for the AAA Lumberjacks. Mayse will get at least one start in Montreal in what will be his second chance in FABL. The 25 year old lefthander, a 1937 first round pick, was 0-2, 6.75 in six appearances for Montreal last season. Mule Monier wins FA Player of the Week award. He hit .571 with 6 runs scored and 9 RBI. Monier is leading the majors with a .380 avg. Walt Messer takes over the major league lead with 49 RBI. He's also 2nd in the FA with 13 homers. The team's 4-2 week have them 3 games out with a 34-30 record Down on the Farm: Billy Clark of Class C Rock Island was named Player of the Week. The 20-year-old 2B was 10-25 with 3 homers. The 1939 7th round pick is having a breakout season hitting .330/.437/.567. A move to Class B Fresno seems to be in his near future. TALES FROM THE WOLVES DEN Toronto is heating up, finally, as the team is 10-4 in June. The past week was particularly satisfying as the Wolves managed to to close out a two week home stand taking series from both the Cougars and Stars bringing their season record to 31-32. They now head out on a road trip not returning to the friendly confines of Dominion Stadium until the last day of June. Manager Charlie Reed seems to pushing all the right buttons, Ockie Holliday is showing signs of life hitting .467 over the past week. He will be eased back into the everyday lineup as Hal Wood .312/.359/.422 has earned a semi-regular playing time. Wood's versatility has allowed Joe Bell to be optioned to Buffalo with Frank Huddleston's return from an extended period on the DL. There was a debate on which player to send down but the staff thought Al Jensen's clubhouse influence coupled with Bell playing every day at AAA gave the most overall benefit to the Wolves. In an unrelated move Homer Betts was sent down after not hitting a lick as Clarence Howerton's backup (.109/.174/.109). Roscoe Zeiler will now be the backup C with the ability to help the bullpen in mop up situations if a game gets away from a SP. Charlie Reed hopes to see a bit of a power increase from Pack, Westfall, and/or Holliday. Charlie Artuso is currently leads the team with 4 round trippers. Interesting to note that in his recent column Archie Irwin of the Chicago Daily News labelled Toronto's George Garrison the best pitcher in the league (well, except for Navy officer Pete Papenfus). Garrison is a very good pitcher but I am not sure I would call him the best pitcher. Irwin has his reasons and explains them thusly : "Garrison is second to Papenfus. Reason being is pretty much since the 1939 season, he's ranked top 3 in the top 20 pitchers regardless of performance and the last two seasons he's been #1 or #2. He's young and dominating this season, hard thrower with elite stuff. Feels like the kind of guy people would use the eye test on and think "this guy is amazing" regardless of his stats. His peripheral stats have always been really impressive and the advance stats love him." The Chicago Chiefs are happy to finally be home after struggling through a very difficult 6-15 road trip that saw them fall 6 games off the Federal Association pace. The good news is they are home until after the all-star break. The bad news is they will be without centerfielder Bill May (.310,2,28) for 2 months after May suffered a fractured wrist in a loss to Washington Saturday. Rabbit Day (4-7, 4.15) is in danger of having just the second losing season of his storied career. The 38 year old went 14-16 for the Chiefs in 1939 but has posted a record of at least .500 in each of his other 14 seasons. Day, the winningest active pitcher, is 284-185 for his career and recently tied Bill Temple for 14th all-time in wins. Day is also just 4 walks away from issuing 1,600 free passes in his career. Only George Hill, Bob Johnston and Aaron Wright have walked more. John Lawson (.253,3,32) had 6 more hits for the Chicago Cougars last week and is now 23 away from becoming just the 11th player in FABL history to record 3,000 career hits. Brooklyn's Al Wheeler recently passed Hall of Famer Zebulon Banks to move into 3rd place all-time with 1,589 rbi's. Lawson, who at 1,528 rbi's is 37 behind Banks, may also catch the former Keystones great this season. Del Lyons pursuit of the all-time saves record will have to be put on pause after the soon to be 37 year old Brooklyn lefthander hurt his pitching arm and is expected to be sidelined until at least mid-August. Lyons, who has 152 career saves and is 12 back of Stan Waters record, was leading FABL this season with 11 of them. The best pitching performance (by game score) of the season was Montreal's Jake DeYoung in a start against Cleveland on 5/14. DeYoung went 10 innings, walked none, struck out 6, gave up 3 hits and no runs. He got a no decision for his effort as Montreal then lost the 1-0 game in the 11th. Everyone keeps waiting for the Detroit Dynamos to get hot and get back into contention in the Fed. Detroit is just too good of a ballclub to be stuck in last place, even with the Fed being as deep and competitive as it is. John Brinker of the New York Mirror notes that "It seems like this season has seen some surprising streakiness in both leagues. Detroit's certainly much better than a last-place club, as is Cincinnati in the CA. The Stars' hot streak was very noticeable but Montreal is on a nice run, the Pioneers had a good run... it's been an interesting first two months to say the least." Brinker also feels loss of so many players to the military also has shaken things up and forced people to use their depth more. Obviously some teams have more depth than others. The youngsters are now going in for a new gambling game. They wager that three sluggers, such as Bill Barrett, Bobby Barrell and one other will combine for 6 or more hits on a given day. If they win, they collect at 7 to 1. BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR BASEBALL IN JAPAN Much like in America the sport of baseball is continuing to be played in Japan despite the war. Japanese clubs have also lost many players to the military but the game goes on, at least for now. The Japanese Baseball Association is in it's 5th season with the Yokohama Kingfishers being the dominant club, winning 3 of the first four league titles including last season. The Kingfishers are in the mix again this year, sitting 4 games back of the front-running Tokio Cannons as the league approaches the midway point of it's 84 game schedule. The Cannons were the last place club in the initial season but have advanced one spot each year, finishing 5th in 1939, 4th in 1940 and third last year. ARMY ALL-STARS TO PLAY GRID PRO TEAMS Uncle Sam's Army will pit the pick of it's football playing soldiers - former college and professional greats - against some of the country's mightiest professional teams in six weeks of benefit games starting in August. The Army spokesman also confirmed that in addition to several pro clubs, the Army stars will face a number of college outfits prior to the start of the professional and college seasons. The army will put two teams into action - one in the western half of the country, the other in the East- and has scheduled it's first game against the Washington Wasps in mid-August while the Wasps are in California for their preseason training camp. The Eastern outfit is slated to face the New York Football Stars at the Bigsby Oval the same weekend and then take on the Boston Americans at Cunningham Field. A third team, separate from the original two squads and possibly reinforced by navy and marine players, is tentatively scheduled to play in the annual Chicago game against a squad of college all-stars, replace the professional team that normally participates in that game. The Week That Was Current events from the week ending 6/14/1942 Britain warns all French citizens to leave the Axis-held coastal area in preparation for 'coming military operations' as the R.A.F. renewed punishing attacks in force on enemy targets in Europe. Czech patriots have stepped up sabotage efforts as anti-German outbreaks continue in the country. Reinhard Heydrich, a high ranking SS officer has died from his wounds sustained in an assassination attempt. In response the Germans have executed 300 Czech patriots since the May 27th attack. President Roosevelt asked Congress for an addition appropriation of $40 billon - the largest in history- to bring projected American expenditures in WWII to more than $200 billon. United States forces are seeking to regain contact with the crippled Japanese main fleet as it limps westward towards Japan, while other units are battering Japanese naval forces in the Hawaii-Dutch Harbor area. Britain and Russia have signed a 20 year military and post-war pact and agreed on the "urgent necessity" of opening up a second front against the Axis in western Europe. President Roosevelt also confirmed that he and Soviet representatives are in agreement creating a second front must be done quickly. A fleet of US bombers with American crews carried out a raid on Rumania's oil fields, eight days after the United States formally declared war against Nazi-dominated Rumania, as well as against Bulgaria and Hungary. __________________ Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 05-18-2022 at 12:20 PM.