[Jiggs McGee]

OCTOBER 4, 1962

Pioneers Give Fans A Scare, Mack Called Upon to Clinch

After dropping home games 5-0 and 2-1 to a sixth place Chiefs team, the Federal Association came down to the final day as Detroit took care of business in Minneapolis. Virgil Ewing (.285, 17, 101) proved his worth on Monday with a go-ahead single in their 3-2 12-inning win, before John Jackson (6.1 IP, 4 H, B, 4 K) and two others held the Millers scoreless in a 7-0 thrashing on Tuesday. A 7th inning Dick Tucker solo homer finished off the sweep, so all the pressure could have been on the Pioneers.

Or at least it could have been had they not had Frenchy Mack.

What should be the unanimous Allen Award Winner, Mack finished a triple crown season with a commanding complete game victory. With plenty of help from the offense, 12 runs to be exact, Mack was able to get outs quickly, limiting them to 8 hits, 3 runs, and 2 walks with 8 strikeouts. This allowed the 24-year-old to finish the season 25-5, leading the Fed in wins, ERA (2.06), ERA+ (223), innings (266.2), strikeouts (288), WHIP (0.98), K/BB (54 FIP-), FIP (2.49), FIP- (54), and WAR (11.2). No matter which way you shake it, he was the most dominant pitcher in baseball, and without him there's now ay the Pioneers season would be continuing.

Dropping the early games cost them home field advantage, as the San Francisco Sailors finished with 98 wins, one more then St. Louis. A clash of two dominant pitching staffs, both teams have the best rotation in their respective associations, and neither of these talented lineups have faced a staff like the one they will this weekend. The Pioneers have the advantage in the rotation and the Sailors in the pen, and even with a star like Bob Bell (.386, 46, 120, 6) and the return of starting center fielder Bill Bather (.290, 14, 35, 6), the Sailors have a deeper lineup. St. Louis will surely be happy with Bather's return on Monday, and he was 4-for-4 with a homer in the pennant clincher. Without him in the lineup, that gap would be larger, and a huge performance like this to finish the season should provide them with plenty of optimism.

Hank Williams Wins Triple Crown

In a season of total dominance, eventual Whitney winner Hank Williams officially took home the triple crown in the Continental, surviving a seven RBI outburst from Cougar outfielder Henry Watson (.305, 32, 126, 6). Already a two-time Whitney winner, Williams hit .376/.464/.691 (190 OPS+) for the second place Kings, launching 43 homers with 42 doubles, 128 runs, 128 RBIs, and 97 walks.

One of the best to play the game, this is also the third season in the last five years where Williams has led the Continental in average, on-base, and slugging, and 1962 was his second home run title and second 40th homer season. This was his third season leading in runs, fourth in WRC+ (192), and second in WAR (9.3). Though the 29-year-old would trade plenty of that for a pennant, as he's yet to return since his breakout in 1958. Leading the top offense, as long as he's in the lineup the Kings will be a contender, and despite falling short they should feel confident in their chances next season.

OLD RIVALS SET TO MEET IN WCS

The World Championship Series makes its first stop on the west coast when the Continental Association champion San Francisco Sailors entertain the St Louis Pioneers in game one tomorrow. It will mark an end to nine years of Continental Association dominance by Kansas City and Cleveland and the first time a California based team has won a pennant.

It will be a somewhat familiar foe in the Federal Association flag winning Pioneers. The Sailors and Pioneers each will make their fourth appearance in the WCS since 1931 and amazingly will face each other for the fourth time. That's right - every year the Sailors have been in the WCS over the past 31 seasons, the Pioneers have been there too and neither has faced any other team in the Fall Classic during that time.

Most seem to be leaning towards St Louis, which beat the then Philadelphia based Sailors in 1947 and 1948 before coming up short in 1951, as the favourite. Marc T. McNeil of the Montreal Star calls for the Pioneers to win in six games and Percy Pringle Sr. of the Kansas City Times agrees.

Pringle pontificates "St. Louis in 6. (I) Might be selling the Sailors short but too much (pitchers Frenchy)Mack and (Billy) Hasson. With the 2 days off they might be able to throw those guys 2nd and 1st game respectively. Sailors just don't have the pitching staff to I don't think to match up. But anything can happen."

All of their postseason history comes from Philadelphia but the Sailors actually participated in the first two World Championship Series, back in 1893 and 1894. They lost to the New York Gothams that first year and were defeated by Boston a year later but the Sailors did win it all in 1897, 1928 and 1930 along with their triumph over the Pioneers in 1951.

This is the sixth time the Pioneers have won the Federal Association flag. They made their WCS debut in 1920 when a 25-year-old Max Morris helped them defeat Morris' former team Cleveland. St Louis lost to Montreal in 1921 and then returned to the WCS in 1947 with the first of two consecutive wins over the Sailors.

Tales From The Den

Wolves Finish At .500 -For the first time in over a decade Toronto's FABL franchise finishes a season in which there are not more losses than wins on the record. The Wolves managed to take 2 of 3 from the visiting Cincinnati Cannons in the final series to complete 1962 with 77-77 record.

Many fans would think that an even record would not be much to celebrate unless you are a long term follower of the Wolves. Seventy-seven wins is most in Toronto since 1948, more importantly the fans are talking about the future with optimism for the first time in well over 10 years.

The Wolves did not take the easy route to the .500 record. In winning the Monday game in large part due to Ed Savage's 5 for 5 game, which ties a club record for hits in a game, the team needed a clutch single from Clyde Fisher that scored Tom Reed to walk off the Cannons 5-4 with 3 runs in the bottom of the ninth.

The next day Cincinnati took full advantage of fielding miscues by Phil Story, Chick Reed and Jesse Taylor to win 9-6 despite being outhit by the home squad 14 to 6. This left to the last game of the season to reach the goal of not running the consecutive losing seasons to 14. The Wolves came out strong scoring runs in every inning they came bat except the seventh, running away with a 14-2 win in a game that meant nothing to the Cannons. Phil Colantuono ran his injury shortened season record to 6-3 to send the 11,904 on hand home happy to see the team's 77th win of 1962.

Now the off-season starts. It is one where the team has plenty of decisions to make before spring workouts begin in February. The team's biggest need is at least one righthanded bat to balance manager Hohlt's lineup as the lefthanded hitting lineup was susceptible to southpaws posting a 14-25 for the year. The bullpen also needs depth which may come from this year's starting staff if some of the one or two the Union League champions starting hurlers from Buffalo can take the giant step from AAA to the FABL. The front office has many tasks ahead of them over the winter to strengthen a team with a promising future.

Brett will now split his duties between the Wolves and Dukes as the NAHC season prepares to start. He will be giving many updates on the Wolves over the winter.

162 GAME SCHEDULE ARRIVING A LITTLE TOO LATE FOR DYNAMOS

FABL has confirmed plans to expand to a 162 game schedule next season, ending nearly 60 years with the standard 154 game docket. It makes perfect sense to add the extra games as it allows the league to maintain a balanced schedule now that both the Federal and Continental Association's have expanded to 10 teams. Of course, most in the Motor City this morning are lamenting the fact that FABL did not choose to add the extra games for this year.

If they had, most fans - and a number of Dynamos players- are certain that it would be the local nine and not the St Louis Pioneers jetting off to California today to compete in the very first World Championship Game to take place within a Ray Waggoner longball away from the Pacific Ocean.

The Dynamos were the hottest team in the Federal Association after the all-star game but on August 6 they were still a full 12 games behind the Pioneers. St Louis did not slow but a torrid 37-16 closing stretch from Detroit ate in to the Pioneers lead at regular intervals and suddenly with 9 games to play the deficit was a very manageable three games. As we entered the final day of the season yesterday the Dynamos were just a single game back. They did their part as Jim Norris pitched seven terrific innings for his 18th victory of the season and Earl Shields saved his 18th contest as the Dynamos completed a sweep of the Millers in Minneapolis with a 2-1 victory.

Unfortunately the Pioneers, who had dropped back to back games Monday and Tuesday at home to Chicago, righted their ship just in time and blasted the Chiefs 12-3 yesterday. Detroit's dreams of a miracle comeback were gone. The Dynamos had run out of time and their 96 wins - an improvement of 29 over the terribly disappointing showing a year ago- was all for naught. St Louis had held on to win the flag and deny Detroit what could have been its first flag in four years.

"It should have been," said a dejected Paul Anderson in the clubhouse. "Give us another week and I, along with every man in this room, is certain we would have passed them."

"162 games sure would have been nice," echoed rookie sensation Ed MacNaughton who reminded everyone of a young Edwin Hackberry with his showing this season. Unfortunately this edition of the Dynamos was just a year too early.

*** Pioneers Seemed Destined to Win ***

St Louis deserves credit. It is not like the Pioneers collapsed down the stretch. After all they went 17-10 in September after getting off to such a fantastic start to the season. They are a club loaded with stars and are bound to give the Dynamos fits for years to come.

Yes, we had hope but really we should have known the Pioneers were going to outlast the Dynamos more than a week ago when the San Francisco Sailors clinched the Continental Association crown. You see, the Pioneers and Sailors appear to be joined at the hip. It seems you can't have one in the World Championship Series without the other.

With this years title St Louis and the Sailors have each won four pennants since 1931 and on all four occasions they have each won in the same years. 1947 the Pioneers had that crazy run from worst the previous season to first place and then beat the Sailors in six games in the WCS. A year later they both repeated and once more St Louis prevailed but this time in a sweep. The Sailors got their revenge in 1951 when they held off Cleveland to win their third CA flag in five years. The Pioneers, as we all too well remember, beat the Dynamos in a 1-game playoff to decide the Fed pennant. Detroit would of course go on to win six flags in the next seven years while the Pioneers, after losing to the Sailors in five games, sank to the second division for the next half decade. The Sailors would also struggle and by 1954 they abandoned Philadelphia to the Keystones, and headed for the west coast. The now San Francisco based Sailors finally ended the dominance of Cleveland and Kansas City, who had combined to win 9 straight CA flags, and are back in the WCS for the first time since 1951. It only makes sense, unfortunately for Dynamos fans, that the Sailors once more square off with their old rivals from St Louis.

ANOTHER YOUNG ARM DEBUTS IN KINGS FINALE

The Kansas City Kings were reluctant to give 19-year-old SP Johnnie Higgins (will turn 20 during the World Championship Series) a big league outing. He started at A and then moved to AA and finally AAA. On the last game of the year they called him up to the big league squad so he could throw some innings against the Imperials. Since the AAA season ended several weeks ago, Kings management decided to limit the amount of pitches he threw because he had already tossed 199 IP this season. Pitch count was around 70-75 pitches which got him threw 3.2 IP. He only gave up 3 hits, but his control is what he needs to work on the most as he issued 3 walks. That control was a bit better in AAA than in the lower leagues so hopefully he will progress. He didn't give up any runs against New York but we take that with a grain of salt. He will get to go to spring training next season but the odds are is that he will remain at AAA to see if we can work on that control. The kid really wants to be in the big leagues so he has his assignment for the off-season.

If he can get up his scouting report rates pretty high and joining fellow youngsters Allie Boone (Just turn 21 during the season) 10-2 3.36 ERA and Gene Bailey (turned 22 late in the season) 10-4 3.30 ERA and All Star Beau McClellan (turned 30 during the season) 17-10 3.51 that would give the Kings a really solid 1-4. Then plug in a Elmer Sullivan, Freddie Washington or hopefully a better adjusted Jack Halbur and King's fans should feel really good about the future of their rotation.

• The Federal Association batting race came down to the wire. Both Tom Lorang of Washington and St Louis' Bob Bell are officially credited with batting .386 but the Eagles third baseman, who had a 5-hit game on Monday, narrowly wins as his average ends up being .0004 higher than Bell's.
• This will be the fourth time the St Louis Pioneers have won the Federal Association pennant since 1921. In all four of those wins the Continental Association flag went to the Philadelphia/San Francisco Sailors.
• Detroit won 96 games, making this the ninth time in franchise history the Dynamos had 95 or more wins. Each of the other eight seasons, including five in the past decade, that total was good enough to give Detroit the Federal Association pennant, but not this year as the Pioneers won a franchise record 97 games.
• Speaking of wins, for the first time since 1948 the Toronto Wolves did not lose more games than they won in a season. The Wolves beat Cincinnati 14-2 yesterday in the finale to even their record at 77-77, snapping a 13-year run of sub .500 finishes.
• The emergence of Ed Savage gives Toronto fans hope for the future. The 25-year-old rookie hit .442 with 10 HR 36 RBI after being a September callup. The only question is what took the organization so long to promote the 1959 second round pick out of College of Cairo.
• The expansion New York Imperials ended the season with a 4-game losing streak. That left the Imperials record at 38-116, by far the worst among the four expansion teams and the most losses in history. You have to go back to 1890 and the Pittsburgh Miners of the old Century league to find a winning percentage lower than the Imperials .250 mark. Those 1890 Miners went 28-112 for a .200 winning percentage.
• The Imperials finished an almost unfathomable 60 games behind the first place San Francisco Sailors in the Continental Association.

LEACH BRINGS WELTER CROWN BACK TO THE STATES IN UNANIMOUS DECISION OVER BRIT SHAFTO

Keystone Arena, Philadelphia, Pa. – Lenny Shafto (46-7-1, 24 KO) vs. Matt Leach (31-6-2, 4 KO) -Lenny Shafto had it right there in front of him. Shafto had a chance to stabilize the welterweight class. At the age of 31, he had the opportunity to successfully defend his title after capturing the belt in June against Dan McMullan. The belt has only been worn by a foreign national three times. Before Shafto, fellow Englishman Jimmy “The Kid” Simpson had 14 title defenses before retiring in 1940. Simpson was the only Welterweight Champion in a 12-year span, between 1933 and the reboot of the class in 1945. Scotland’s Lewis Kernuish defeated Danny Rutledge in 1955 only to lose to Lonnie Griffin in his next fight.

Matt Leach is three years Shafto’s junior, and the New Yorker acted as the home boxer with the bout in Philadelphia. This is technically Leach’s first title fight, but he did brawl with Lonnie Griffin once when Leach was a 24-year-old up-and-comer. Now, Leach is polished and 27 of his 31 wins have gone the distance, so he has plenty of rounds under his belt.

Leach drove home a hook to Shafto’s left eye for the first Big Bopper of the night, which caused swelling almost immediately as the seconds ticked down in the opening round. While Leach had the first big haymaker, Shafto connected on big punches early in the fight and started to build a lead in the early-going. Shafto followed up a dangerous straight right halfway through the second round with a right cross that sent the challenger reeling.

In the third round, Shafto was moving well and used his winning hook to score points and keep Leach at arm’s length. The fourth round brought a dominant round for Shafto, almost as dominant as Leach was in the opening stanza. Shafto mixed up his big punches with a right hand, a left hand, and devastating hook. Each of them left their mark, each of them had the crowd getting behind the champion.

The fifth and sixth rounds had the best back-and-forth action of the entire fight. While Leach opened up the festivities and Shafto carried the next couple of rounds, it was once again the challenger’s turn to swing the fight in his favor. Leach was moving left, getting Shafto to turn slowly to his right. Shafto’s left eye was continuing to puff up, so his peripheral vision was starting to become a problem. Leach planted his right foot and unleashed a cross to Shafto that caused him to stumble backward. An attempted followed up grazed Shafto’s shoulder while Shafto regrouped to attack Leach’s midsection with a hook. A minute later, Shafto worked the body again with a shot just above Leach’s waist and Shafto began to move laterally, getting Leach to miss.

Leach was not moving in behind his punches, which means he was not firing a shot and leaning in for a follow up. Leach was content to punch and wait, a likely tactic he has employed over and over again during his career because of his paltry four knockouts.

When the sixth round began, both fighters met at the center of the ring and began flailing away. Leach got the better of the exchange and Shafto resorted to holding Leach around the waist to minimize his movement. After a clean break, they went back to swinging, with Shafto missing and Leach connecting on hook to the head. Shafto countered with a winning cross, but Leach’s uppercut later in the round was the more memorable punch. Leach tried to follow up this time, but his jab was less than impressive.

It was a tale of two fights. The first half featured big punches, mostly on the part of Shafto. Through eight rounds, the action was even, as the crowd and judges saw it. In fact, looking back at the scorecards, all three judges had the fight dead even through eight rounds.

Both fighters seemed to pace themselves at the expense of action and the endearment of the fans in the seats. Too often, the fighters took a round off and danced around the ring. The fans were into the action, but for anyone who left their seats in some of the later rounds to grab some popcorn or use the restroom, they did not miss much.

Shafto was trying to buy time for his corner to figure out how to reduce the swelling around his left eye. But for Leach, it was a tactic, and it may haunt him in future bouts. Leach did not have the killer instinct we lavish praise upon. It was a “hit and hope” strategy: get in one good hit and hope it is good enough.

Oh, there were times Leach carried the action, such as in the eighth round when he worked Shafto’s midsection, but he was not targeting Shafto’s left eye enough. There was a feeling inside Keystone Arena that he could have ended the match earlier. More body work was featured by Leach in the tenth round, while Shafto was able to carry some of the action in the surrounding rounds.

In Round 13, Leach seemed to get the message and started targeting the left side of Shafto’s face with a couple of hooks. There was a cross that Shafto clearly did not see coming. Yet, Leach went back to trying to knock the wind out of Shafto instead of trying to knock him out. Leach was getting ahead on points in the final rounds, so his tactic was working.

Shafto drew blood with a hard right hand to Leach’s forehead in the middle of the fourteenth round. It was incidental cut, which was patched up rather easily in Leach’s corner between the penultimate and final rounds. The passion overflowed at the end of the round, leading to a continuation of hostilities after the bell rang. Shafto felt the bout slipping away while Leach was angry that he was cut.

The final round did not feature anything new, other than a renewed vigor by both fighters, but the die had been cast. Leach was ahead on points and had very little interest of knocking out Shafto. Shafto looked the worse for wear and was trying to hang on in the hopes that one punch could change the outcome.

The decision was unanimous and Matt Leach (32-6-2) earned the right to hoist the belt as Welterweight Champion. Lenny Shafto (46-8-1) was a game opponent, but his name may get lost in the shuffle of all-time champions. At the age of 31, he might not get another chance at the title.

BOLOGNA’S BIG BOPPERS
Round 1: Leach, 1-0 (2:35 hook)
Round 2: Shafto, 2-0 (1:34 right, 2:18 cross)
Round 3: Shafto, 1-0 (1:46 hook/side)
Round 4: Shafto, 3-0 (1:19 right, 1:34 hook, 2:34 left)
Round 5: Shafto, 2-1 (S: 1:03 hook/midsection, 2:21 right/midsection; L: 0:40 cross)
Round 6: Tied, 1-1 (S: 1:11 cross; L: 2:03 uppercut)
Round 7: Shafto, 1-0 (0:28 uppercut)
Round 8: Tied, 1-1 (S: 2:53 combo/midsection; L: 2:18 right/body)
Round 9: Shafto, 1-0 (0:11 left hook/body)
Round 10: None
Round 11: None
Round 12: Shafto, 1-0 (1:56 right/jaw)
Round 13: None
Round 14: None
Round 15: None
TOTAL: Shafto 13, Leach 4

RECENT KEY RESULTS

• Veteran welterweight Harry Peck ran his record to 28-12 with a unanimous decision over Jed Long in Miami.
• Kyle Johnson, said to be one of the better welterweights in Europe, defeated Nicky Dayman for his 40th career win. The 24-year-old Johnson has lost just twice.

UPCOMING MAJOR FIGHTS

• November 1 -Heavyweight champion Walt Phillips, a 25-year-old San Francisco native, who was the surprise winner of a title fight with Harry Pratt in July, makes his first title defense against 26-year-old George Galleshaw. Phillips enters the bout with a 34-7 record. Galleshaw, a native of Syracuse, NY, who held the title for a year and half beginning in 1960, is 34-2-1 with his only two losses to Brad Harris and Bert Parks coming in title fights.

ROSTER CUT DOWNS COMING AS NAHC PREPARES FOR OPENING NIGHT

Each of the six North American Hockey Confederation general managers have a busy weekend ahead of them as teams must reduce their active rosters down to 23 players. The preseason slate of games came to an end last night with all six clubs in action. Toronto, which was doubled 6-3 by the Chicago Packers, finished tied with Detroit for top spot at 5-2-0, after the Motors rounded out their exhibition slate with a 4-3 victory over the New York Shamrocks. New York, which finished last for the second straight season a year ago, lost all seven of its exhibition games and that prompted Shamrocks management to cut a number of players who had spent time in the past with the big club immediately, rather than taking the weekend to ponder difficult decisions.

Among the players with NAHC experience cast adrift by New York are defenseman Robert Ling and winger Jack Cameron. Ling, 23, spent the past two seasons on the Shamrocks blueline and had 4 goals and 15 points in 61 games last season. The 24-year-old Cameron split each of the past two seasons between New York and Philadelphia of the HAA, scoring 18 goals in 87 career NAHC games. If neither are claimed by another organization they both could end up in Philadelphia.

The champion Detroit Motors have waived veteran pivot Francis McKenzie. The 35-year-old was a member of five Challenge Cup winning teams in Detroit and is a veteran of 721 NAHC games but he managed just 3 points and appeared in only 20 games last season as age seems to have robbed McKenzie's legs of much of their jump.

The Chicago Packers have waived winger Bob Stack and defenseman Keith McFadden. Stack spent all of 1960-61 in Chicago but played exclusively in the minors with Pittsburgh last year while McFadden saw action in 7 games with the Packers a year ago with the 25-year-old up and down between the HAA and NAHC each of the past four seasons.

Others exposed on waivers include veteran Toronto rearguard Dan Morrison, 30, who had played 217 games with the Dukes over the last seven years, along with Montreal forward Jack Adamle. The 27-year-old was assigned to the Great Western League the past two seasons after spending the previous three with the Vals.

Expect more cuts to come in the next few days as only Toronto has shipped enough players out of training camp to reach the 23-man roster limit.

MOTORS LEAD LOOP IN SEASON TICKET SALES

Back to back Challenge Cup titles can certainly build up fan interest and the Detroit Motors, who often struggled to fill Thompson Palladium on a regular basis, have sold more season tickets for the upcoming season than any other NAHC club. The top five teams all surpassed the 10,000 mark in season ducats. Only the struggling New York Shamrocks, who have only qualified for the playoffs once in the past eight years and are coming off back to back last place finishes, are struggling at the gate. Here is the full list.

SEASON TICKET SALES
Detroit Motors 10,444
Chicago Packers 10,333
Montreal Valiants 10,257
Toronto Dukes 10,147
New York Shamrocks 6,085

UPCOMING GAMES
REGULAR SEASON OPENER
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 10
Toronto at Chicago

THURSDAY OCTOBER 11
Montreal at Boston
Detroit at New York

SATURDAY OCTOBER 13
Detroit at Chicago
New York at Montreal
Boston at Toronto

SUNDAY OCTOBER 14
Chicago at Boston
Montreal at Detroit
Toronto at New York




The Week That Was
Current events from 10/03/1962

• Astronaut Walter Schirra Jr. became the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space as he flew a six-orbit, nine-hour Mercury Atlas 8 mission.
• At least twenty are confirmed dead after a boiler room explosion in a New York Telephone Co. building in Manhattan yesterday.
• Both branches of Congress are moving in high gear this week, trying to clean up a dozen "must" bills and adjourn by Saturday.
• Army and Justice Department officials pondered whether to cancel homecoming weekend at Mississippi A&M as mild disorder and more arrests marked this week the presence of James Meredith at the University.