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Tiger Fan · 10-02-2025, 10:02 AM

1967 IN FIGMENT BASEBALL
November 1, 1967

FED RACE GOES DOWN TO WIRE AGAIN
Chiefs Win Fed by 1 Game, Stars Roll Over CA Foes

The Federal Association has provided some great pennant races in recent years including back to back seasons that required a tie-breaker game to determine the flag winner. The Fed did not require an extra game this season but the Chicago Chiefs and Pittsburgh Miners hooked up on the final day of the season for a winner take all game that proved to be the culmination of one of the greatest comebacks FABL has seen.

On September 9 the Chicago Chiefs were third in the Federal Association, nine and a half games back of the defending champion Pittsburgh Miners. The Washington Eagles were also in the mix, 3 back of Pittsburgh and in second place. Amazingly, just three weeks later the Chiefs, on a 14-2 run entered the final weekend of the series with a one game lead on Pittsburgh and 3 on Washington. The Miners had lost 13 of their previous 18 games and four in a row to fall out of first place as they headed to Chicago for a season ending two game series.

Pittsburgh needed to win them both and they did snap their losing skid with a 7-4 victory on Saturday, leaving the two clubs tied heading into Sunday's pennant decider. Chicago veteran Vern Osborne (21-7, 2.85) pitched a very effective game and a 3-run homer off the bat of outfielder Joe Siniscalchi in the fifth inning blew the game open, sending Chicago to a 5-1 victory and their first trip back to the World Championship Series since 1949.

The Chicago Chiefs finished the regular season on a 21-5 run, led by the big bats of Siniscalchi (.260,31,98) and Bob Starr (.248,35,98) and a pitching staff led by Osborne, Nate Carr (14-5, 2.00) and Augie Hicks (17-6, 2.87), who perhaps is bringing out memories of Al Miller for Chiefs fans after Hicks surpassed the 50 career win mark while still being just 21 years of age. Second place Pittsburgh had a full season of Dixie Turner (.307,33,95), unlike a year ago when injury ended the three-time Whitney Award winner's season in early September. Second year outfielder Earl Skains (.274,24,87) and pitcher Jack Kotarski (21-11, 2.88) are both just 23, which bodes well for the Miners future.

It was not as bad as Pittsburgh's September collapse but the Washington Eagles clearly missed a great chance to end a pennant drought that stretches back to 1946 as they fell out of the race with an 11-14 September. The Eagles added Ed MacNaughton (.304,11,30) from Detroit to an already strong offense although he missed much of the first half of the season with an injury. A full season of MacNughton in 1968 would make the Eagles offense, already the most productive in the Fed in 1967, even better. Tom Lorang (.293,34,98) and catcher Howdy Oakes (.273,17,92) are the other big producers. On the mound Jack Kessler (17-7, 2.62) had a strong season while 32-year-old Jim Stewart (19-12, 2.78) bounced back nicely from an 18 loss season a year ago.

The fourth place St. Louis Pioneers may not be as good as they were earlier in the decade when they won three consecutive World Championship Series titles but it is clear that Frenchy Mack (17-9, 2.08) is still at the top of his game. The 29-year-old became the first pitcher to win five Federal Association Allen Awards. Billy Hasson (14-8, 2.41) did not win an Allen this season but he owns three of them and continues to be effective at age 33. The St. Louis offense still has Bob Bell (.311,16,94) but it also has a lot of holes in it.

The Philadelphia Keystones finished in fifth place and did something immediately after the season conclude that is rarely done by the Keystones: trade away a franchise icon. Buddy Miller has three Whitney Awards and was a ten-time all-star selection as a Keystone but at 37 his playing time was greatly reduced this season and last week was dealt to Montreal. A team that has traded many of its star players away is the Detroit Dynamos, who climbed to sixth place after finishing 9th a year ago. Ed MacNaughton was the latest to be dealt, going to Washington over the winter. John Jackson (18-9, 3.31) is still in Detroit and the 43-year-old is now just three victories shy of 200 for his career while giving every indication he plans on pitching again next season. For the most part in Detroit it is a youth movement with second year shortstop Ben Baker (.304,15,84) leading the way.

The New York Gothams finished seventh for the second year in a row and fourth time in the past six years. After the season ended they added veteran outfielder Dallas Berry (.222,11,32), who had his struggles with Cincinnati this year but is a two-time Whitney Award winner but is likely well past the point where he can help upgrade a New York offense that relies heavily on Steve Burris (.281,28,87) and Isaiah Redbird (.245,20,57). Bunny Mullins (14-9, 2.26) made the all-star team for the third consecutive season and at 23 should be the ace of the Gothams staff for years to come.

The Los Angeles Suns finished 8th and won 75 games, both high water marks for the franchise that celebrated its sixth season in 1967. 25-year-old outfielder Sam Forrester (.281,34,85) is the franchise's first real star player. It was a year to forget for the Boston Minutemen, who finished 9th and had their lowest winning percentage in 16 years. Bill Dunlop (9-17, 3.48), who won a Kellogg and an Allen Award his first two seasons in the league, had an awful third season in the majors. The last place Minneapolis Millers finished with the worst record in baseball at 56-106 and won 12 less games than they did a year ago. Expansion teams certainly have it tough, but the Millers seem to be making far less progress than the other three that joined with them in 1962
.

*** Stars Shine With Best Half Decade in History ***

The Los Angeles Stars won their third pennant in the past four years and may well have just completed the best five years in FABL history. Their 109-53 season left them a whooping 23 games ahead of the second place Toronto Wolves and gave Los Angeles a five-year record of 521-289. Sure the expansion era has added 8 games to the slate each campaign and made wins easier to come by, but no one in the history of the sport has won as many games over any five year span.

When 97 wins is considered the low point- the Stars won 97 in both 1963 and 1965- you have to be doing something right. Three pennants and two second place finishes is the result. The Cleveland Foresters of the 1950s won seven pennants in eleven years and had a five year stretch of the three flags and two second place finishes but that also included a mediocre 79-75 season right in the middle of that stretch. To find a CA team with a pedigree that approaches the current edition of Stars regular season winning record you need to go back to the 1934-38 Brooklyn Kings, who finished second by just a single game twice in a row before reeling off three straight flag winning performances. Those Kings won at least 90 games five years in a row but their .612 winning percentage over that span pales compared to the Stars current .643 pace over the past half decade.

Los Angeles shows no signs of slowing down with pitchers Floyd Warner (23-3, 1.94), George Dunningan (20-4, 2.16) and Bob Hollister (12-15, 2.60) all cracking the OSA list of top 20 arms along with three position players making the hitters list. They are Bobby Garrison (.268,33,127), CA Whitney Award winner Lew Smith (.298,28,84) and Bill Bell (.288,7,75). All but Warner, who won the Allen Award and just turned 31 last month, are under the age of thirty.

The CA race in 1967 was effectively over by June 1 as the Stars had already built a nine game lead by that point and were never challenged. There was plenty of competition for second place with the Toronto Wolves nosing out three rivals to claim their highest finish in the standings since 1945. Veteran outfielder Sid Cullen (.270,24,89) failed to duplicate his Whitney Award winning performance of 1966 but remained the Wolves offensive catalyst while journeyman righthander Chris Sargent (18-10, 3.50) delivered the best season of his career at the age of 38.

Kansas City still has Hank Williams (.280,17,53), who was named to his 10th all-star team, and Stan Kleminski's (.209,0,10) 3000th career hit to celebrate but the big talk in the Midwest revolved around rumours the club was about to be sold and moved, with Atlanta and Seattle being the prime destination options.

The Montreal Saints, keyed by second year players Jim Hendricks (.322,5,78) and John Newton (.278,14,87) and a strong showing on the mound by 26-year-old John Roberts (16-11, 2.60), had a 16 game improvement and moved from ninth a year ago to fourth place this time around. It was the opposite story for the fifth place San Francisco Sailors who finished just two games over .500 after a 95 win season a year ago. Most of the Sailors key players are on the wrong side of thirty and their window of contention appears to closing rather quickly.

A trio of teams tied for sixth place with 77-85 records. They included the Cleveland Foresters and Chicago Cougars. Both had drop-offs from the previous season with Chicago's being the most dramatic as the Cougars went from a 99-win team that had enjoyed four straight seasons of at least 90 victories, to losing 22 more games in 1967 than they did the previous year.

While neither the Foresters nor the Cougars were happy with their showing, the third team in that group set a franchise record for wins. That would be the Dallas Wranglers who became the first of the 1962 expansion clubs to win more than 75 games in a season. Steve Prather (.272,9,75) won the Kellogg Award as top CA rookie and joins catcher John Vance (.206,8,73) and pitcher Sam Helsel (17-11, 2.70) as the young stars on the club.

The other '62 expansion club - the New York Imperials were just 4 games back of the Wranglers and own the top minor league system in the sport which will hopefully surround young star George Love (.260,25,65) with talent in the near future.

Finally we have the Cincinnati Cannons who somehow found a way to be even worse than they were a year ago. One might be tempted to place much of the blame for the last place finish squarely on the shoulders of Marco Middleton (11-16, 3.23), who tailed off in his age 24 season after winning the Allen Award two of the previous three years but in truth his run support was among the lowest in the league and Cincinnati's offense as a whole was the least productive in the Continental Association.

MILESTONES AND OTHER NOTABLES
'67 DRAFT A FAMILY AFFAIR

Most FABL drafts include a handful of players with relatives who blazed a trail for them by spending time in FABL themselves but the 1967 crop seemed to be a little extra special in that regard.

The biggest name when talking family connections, as often is the case happens to be a Barrell. This time it is 18-year-old Rufus "Ace" Barrell III. Ace, who starred in the Cincinnati High School circuit the past three years, is the son of former Cannons star and new Hall of Famer Deuce Barrell. Deuce won 359 games in a 20-year career with Cincinnati and Cleveland that included 5 Allen Awards. Ace was selected by the Montreal Saints in the third round.

There are two other pitchers in this class with big league ties. Ernie Jones, a high school lefthander who's dad Johnnie Jones and uncle Donnie Jones both had all-star careers with the Chicago Cougars, is one with the other being Barry Schneider. Barry's dad Bart spent over a decade in the minors but never made it to FABL. He was the only Schneider triplet not to make it big as Barry's uncles Skipper and Buddy Schneider each had productive careers. Ernie Jones will be a minor league teammate of Ace Barrell's as he was Montreal's 6th round selection while Schneider went to the San Francisco Sailors in the 9th round.

The current class also includes Dick Ward, who is a grandson of Hall of Famer Joe Ward and nephew of Kid Ward, who had a brief stint with the Kings in both Brooklyn and after the move to Kansas City. Dick is an 18-year-old centerfielder who was selected in round 13 by the Boston Minutemen. His dad was Joe's elder son Dick Ward Sr., who did not play professional baseball.

Next up is another centerfielder in Joe Landry who actually was the first of those with family connections to be drafted, going to the Pittsburgh Miners in round two. Joe is the grandson of former St. Louis Pioneers star Roger Landry and son of Cotton Landry, who made it as high as the AA level in the Brooklyn Kings organization. Finally we have shortstop Dale Robbins, who's dad, also named Dale, had a brief stint with the Detroit Dynamos and the New York Stars.

AWARDS

After finishing third in Whitney Award balloting a year ago, Los Angeles Stars shortstop Lew Smith (.298,28,84) was an unanimous choice to as the top batter in the Continental Association. The 24-year-old led the CA in runs scored with 115 and WAR at 8.2. Smith ended up missing the final two weeks of the season and the WCS after suffering a late season shoulder injury. It marked the second time in as many years a Whitney Award winner was sidelined for the WCS as that was the case for Pittsburgh infielder Dixie Turner, who was the Federal Association Whitney Award winner in 1966. Turner (.307,33,95) won it again this time around, marking the third straight season the 26-year-old has been the Fed Whitney winner. Turner is the first Fed player to win three consecutive Whitney Awards since St. Louis slugger Max Morris won four in a row from 1920-23. It was six straight overall for Mighty Mo, who won the CA Whitney in 1918 and 1919 prior to his trade from Cleveland.

Floyd Warner (23-3, 1.94) was the obvious choice for the Continental Association Allen Award. It was the first Allen win for the 31-year-old Los Angeles Stars righthander. It was tight race for the Fed Allen Award with Frenchy Mack (17-9, 2.08) of St Louis outpointing the New York Gothams Bunny Mullins (14,9,2.26). Mack, who now joins select company with five career Allen Awards, collected 11 of the 20 first place votes with Mullins earning 8 and the final one went to Chicago Chiefs' pitcher Nate Carr (14-5, 2.00). Only retired stars Adrian Czerwinski, with six, and Deuce Barrell, who earned five, compare with Mack for Allen wins.

The Kellogg Awards for top rookie went to 23-year-old outfielder Steve Prather (.272,9,75) of the Dallas Wranglers in the CA and 24-year-old Pittsburgh outfielder Ed Reeves (.302,3,42) in the Federal Association. Charley McCullough of the Los Angeles Stars and Dutch Becker of the Chicago Chiefs were the Theobald Award winners as top skippers in each of the two associations. McCullough has won the award five times while Becker earned his second straight Theobald in the Fed.

HALL OF FAME

Deuce Barrell is the latest member of his family to join the Baseball Hall of Fame after appearing on 99.4% of the ballots and being the lone inductee for 1967. 75% is needed for induction with former Cougars great Leo Mitchell finishing second at 66% and Sal Pestilli, who played for a number of teams being the only other player to be named on at least half of the ballots.

Deuce Barrell joins his uncles Bobby, Harry and Tom along with his grandfather Rufus Barrell. A five-time Allen Award winner, Deuce went 359-222 over his lengthy career with the Cincinnati Cannons and Cleveland Foresters. He shares the FABL record for WCS games started with Adrian Czerwinski at 17 and holds the mark for most career WCS losses with 11.

KEYSTONES TRADE BUDDY MILLER

Buddy Miller will not finish out his career as a Philadelphia Keystone. The 37-year-old who was the Keystones first round selection back in 1948, had spent his entire 17-year career with the Stones, playing in 2,200 games and recording 2,686 hits. Only Hall of Famers Bobby Barrell and Zebulon Banks ever played more games for Philadelphia. Miller was dealt in late October to the Montreal Saints. A strong bet as a future Hall of Famer, Miller won 3 batting titles, 3 Whitney Awards and a pair of WCS titles with Philadelphia. Miller had only 110 at bats in 1967 and, likely with an eye towards more playing time, okayed the deal to the Saints in exchange for a pair of young prospects.

NO-HITTERS

The lone no-hitter thrown in 1967 came from Hank Walker and marked the first no-hitter ever credited to a Dallas Wranglers pitcher. The 35-year-old journeyman was a waiver claim by Dallas a year ago but did not last the full 1967 season in Texas as the Wranglers dealt him to Philadelphia at the trade deadline, a little more than a month after Walker no-hit the Chicago Cougars.

3000 CAREER HITS

Stan Kleminski became the 16th player in FABL history to surpass the 3,000 career hit mark. The 40-year-old Kansas City Kings infielder delivered a pinch-hit rbi single off Cincinnati's Charlie Wolf in extra-innings of a game that ended in a 7-5 loss to the Cannons. Kleminski made his big league debut as a teenager with Detroit in 1946 and also spent time in Cleveland before joining the Kings in 1963. He is presently the active career hits leader with 3,015 but his former Detroit teammate Edwin Hackberry (2,973) of the San Francisco Sailors is closing in.

2500 HITS
Ed Farmer, Kansas City

1967 FABL ALL-STAR GAME
FEDS HOLD OFF LATE CA CHARGE FOR ANOTHER ALL-STAR WIN

A pair of Continental Association homeruns in the top of the 8th inning made the game exciting but was not quite enough as the stars of the Federal Association triumphed over their counterparts from the Continental 4-3 in the 1967 FABL all-star game. It marked the fourth year in a row that the Federal Association won the annual challenge between the two loops.

The Federal Association took a 4-0 lead into the eighth frame and had surrendered just five Continental Association hits before Hank Williams got the CA on the board when he homered off Pittsburgh's Bud Andrews to lead off the eighth. For Williams, it was the 10th time the Kansas City Kings outfielder was named to the Continental Association club, making him one of just 18 players to appear in 10 or more all-star contests.

A single by Cincinnati's Bill Ballard followed by a 2-out, 2-run homerun from Mel Johnson of the Los Angeles Stars cut the Fed lead to 4-3 but the CA could not get the equalizer as Andrews settled down and retired the final four batters he faced for a 2-inning save that proved to have much more drama than Andrews likely hoped for.

The Feds took a 2-0 lead in the second inning on a Bob Starr two-run single. Starr, a 27-year-old all or nothing Chicago Chiefs outfielder who led FABL in homeruns with 35 and strikeouts with 162, would also hit a solo homerun later in the day and be named the player of the game. He joins Hank Barnett (1942) and Rod Shearer (1954) as the only Chiefs to win the All-Star Game MVP award.

The Federal Association added single runs in the third and sixth innings with the former on a run-scoring single from John Edwards of Minneapolis and the latter via the Starr homerun.

1967 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
CHIEFS COOKING IN WCS WIN: STARR STEALS THE SHOW

You can likely be forgiven if you were not familiar with the name Bob Starr prior to the start of the 1967 baseball season. That has to have changed now as all Starr did this season was win the All-Star Game MVP, the World Championship Series MVP, help the Chiefs end a long championship drought by hitting 4 homeruns, one shy of Bobby Barrell's 1945 record, in the WCS and leading FABL in regular season homeruns with 35.

The 27-year-old outfielder comes from very humble beginnings as he was a 10th round draft pick out of Latin High School in Chicago in 1958. He was thrilled to be selected by one of his hometown teams, but it was the Cougars and not the Chiefs who drafted Starr. He took a few years to develop but started to show some promise by cracking OSA's top 100 prospect list in 1962 and reaching the AA level. That spring he was traded from one Chicago team to the other as part of a package for pitcher Dick Champ. Midway through the 1963 season he made his big league debut with the Chicago Chiefs and he has teamed with fellow outfielder Joe Siniscalchi to provide a pair of potent bats in the heart of the Chiefs lineup.

The Chiefs were making their sixth WCS appearance and had won four of their previous five with the most recent victory coming back in 1949. Los Angeles is the all-time leader with 10 WCS wins including last year when they defeated St Louis in six games. The Chiefs and Stars had never faced each other in the WCS prior to this season.

The Stars would be playing with one hand tied behind their back as shortstop Lew Smith, who would be named the Whitney Award winner in the CA, would miss the series after suffering an injury in mid-September.

GAME ONE

A dramatic start to the series as the Stars rallied with a pair of runs in the top of the eighth inning to tie the game at 5. It would not require extra innings and Bob Starr was the hero, although all he had to do was stand at the plate and then jog to first base after drawing a bases-loaded walk from Stars reliever Dutch Lane to give the Chiefs a 6-5 walk-off victory.

GAME TWO

After getting three rbi's in the series opener, Bob Starr added two more along with a pair of runs scored and 3 hits as he led the Chiefs to a 6-3 victory in game two. Charlie Barrell, the veteran infielder who spent most of his career with the Stars, also drove in two runs for Chicago.

GAME THREE

Los Angeles needed someone to step up in game three and that someone was Bob Hollister. The 32-year-old righthander was acquired at the trade deadline from Boston and would twirl a complete game 5-hit shutout to get the Stars on the board with a 3-0 victory.

GAME FOUR

Despite Bob Starr's best efforts, the Los Angeles Stars tied the series with a 6-5 victory. Starr, went 4-for-5 with 2 homers and 4 rbi's but it was not enough as Los Angeles evened the series with the narrow victory.

GAME FIVE

Los Angeles led 5-1 after three innings but after that it was all Chicago as the visitors scored seven unanswered runs to take 3 games to two series lead with an 8-5 victory.

GAME SIX

Another game that saw Los Angeles surrender the lead. The Stars led 4-2 entering the bottom of the eighth inning but back-to-back doubles from Charlie Barrell and Joe Flanagan followed by a rbi single off the bat of Ricardo Castillo allowed the Chiefs to tie the game up. Los Angeles went quietly in the top of the ninth leading to the Chiefs second walk-off win of the series. The game winning hit was a rbi single from Charlie Barrell to plate Tom Spruill with the series-winning run.

For Barrell, who more than a decade ago won a Federal Basketball League title for Chicago while playing for the cage Panthers it marked the end of a terrific baseball career. Charlie, who also briefly played pro football, announced his retirement after the series. He was an 8-time All-Star and won the Kellogg Award his rookie season. In all, Barrell appeared in 1,835 big league games and had 1,993 hits including 252 homeruns. He won a CA batting title in 1954 with the Stars. This was the first, and as it turned out, only WCS win of his career.

Barrell hit .304 in the series, but the MVP was Starr, who homered to put Chicago on the scoreboard early in game six and finished 12 hits, a .462 batting average, 10 rbi's and 4 homers in the series.

Next up a look at the Prospect Pipeline and then the 1967 recap from the gridiron.

10-02-2025, 10:02 AM	#1136
Tiger Fan Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Ontario Canada Posts: 9,774	1967 Baseball Recap 1967 IN FIGMENT BASEBALL November 1, 1967 FED RACE GOES DOWN TO WIRE AGAIN Chiefs Win Fed by 1 Game, Stars Roll Over CA Foes The Federal Association has provided some great pennant races in recent years including back to back seasons that required a tie-breaker game to determine the flag winner. The Fed did not require an extra game this season but the Chicago Chiefs and Pittsburgh Miners hooked up on the final day of the season for a winner take all game that proved to be the culmination of one of the greatest comebacks FABL has seen. On September 9 the Chicago Chiefs were third in the Federal Association, nine and a half games back of the defending champion Pittsburgh Miners. The Washington Eagles were also in the mix, 3 back of Pittsburgh and in second place. Amazingly, just three weeks later the Chiefs, on a 14-2 run entered the final weekend of the series with a one game lead on Pittsburgh and 3 on Washington. The Miners had lost 13 of their previous 18 games and four in a row to fall out of first place as they headed to Chicago for a season ending two game series. Pittsburgh needed to win them both and they did snap their losing skid with a 7-4 victory on Saturday, leaving the two clubs tied heading into Sunday's pennant decider. Chicago veteran Vern Osborne (21-7, 2.85) pitched a very effective game and a 3-run homer off the bat of outfielder Joe Siniscalchi in the fifth inning blew the game open, sending Chicago to a 5-1 victory and their first trip back to the World Championship Series since 1949. The Chicago Chiefs finished the regular season on a 21-5 run, led by the big bats of Siniscalchi (.260,31,98) and Bob Starr (.248,35,98) and a pitching staff led by Osborne, Nate Carr (14-5, 2.00) and Augie Hicks (17-6, 2.87), who perhaps is bringing out memories of Al Miller for Chiefs fans after Hicks surpassed the 50 career win mark while still being just 21 years of age. Second place Pittsburgh had a full season of Dixie Turner (.307,33,95), unlike a year ago when injury ended the three-time Whitney Award winner's season in early September. Second year outfielder Earl Skains (.274,24,87) and pitcher Jack Kotarski (21-11, 2.88) are both just 23, which bodes well for the Miners future. It was not as bad as Pittsburgh's September collapse but the Washington Eagles clearly missed a great chance to end a pennant drought that stretches back to 1946 as they fell out of the race with an 11-14 September. The Eagles added Ed MacNaughton (.304,11,30) from Detroit to an already strong offense although he missed much of the first half of the season with an injury. A full season of MacNughton in 1968 would make the Eagles offense, already the most productive in the Fed in 1967, even better. Tom Lorang (.293,34,98) and catcher Howdy Oakes (.273,17,92) are the other big producers. On the mound Jack Kessler (17-7, 2.62) had a strong season while 32-year-old Jim Stewart (19-12, 2.78) bounced back nicely from an 18 loss season a year ago. The fourth place St. Louis Pioneers may not be as good as they were earlier in the decade when they won three consecutive World Championship Series titles but it is clear that Frenchy Mack (17-9, 2.08) is still at the top of his game. The 29-year-old became the first pitcher to win five Federal Association Allen Awards. Billy Hasson (14-8, 2.41) did not win an Allen this season but he owns three of them and continues to be effective at age 33. The St. Louis offense still has Bob Bell (.311,16,94) but it also has a lot of holes in it. The Philadelphia Keystones finished in fifth place and did something immediately after the season conclude that is rarely done by the Keystones: trade away a franchise icon. Buddy Miller has three Whitney Awards and was a ten-time all-star selection as a Keystone but at 37 his playing time was greatly reduced this season and last week was dealt to Montreal. A team that has traded many of its star players away is the Detroit Dynamos, who climbed to sixth place after finishing 9th a year ago. Ed MacNaughton was the latest to be dealt, going to Washington over the winter. John Jackson (18-9, 3.31) is still in Detroit and the 43-year-old is now just three victories shy of 200 for his career while giving every indication he plans on pitching again next season. For the most part in Detroit it is a youth movement with second year shortstop Ben Baker (.304,15,84) leading the way. The New York Gothams finished seventh for the second year in a row and fourth time in the past six years. After the season ended they added veteran outfielder Dallas Berry (.222,11,32), who had his struggles with Cincinnati this year but is a two-time Whitney Award winner but is likely well past the point where he can help upgrade a New York offense that relies heavily on Steve Burris (.281,28,87) and Isaiah Redbird (.245,20,57). Bunny Mullins (14-9, 2.26) made the all-star team for the third consecutive season and at 23 should be the ace of the Gothams staff for years to come. The Los Angeles Suns finished 8th and won 75 games, both high water marks for the franchise that celebrated its sixth season in 1967. 25-year-old outfielder Sam Forrester (.281,34,85) is the franchise's first real star player. It was a year to forget for the Boston Minutemen, who finished 9th and had their lowest winning percentage in 16 years. Bill Dunlop (9-17, 3.48), who won a Kellogg and an Allen Award his first two seasons in the league, had an awful third season in the majors. The last place Minneapolis Millers finished with the worst record in baseball at 56-106 and won 12 less games than they did a year ago. Expansion teams certainly have it tough, but the Millers seem to be making far less progress than the other three that joined with them in 1962 . * Stars Shine With Best Half Decade in History * The Los Angeles Stars won their third pennant in the past four years and may well have just completed the best five years in FABL history. Their 109-53 season left them a whooping 23 games ahead of the second place Toronto Wolves and gave Los Angeles a five-year record of 521-289. Sure the expansion era has added 8 games to the slate each campaign and made wins easier to come by, but no one in the history of the sport has won as many games over any five year span. When 97 wins is considered the low point- the Stars won 97 in both 1963 and 1965- you have to be doing something right. Three pennants and two second place finishes is the result. The Cleveland Foresters of the 1950s won seven pennants in eleven years and had a five year stretch of the three flags and two second place finishes but that also included a mediocre 79-75 season right in the middle of that stretch. To find a CA team with a pedigree that approaches the current edition of Stars regular season winning record you need to go back to the 1934-38 Brooklyn Kings, who finished second by just a single game twice in a row before reeling off three straight flag winning performances. Those Kings won at least 90 games five years in a row but their .612 winning percentage over that span pales compared to the Stars current .643 pace over the past half decade. Los Angeles shows no signs of slowing down with pitchers Floyd Warner (23-3, 1.94), George Dunningan (20-4, 2.16) and Bob Hollister (12-15, 2.60) all cracking the OSA list of top 20 arms along with three position players making the hitters list. They are Bobby Garrison (.268,33,127), CA Whitney Award winner Lew Smith (.298,28,84) and Bill Bell (.288,7,75). All but Warner, who won the Allen Award and just turned 31 last month, are under the age of thirty. The CA race in 1967 was effectively over by June 1 as the Stars had already built a nine game lead by that point and were never challenged. There was plenty of competition for second place with the Toronto Wolves nosing out three rivals to claim their highest finish in the standings since 1945. Veteran outfielder Sid Cullen (.270,24,89) failed to duplicate his Whitney Award winning performance of 1966 but remained the Wolves offensive catalyst while journeyman righthander Chris Sargent (18-10, 3.50) delivered the best season of his career at the age of 38. Kansas City still has Hank Williams (.280,17,53), who was named to his 10th all-star team, and Stan Kleminski's (.209,0,10) 3000th career hit to celebrate but the big talk in the Midwest revolved around rumours the club was about to be sold and moved, with Atlanta and Seattle being the prime destination options. The Montreal Saints, keyed by second year players Jim Hendricks (.322,5,78) and John Newton (.278,14,87) and a strong showing on the mound by 26-year-old John Roberts (16-11, 2.60), had a 16 game improvement and moved from ninth a year ago to fourth place this time around. It was the opposite story for the fifth place San Francisco Sailors who finished just two games over .500 after a 95 win season a year ago. Most of the Sailors key players are on the wrong side of thirty and their window of contention appears to closing rather quickly. A trio of teams tied for sixth place with 77-85 records. They included the Cleveland Foresters and Chicago Cougars. Both had drop-offs from the previous season with Chicago's being the most dramatic as the Cougars went from a 99-win team that had enjoyed four straight seasons of at least 90 victories, to losing 22 more games in 1967 than they did the previous year. While neither the Foresters nor the Cougars were happy with their showing, the third team in that group set a franchise record for wins. That would be the Dallas Wranglers who became the first of the 1962 expansion clubs to win more than 75 games in a season. Steve Prather (.272,9,75) won the Kellogg Award as top CA rookie and joins catcher John Vance (.206,8,73) and pitcher Sam Helsel (17-11, 2.70) as the young stars on the club. The other '62 expansion club - the New York Imperials were just 4 games back of the Wranglers and own the top minor league system in the sport which will hopefully surround young star George Love (.260,25,65) with talent in the near future. Finally we have the Cincinnati Cannons who somehow found a way to be even worse than they were a year ago. One might be tempted to place much of the blame for the last place finish squarely on the shoulders of Marco Middleton (11-16, 3.23), who tailed off in his age 24 season after winning the Allen Award two of the previous three years but in truth his run support was among the lowest in the league and Cincinnati's offense as a whole was the least productive in the Continental Association. MILESTONES AND OTHER NOTABLES '67 DRAFT A FAMILY AFFAIR Most FABL drafts include a handful of players with relatives who blazed a trail for them by spending time in FABL themselves but the 1967 crop seemed to be a little extra special in that regard. The biggest name when talking family connections, as often is the case happens to be a Barrell. This time it is 18-year-old Rufus "Ace" Barrell III. Ace, who starred in the Cincinnati High School circuit the past three years, is the son of former Cannons star and new Hall of Famer Deuce Barrell. Deuce won 359 games in a 20-year career with Cincinnati and Cleveland that included 5 Allen Awards. Ace was selected by the Montreal Saints in the third round. There are two other pitchers in this class with big league ties. Ernie Jones, a high school lefthander who's dad Johnnie Jones and uncle Donnie Jones both had all-star careers with the Chicago Cougars, is one with the other being Barry Schneider. Barry's dad Bart spent over a decade in the minors but never made it to FABL. He was the only Schneider triplet not to make it big as Barry's uncles Skipper and Buddy Schneider each had productive careers. Ernie Jones will be a minor league teammate of Ace Barrell's as he was Montreal's 6th round selection while Schneider went to the San Francisco Sailors in the 9th round. The current class also includes Dick Ward, who is a grandson of Hall of Famer Joe Ward and nephew of Kid Ward, who had a brief stint with the Kings in both Brooklyn and after the move to Kansas City. Dick is an 18-year-old centerfielder who was selected in round 13 by the Boston Minutemen. His dad was Joe's elder son Dick Ward Sr., who did not play professional baseball. Next up is another centerfielder in Joe Landry who actually was the first of those with family connections to be drafted, going to the Pittsburgh Miners in round two. Joe is the grandson of former St. Louis Pioneers star Roger Landry and son of Cotton Landry, who made it as high as the AA level in the Brooklyn Kings organization. Finally we have shortstop Dale Robbins, who's dad, also named Dale, had a brief stint with the Detroit Dynamos and the New York Stars. AWARDS After finishing third in Whitney Award balloting a year ago, Los Angeles Stars shortstop Lew Smith (.298,28,84) was an unanimous choice to as the top batter in the Continental Association. The 24-year-old led the CA in runs scored with 115 and WAR at 8.2. Smith ended up missing the final two weeks of the season and the WCS after suffering a late season shoulder injury. It marked the second time in as many years a Whitney Award winner was sidelined for the WCS as that was the case for Pittsburgh infielder Dixie Turner, who was the Federal Association Whitney Award winner in 1966. Turner (.307,33,95) won it again this time around, marking the third straight season the 26-year-old has been the Fed Whitney winner. Turner is the first Fed player to win three consecutive Whitney Awards since St. Louis slugger Max Morris won four in a row from 1920-23. It was six straight overall for Mighty Mo, who won the CA Whitney in 1918 and 1919 prior to his trade from Cleveland. Floyd Warner (23-3, 1.94) was the obvious choice for the Continental Association Allen Award. It was the first Allen win for the 31-year-old Los Angeles Stars righthander. It was tight race for the Fed Allen Award with Frenchy Mack (17-9, 2.08) of St Louis outpointing the New York Gothams Bunny Mullins (14,9,2.26). Mack, who now joins select company with five career Allen Awards, collected 11 of the 20 first place votes with Mullins earning 8 and the final one went to Chicago Chiefs' pitcher Nate Carr (14-5, 2.00). Only retired stars Adrian Czerwinski, with six, and Deuce Barrell, who earned five, compare with Mack for Allen wins. The Kellogg Awards for top rookie went to 23-year-old outfielder Steve Prather (.272,9,75) of the Dallas Wranglers in the CA and 24-year-old Pittsburgh outfielder Ed Reeves (.302,3,42) in the Federal Association. Charley McCullough of the Los Angeles Stars and Dutch Becker of the Chicago Chiefs were the Theobald Award winners as top skippers in each of the two associations. McCullough has won the award five times while Becker earned his second straight Theobald in the Fed. HALL OF FAME Deuce Barrell is the latest member of his family to join the Baseball Hall of Fame after appearing on 99.4% of the ballots and being the lone inductee for 1967. 75% is needed for induction with former Cougars great Leo Mitchell finishing second at 66% and Sal Pestilli, who played for a number of teams being the only other player to be named on at least half of the ballots. Deuce Barrell joins his uncles Bobby, Harry and Tom along with his grandfather Rufus Barrell. A five-time Allen Award winner, Deuce went 359-222 over his lengthy career with the Cincinnati Cannons and Cleveland Foresters. He shares the FABL record for WCS games started with Adrian Czerwinski at 17 and holds the mark for most career WCS losses with 11. KEYSTONES TRADE BUDDY MILLER Buddy Miller will not finish out his career as a Philadelphia Keystone. The 37-year-old who was the Keystones first round selection back in 1948, had spent his entire 17-year career with the Stones, playing in 2,200 games and recording 2,686 hits. Only Hall of Famers Bobby Barrell and Zebulon Banks ever played more games for Philadelphia. Miller was dealt in late October to the Montreal Saints. A strong bet as a future Hall of Famer, Miller won 3 batting titles, 3 Whitney Awards and a pair of WCS titles with Philadelphia. Miller had only 110 at bats in 1967 and, likely with an eye towards more playing time, okayed the deal to the Saints in exchange for a pair of young prospects. NO-HITTERS The lone no-hitter thrown in 1967 came from Hank Walker and marked the first no-hitter ever credited to a Dallas Wranglers pitcher. The 35-year-old journeyman was a waiver claim by Dallas a year ago but did not last the full 1967 season in Texas as the Wranglers dealt him to Philadelphia at the trade deadline, a little more than a month after Walker no-hit the Chicago Cougars. 3000 CAREER HITS Stan Kleminski became the 16th player in FABL history to surpass the 3,000 career hit mark. The 40-year-old Kansas City Kings infielder delivered a pinch-hit rbi single off Cincinnati's Charlie Wolf in extra-innings of a game that ended in a 7-5 loss to the Cannons. Kleminski made his big league debut as a teenager with Detroit in 1946 and also spent time in Cleveland before joining the Kings in 1963. He is presently the active career hits leader with 3,015 but his former Detroit teammate Edwin Hackberry (2,973) of the San Francisco Sailors is closing in. 2500 HITS Ed Farmer, Kansas City 1967 FABL ALL-STAR GAME FEDS HOLD OFF LATE CA CHARGE FOR ANOTHER ALL-STAR WIN A pair of Continental Association homeruns in the top of the 8th inning made the game exciting but was not quite enough as the stars of the Federal Association triumphed over their counterparts from the Continental 4-3 in the 1967 FABL all-star game. It marked the fourth year in a row that the Federal Association won the annual challenge between the two loops. The Federal Association took a 4-0 lead into the eighth frame and had surrendered just five Continental Association hits before Hank Williams got the CA on the board when he homered off Pittsburgh's Bud Andrews to lead off the eighth. For Williams, it was the 10th time the Kansas City Kings outfielder was named to the Continental Association club, making him one of just 18 players to appear in 10 or more all-star contests. A single by Cincinnati's Bill Ballard followed by a 2-out, 2-run homerun from Mel Johnson of the Los Angeles Stars cut the Fed lead to 4-3 but the CA could not get the equalizer as Andrews settled down and retired the final four batters he faced for a 2-inning save that proved to have much more drama than Andrews likely hoped for. The Feds took a 2-0 lead in the second inning on a Bob Starr two-run single. Starr, a 27-year-old all or nothing Chicago Chiefs outfielder who led FABL in homeruns with 35 and strikeouts with 162, would also hit a solo homerun later in the day and be named the player of the game. He joins Hank Barnett (1942) and Rod Shearer (1954) as the only Chiefs to win the All-Star Game MVP award. The Federal Association added single runs in the third and sixth innings with the former on a run-scoring single from John Edwards of Minneapolis and the latter via the Starr homerun. 1967 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES CHIEFS COOKING IN WCS WIN: STARR STEALS THE SHOW You can likely be forgiven if you were not familiar with the name Bob Starr prior to the start of the 1967 baseball season. That has to have changed now as all Starr did this season was win the All-Star Game MVP, the World Championship Series MVP, help the Chiefs end a long championship drought by hitting 4 homeruns, one shy of Bobby Barrell's 1945 record, in the WCS and leading FABL in regular season homeruns with 35. The 27-year-old outfielder comes from very humble beginnings as he was a 10th round draft pick out of Latin High School in Chicago in 1958. He was thrilled to be selected by one of his hometown teams, but it was the Cougars and not the Chiefs who drafted Starr. He took a few years to develop but started to show some promise by cracking OSA's top 100 prospect list in 1962 and reaching the AA level. That spring he was traded from one Chicago team to the other as part of a package for pitcher Dick Champ. Midway through the 1963 season he made his big league debut with the Chicago Chiefs and he has teamed with fellow outfielder Joe Siniscalchi to provide a pair of potent bats in the heart of the Chiefs lineup. The Chiefs were making their sixth WCS appearance and had won four of their previous five with the most recent victory coming back in 1949. Los Angeles is the all-time leader with 10 WCS wins including last year when they defeated St Louis in six games. The Chiefs and Stars had never faced each other in the WCS prior to this season. The Stars would be playing with one hand tied behind their back as shortstop Lew Smith, who would be named the Whitney Award winner in the CA, would miss the series after suffering an injury in mid-September. GAME ONE A dramatic start to the series as the Stars rallied with a pair of runs in the top of the eighth inning to tie the game at 5. It would not require extra innings and Bob Starr was the hero, although all he had to do was stand at the plate and then jog to first base after drawing a bases-loaded walk from Stars reliever Dutch Lane to give the Chiefs a 6-5 walk-off victory. GAME TWO After getting three rbi's in the series opener, Bob Starr added two more along with a pair of runs scored and 3 hits as he led the Chiefs to a 6-3 victory in game two. Charlie Barrell, the veteran infielder who spent most of his career with the Stars, also drove in two runs for Chicago. GAME THREE Los Angeles needed someone to step up in game three and that someone was Bob Hollister. The 32-year-old righthander was acquired at the trade deadline from Boston and would twirl a complete game 5-hit shutout to get the Stars on the board with a 3-0 victory. GAME FOUR Despite Bob Starr's best efforts, the Los Angeles Stars tied the series with a 6-5 victory. Starr, went 4-for-5 with 2 homers and 4 rbi's but it was not enough as Los Angeles evened the series with the narrow victory. GAME FIVE Los Angeles led 5-1 after three innings but after that it was all Chicago as the visitors scored seven unanswered runs to take 3 games to two series lead with an 8-5 victory. GAME SIX Another game that saw Los Angeles surrender the lead. The Stars led 4-2 entering the bottom of the eighth inning but back-to-back doubles from Charlie Barrell and Joe Flanagan followed by a rbi single off the bat of Ricardo Castillo allowed the Chiefs to tie the game up. Los Angeles went quietly in the top of the ninth leading to the Chiefs second walk-off win of the series. The game winning hit was a rbi single from Charlie Barrell to plate Tom Spruill with the series-winning run. For Barrell, who more than a decade ago won a Federal Basketball League title for Chicago while playing for the cage Panthers it marked the end of a terrific baseball career. Charlie, who also briefly played pro football, announced his retirement after the series. He was an 8-time All-Star and won the Kellogg Award his rookie season. In all, Barrell appeared in 1,835 big league games and had 1,993 hits including 252 homeruns. He won a CA batting title in 1954 with the Stars. This was the first, and as it turned out, only WCS win of his career. Barrell hit .304 in the series, but the MVP was Starr, who homered to put Chicago on the scoreboard early in game six and finished 12 hits, a .462 batting average, 10 rbi's and 4 homers in the series. Next up a look at the Prospect Pipeline and then the 1967 recap from the gridiron. __________________ Cliff Markle HOB1 greatest pitcher 360-160, 9 Welch Awards, 11 WS titles Last edited by Tiger Fan; 10-02-2025 at 10:06 AM.