1945 North Carolina State League – Regular Season Recap
Ninth-inning rally on final day gives Landis regular season title
Final Standings
Landis Millers 67-47
Concord Weavers 66-48
Salisbury Pirates 62-52
Lexington A’s 59-55
Hickory Rebels 55-59
Mooresville Moors 53-61
Statesville Cubs 49-65
Thomasville Dodgers 45-69
One of the best ways to chase readers away from your dynasty story? Win a championship in your first season. I am not sure how this happened to be honest but
Landis outlasted Concord and Salisbury to claim the 1945 regular season title in the North Carolina State League. The Millers nearly blew it, though, losing four of the final six games, and suffering 5- and 3-game losing streaks earlier in September.
The last day of the regular season was wild. Landis clung to a one-game lead. Concord then thumped Thomasville 6-1, so the Millers knew they had to beat Hickory to avoid a tie at the top. Hickory jumped to a 6-0 lead after four innings and held a commanding 7-1 advantage heading into the bottom of the ninth.Game over, right?
Not so fast, my baseball friends.
The Landis Millers went ballistic in the bottom of the ninth, scoring 7 runs to win the game and the regular season crown! I’ve never seen anything like it. The rally started with one out and featured two hits by reserve infielder
Brian Macklin (not even sure why he started TBH) in the frame as well as a pair of bases loaded walks. Macklin’s two-run drive to left field finally ended it, bringing home teammates
Eric Gossett and
Brandon Windstein as the dugout emptied in celebration.
I thought I was taking over one of the worst teams in the league. We had the lowest payroll and one of the smallest stadiums. My draft strategy was to load up on leaders, captains and sparkplugs as much as I could, other ratings be damned. That seemed to work, and my assistants told me the team chemistry was “off the charts” over the final few months, led by our 39-year-old 1B/3B
Bruce Elliott. Interestingly, my coaching staff was unhappy and had little cohesion. We’ll see how this translates in the playoffs.
As for star players, our now 19-year-old ace pitcher
John Twitty proved everything we hoped he would be. Twitty posted a 19-3 record with a 1.81 ERA. He only allowed one home run the whole season.
Outfielders
John Meeks (.313) and
Phil Durham (.307) had the first and third-best batting average in the league. Batting champ Meeks had a league-best 75 RBIs (didn’t win the triple crown however). Durham stole 26 bases and had the only five-hit game in the league – if you remember, in game one vs. Hickory..
Looking deeper at the standings, Landis played great under pressure. The Millers went 7-3 in extra inning games and 23-9 in one-run contests.
So go figure, the teams picked to finish seventh and eighth in the preseason by the OOTP in-game pundits will play a best-of-seven for the championship.
On to the playoffs!