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06-21-2021, 09:58 AM
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#181 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
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This Week in Figment Baseball: June 28, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL JUNE 28, 1937  IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED The Baltimore Cannons spent some time in the first division recently, rare air the club has not occupied at seasons end since 1931. In fact, prior to the last couple of weeks the Cannons have not been at .500 at any point after June 1st of a season since June 19, 1933 -over 4 years ago, and you have to go back another year for them to have ever been above the break even mark as late as June. But there we were just a week ago when when than Cannons finally found themselves over .500 with a 30-28 record and for the first time in 4 seasons they were in the first division. The excitement was short-lived however as the Cannons collection of young arms are, as youngsters almost always seem to be, prone to inconsistency and the club has lost 9 straight, all on the road, and are free falling back towards their regular berth in the second division. However, there is plenty of reasons to think there are bright days ahead. All those years of high draft picks are starting to pay off in Baltimore as the club is getting some pretty good production out of a pair of 21 year old rookies in John Edwards (7-7, 4.56) and Rusty Petrick (5-10, 4.22) as well as a decent stretch from 24 year old Gus Goulding (5-9, 4.24), who burst on the scene last August with 8 victories in as many starts for Baltimore. All are former first round draft picks and there is another on the way in 20 year Rufus Barrell II, who is finally starting to show the form in the minors the Cannons had hoped for when they selected him first overall in 1935. The Cannons just need to be patient and wait for those arms to mature, while at the same time looking for anything that might jump start their decidedly non-Cannonating offense. One bright spot in the Cannons offense this season has been the play of 28 year old outfielder Jim Mason (.358,3,27) who has rebounded from a very subpar sophomore campaign a year ago. While it is a surprise Mason is leading the Continental Association in hitting, his performance is not far off the outstanding debut season he had two years ago so maybe the former first round pick from Ellery College is finally living up to expectations.  HOME COOKING FEEDS FED FRONT-RUNNERS We have a new first place team (although only by percentage points) in the Federal Association as the Pittsburgh Miners have taken over top spot from Chicago after sweeping the Chiefs in a 3-game set at Fitzpatrick Park last week. Sweeps are nothing new in the season series between these two foes as the Chiefs lead the season series 6-5 with the home side winning in a sweep each of the 4 series between the two. Chicago will try to keep that trend alive when they next square off, at Whitney Park immediately after the All-Star Game. Pittsburgh might have catcher George Cleaves (.344,7,25) back in the lineup for that series but they will be without Mahlon Strong (.316,5,18) as the very talented but also very injury prone outfielder is back on the DL, with his fifth injury since joining the Miners over the winter. The 3-time All-Star blew out his achilles and is done for the season. The Chiefs have injury woes as well with veteran Tom Taylor hurting himself last week, and the outfielder will miss 3 months. The Chiefs are optimistic centerfielder Bennie Griffith (.265,2,18) will be back in the next few days but the real loss is veteran infielder Pete Layton (.327,5,40), who's offense is greatly missed and will be so for likely another month. Injuries also have bothered the front-runners in the Continental Association but so far they have not slowed down the Cleveland Foresters, who have won 14 of their last 19 games and are now 3 ahead of slumping Brooklyn. Cleveland has been pretty much injury free although catcher T.R. Goins (.318,7,46) got banged up last week. Goins, who surpassed the 2500 hit plateau recently, sprained his knee and it might take a month to fully recover but the 36 year old two-time Whitney Award winner is adamant he will play through it. Brooklyn has been a lot less lucky with the loss of ace Tom Barrell (7-3, 2.66). The 29 year old, who won the last 3 Allan Awards in the CA, is out for 2 months and his absence has coincided with a Kings collapse. Brooklyn was 9-1 leading up to the Barrell injury, but have gone just 5-9 since including a disastrous 2-4 week against Toronto and the Chicago Cougars. SHEPPARD REPORTEDLY MULLING OVER SKIPPING TORONTO TRIP St Louis Pioneers ace pitcher Sam Sheppard is giving indications he will turn down the assignment of pitching for the Federal Association in Wednesday's All Star game in Toronto. Sheppard claims his arm is tired and told reporters today that he feels he may need to stay in St Louis over the 3 day break.However, that doesn't quite jibe with the fact Sheppard had inquired the other day as to what 'they"- meaning baseball's bigwigs- might do if he didn't show up for the All-Star game. When pressed on that matter, Sheppard became incredulous when interviewers persisted in asking when he hurt his arm and if it was before or after he wondered what the league's response to him being a no show for the all-star game. Baseball men understand that Paul Long Jr., owner of the Pioneers, has been attempting to persuade Sheppard not to go through with any idea of passing up the All-Star game but so far, at least, that does not seem to have deterred the 29 year old righthander who, at 13-4 on the year, would likely be the starting pitcher for the Federal Association. THE CURIOUS BEGININGS OF RABBIT DAY AND MILT FRITZ Many in Chicago are anxiously awaiting Rabbit Day to get his milestone 200th career pitching victory. In fact a copious collection of Chiefs supporters are wondering why it has not happened all ready as Day approaches the All-Star break with a rather pedestrian 7-5 record on the season and 198 wins in his pocket. On the Northside of Chicago much of the talk about pitching is focused on another talented righthander who recently recorded his 129th career FABL victory. I am speaking of Milt Fritz and at 6 years younger than Rabbit Day may just have a pretty good shot at outpacing the Rabbit when it comes to career victories when everything is said and done. CAREER VICTORIES BY ACTIVE PITCHERS  *note the above image was prepared prior to this week's sim so Day added 1 and Fritz added 2 wins to his total. It is interesting to note that both Day and Fritz had decidedly unimpressive high school careers and neither was highly thought of in their draft year. Day won just 6 games in 3 seasons at Toledo High School before the Philadelphia Keystones selected him, pretty much as an afterthought, in a round that no longer exists (27th) of the 1922 draft. The Keystones were so enamoured with Day that they cut him the very same day he was drafted by the organization prompting Day to somehow sneak his way back into the high school ranks were he suited up for Greensboro High and posted an 0-3 record with a 9.99 era. For some reason those five lackluster appearances in Greensboro caught the attention of the Baltimore Cannons, who selected Day 5th overall in the 1923 draft. While I am sure many thought the Cannons were out of their mind, especially those in the Keystones organization, his selection would end up being one of the best decisions Baltimore ever made. It did take a little while to pan out as Day went 16-20 over two seasons of A ball before splitting his age 22 season between AA and AAA. By that time OSA had newly christened Day the number one prospect in the game and he made his Cannons debut in 1927 at the age of 23. He would go on to win 129 games and two Allen Awards over 7 seasons in Baltimore before, with the Cannons starting to misfire and heading into some very lean seasons, Day was dealt to New York. He went 47-21 over two and a half seasons with the Gothams, leading them to a pair of Federal Association pennants and a 1935 World Championship. New York then decided to go into full rebuild mode last June and dealt Day, with a 10-2 record at the time, to Chicago were he would post a 15-1 mark in the second half of the season, win his third Allen Award and earn another World Championship ring by leading the Chiefs to their first WCS in 20 years. The Milt Fritz story is very similar to the rise of Rabbit Day. Like Day, Fritz had an unassuming start as a high schooler. He was just 3-13 over 3 seasons at Omaha High School and also like Day, was a late round draft pick with Fritz going in the 12th round of the 1927 draft to the Chicago Chiefs. Unlike Day, Fritz rise to big league stardom was very quick. He spent most of his 18 year old season in A ball, going 13-13 before making two late season appearances at AA. The following April - 1929 - he was in the big leagues and had a dream season, posting an 18-8 record with a Federal Association leading 3.22 era. Following a 16-9 campaign in 1930 he was traded by the Chiefs, moving on to Brooklyn where he led the Continental Association with 23 wins and earned his first, and so far only, Allan Award. That 1931 season would be the pinnacle of Fritz's success in Brooklyn as, after a 16-12 campaign in 1932 he got off to a terrible start in 1933. The Kings dealt him to Montreal but he never felt at home in Canada despite going 19-15 over what amounted to 13 months in Quebec. He was moved to the New York Gothams midway through the 1934 season and became a teammate of Rabbit Day. The Gothams had hoped Fritz might rediscover the form of his early days with the Chiefs and Kings but if failed to happen and he spent a good chunk of 1935 in AAA leaving many to wonder if his meteoric rise would be duplicated by an equally hasty fall from grace. After going 11-15 with a 4.56 era over parts of two seasons in New York the Gothams sent him back to Chicago, but this time to the Continental Association Cougars instead of the Chiefs. Fritz did win 17 games with Chicago last season and was arguably the Cougars most effective pitcher in a tough 63-91 season that saw the club finish 6th. The Cougars are still under .500 again this year but through no fault of Fritz, who suddenly leads the CA in ERA with a 2.05 mark to go with a 6-5 record and has rekindled excitement that rivaled his early success. Early in his career there was talk Fritz might just have a shot at 300 career wins and some debate over whether he or Day had the best chance of becoming the first 300 game winner since George Johnson reached that plateau in 1925. However, that talk disappeared during Fritz' Gotham days and there were questions if he would even pitch in the big leagues again after his troubles in New York in 1935. But with renewed consistency and a great start to the 1937 season Fritz is likely a better bet than Day to make the All-Star team this year, and quite possibly back on track to perhaps one day winning 300 career games. From very humble beginnings both Rabbit Day and Milt Fritz have risen to the top of their sport and each has had quite an impact on the city of Chicago. It will be interesting to see if the Windy City proves to be the final major league home for each of these two great pitchers.  QUICK HITS - Sad to see Billy Hunter go down with a hamstring injury. The 22 year old rookie shortstop had been hitting .303 since being called up by the Cougars in May but he will now miss six weeks....It was a bad week for injuries with others not listed earlier in this issue including Brooklyn outfielder Frank Lightbody and Chiefs veteran outfielder Tom Taylor both sidelined, while age is clearly catching up with player-manager Max Morris in Detroit. The 42 year old who is hitting just .212 but with 5 homers went down with a wonky hamstring and will have to pencil someone else's name in at first base for the next week or so while he recovers. For anyone counting Morris, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame as part of the initial class over the winter, now sits at 707 career homers....Rookie Detroit outfielder Sal Pestilli (.308,15,44) belted two more taters this week and is quickly establishing himself as the best of the many great young players in the sport...Back on the injury front there was a scary one in St Louis as Pioneers 2B Jim Quick fractured his skull in a collision at second base after Boston’s John Wicklund sent him reeling with a hard slide to break up a double play....The Pittsburgh Miners are 14-5 in 1-run games. At the other end of the spectrum we have the Toronto Wolves, who are 9-17 in such contests....Cleveland continues to be road warriors as the CA leaders are 24-9 away from Forester Stadium.....Quite a debut for Constantine Peters. The 21 year old outfielder, who signed with the Gothams out of Springfield State in the new player's phase of the draft, had a big pro debut at Class B Fresno as he was named Player of the Week in the C-O-W League. Peters hit .440 with 2 homers and 7 extra-base hits in 6 games....Staying with the Gothams organization, SS Mule Monier had a big game for AA Jersey City, going 5-for-6. He's now at .342-5-19 since his call-up from A. Monier went on to win EA Player of the Week with a .440-4-8 tally...Charlie Wheeler, obtained in last years Hardin Bates deal, pitched 7.2 scoreless innings in his FABL debut with the Gothams. Wheeler danced around trouble all afternoon allowing 7 hits and walking 4. Wheeler earned his promotion after posting matching 1.91 ERAs in AA and AAA this season....Lefty Allen's rookie season in Pittsburgh was overshadowed a bit by the Chiefs Al Miller. But Lefty is having a dynamite follow-up season at 10-2, 2.92 so far. St Louis ace Sam Sheppard ran his record to 12-1 before suffering 3 straight losses. He got back into the win column last week against Boston. My colleague in the Windy City feels, while it is very early the Fed Allen Award race looks like this: 1. Sheppard,2. Allen, 3. Miller. I say we should not count Rabbit Day out yet either. It has been a rough start for Day this season at 7-4, 4.46 but he is coming off his best outing of the season in a win over Washington last week....I feel like the Rufus Barrell II watch has been a regular thing in this periodical, but young Rufus has certainly appeared to turn the corner. The Baltimore Cannons first overall pick in 1935 threw his first professional shutout, blanking Mobile 3-0 on a 4-hitter in a Class B game for Charleston last week. Deuce is now 4-3 with a 2.40 era since his promotion from C ball....OSA is crowing about 22 year old shortstop Tommy Butler. Taken in the 12th round by the Miners out of Redwood University in last week's draft, OSA has Butler ranked 173rd overall and in the top twenty among shortstop prospects. Not bad for a guy who FABL GM's felt was only worth of the 189th pick in his draft class.
__________________
Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 06-21-2021 at 10:28 AM. |
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06-22-2021, 08:51 PM
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#182 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 677
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This Week in Figment Baseball: July 5, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL July 5, 1937 ALL-STAR ROSTERS SET FIVE TEAMS LEAD THE WAY WITH 5 SELECTIONS EACH All but the New York Stars will be represented on Tuesday when the players take the field for the fifth annual All-Star Game. The Stars, who sit in the Continental Association cellar, were the only team not to have at least one player included on the list of 24 invitees from each association. Even the host Toronto Wolves, struggling to stay above the lowly Stars, managed to place two players on the CA squad in outfielder Larry Vestal and pitcher Jake Smith. For the Continental crew it is a 3-way tie for the most representatives as Cleveland, Brooklyn and the Chicago Cougars each placed five on the club. Likewise for the Federal Association the max ended up being 5 with the Chicago Chiefs and St Louis Pioneers each hitting that total.  Debutants this year include Charlie Bingham, George M Brooks, Jake Snyder, Charlie Stedman, Lou Ellertson, Ken Mayhugh, Mel Carrol, Gail Gifford and rookie Sal Pestilli for the Feds while Milt Fritz, Jake Smith, Walt Wells, Frank Phillips, Adam Mullins, Ray Ford, John Langille, Doc Love, Jim Mason and Pablo Reyes will all be participating for the first time on the Continental team. Code:
[b] PAST ALL STAR GAME RESULTS YEAR LOCATION RESULT WINNING PITCHER MVP 1933 Whitney Park Federal 8 Continental 5 Ben Curtin STL Pete Asher Pit 1934 Riverside Stadium Federal 11 Continental 7 Chick Stout Pit Tom Taylor Cougars 1935 Broad Street Park Federal 5 Continental 2 Art Myers Keystones Freddie Jones StL 1936 Pioneer Field Continental 6 Federal 4 Tom Barrell BKN Dick Walker Sailors KINGS DETHRONED? BROOKLYN IS IN IT'S ANNUAL FREE-FALL The Brooklyn Kings have long been considered one of the most dangerous teams in baseball, but the team they often provide the most danger too is themselves as the club has endured several extended swoons the past few seasons. With the sheer amount of talent they possess - and the league's highest payroll to boot- this club should have claimed much more hardware over the past several seasons than just a single Continental Association pennant that they secured despite struggling down the stretch a year ago. The only current FABL club to never win a World Championship Series in the 44 years of the WCS's existence, the Kings have long been thought of as a victim of a curse put on them by disgruntled former player Ferdinand Hawkins. Perhaps the late September collapse, which seems to a tradition of late in the borough, has come early for Brooklyn this time around as the club hit what feels like rock bottom after being embarrassed the last 5 games by the likes of Baltimore, New York and Montreal. Now they may well come back and successfully defend their title but in the midst of a terrible 3-9 slump primarily vs second division clubs, the odds of that are starting to look long especially with the Cleveland Foresters remaining a steady, powerful machine that - at least until last year - seemed to always get the best of Brooklyn. While the Kings limp home to Brooklyn for a doubleheader with the lowly New York Stars today in hopes of snapping a 5-game skid, the Foresters have found their footing, and the top of the table, by claiming 7 of their last 9 contests heading into today's doubleheader with second place Philadelphia. The Sailors, like Cleveland, have won 9 of 12 and also passed Brooklyn in the standings as we head into the traditional midpoint of the season.  ARE WOLVES AND EAGLES ENDANGERED SPECIES? Baseball has long been called America's National Pastime but in Canada they favor other sports such as hockey, lacrosse or rugby football. Nowhere is it more evident than in Toronto that baseball is a second class citizen in the Great White North. The Toronto Dukes have long been the darlings of sport fans in Canada's largest city, while the baseball Wolves have been reduced to almost an afterthought. While Canadians may be predisposed to have a much greater affinity for the puck, the Montreal Saints have proven baseball can succeed north of the 49th. Therefore, much of the blame for baseball falling out of grace in Toronto can be placed directly upon the Wolves. Bert Thomas was the long time owner of the Wolves and under his stewardship the club prospered in the early days of his reign, winning a pennant in 1909 and their second, and so far last, World Championship title two years later. However the team, like many of hotelier Thomas' properties fell into disrepair in the twenties and, save for one memorable run in 1927 in which they came up a game short, the Wolves were rarely competitive. Thomas lost his shirt, and just about everything else in the Great Crash, and the team was taken over by David J. Welcombe in 1930. Under Welcombe things went from bad to worse for the Wolves as they spent the first 6 years under his command stuck in 7th or 8th place in the Continental Association and generally last in FABL for drawing paying customers. They did end Welcombe's time at the club with a surprising .500 finish a year ago - a high water mark for the Wolves that one must go back a decade to see it surpassed and attendance was no longer last in the league as they outdrew both Baltimore and Washington. Enter Bernie Millard, a Philadelphia born entrepreneur, who recently purchased the club but has yet to spend more than a handful of days in Toronto. With the club once again struggling at the gate - only Washington has drawn less fans this year - there are rumours circulating that it is just a matter of time before Millard petitions the league to move to greener pastures. Cincinnati is the rumour of choice as the powers that be in the Queen City have made no secret of their desire to gain a big league franchise, something they have been without since the untimely death of Monarchs owner James Tice just months before the formation of FABL in 1892. Since that date no FABL club has ever switched cities although Cincinnati was used as a pawn a couple of years back by then Cleveland owner Elmer Marshall in an effort to extort money from local government to improve the dilapidated Forester Stadium. Cleveland city council did not cave into his demands but Marshall eventually relented and funded the necessary improvements himself using the profits from two straight trips to the World Championship Series to do so. Could Millard's long-term plan be to move the struggling Wolves franchise, with Cincinnati the likely preferred destination, and if so would the powers that be in FABL allow it to happen? Millard may have to act quick as there is another club that is in nearly as much trouble, both financially and on the league table, as the Wolves. The Washington Eagles were once a proud franchise, a shining example of what a baseball team could be. Between 1910 and 1925 the Eagles won six pennants, two World Championships and were among the league attendance leaders. In fact in 1925 when the Eagles won their third pennant in four years they led the entire FABL in attendance drawing nearly 960,000 fans - even more than the New York Stars who were winding up a 3 year run of World Titles. So, unlike Toronto, fans in DC will support baseball. The problem is the baseball has been so bad for so long that the Eagles have alienated their fan base. Washington has not finished closer than 13 games out of first since 1927 and have resided almost exclusively in the second division during that time. In addition, trading away Whitney Award winning catcher T.R. Goins 4 years ago when he was the face of the franchise, did nothing but further distance their fan base. The Eagles do now have some great young offensive talent, impressive players like 25 year old outfielder Mel Carrol, who is challenging for the Federal Association lead in all three triple crown categories, and they added a high profile veteran in Moxie Pidgeon, who came over from the Gothams last summer so perhaps there is some hope. There was even talk in spring camp of contending this season, but that was before talented second baseman Andy Carter went down with a long term injury and Bill Anderson and the rest of the Eagles pitching staff collapsed. Pitching has long been a problem for the Eagles but they thought they finally had their ace when Anderson was acquired from, of all places, Toronto. Last season as a 27 year old Anderson won 22 games, most by an Eagles starter since Dick Dennis way back in 1924, but this season has been a nightmare for Anderson who is 4-11 with an era more than 2 runs higher than a year ago. Only rebuilding Detroit is keeping the Eagles out of the Federal Association cellar and with barely 5,000 fans showing up daily at the Capital Grounds, a park that is designed to seat nearly 30,000, they are well on their way to another disappointing season in Washington - both on the field and at the box office. If I was a betting man I would say there is no chance the Eagles leave Washington. Baseball needs a presence in the US capital, and those shiny photo ops every April when the President throws out the Opening Day ceremonial pitch. One caustic columnist in a Washington daily noted recently that FDR's Opening Day ceremonial toss might just have been the best pitch thrown by the home side at the Capital Grounds all season. It would be a shock if the Eagles ever attempted to relocate their nest but Toronto might just be a different story. The Cincinnati Wolves....hmmm. It has a ring to it. ANOTHER ACCOLADE FOR SAL PESTILLI The Detroit Dynamos dynamite rookie outfielder received more good news this month. The big news was Pestilli's inclusion on the Federal Association all-star team, a feat never accomplished by a player less than 1 year removed from college or high school ball. Pestilli, who is tied with Brooklyn's Al Wheeler for the FABL lead in homers with 17, was also named Federal Association rookie of the month for the second straight time. The top newcomer in the Continental Association for June was also a centerfielder as Toronto's Levi Redding earned the nod. The 26 year old is hitting .307 on the year for the Wolves. Other monthly awards went to Cleveland's Dean Astle (11-5, 2.89 on the year) and Art Myers (7-6, 4.66) of the Keystones as top pitchers while the hitter awards were presented to St Louis first baseman Frank McCormick (.357,8,35) in the Fed and John Lawson (.339,15,48) of the Continental Association's Chicago Cougars. QUICK HITS
The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 7/04/1937
SPECIAL UPDATE FROM TORONTO ON ALL-STAR GAME DAY COLORFUL ONE ARRIVES LIKE U.S. MARINES "Just a boy scout here to do my Deed" Says Eccentric StarToronto- July 7, 1937(AP): Sam Sheppard was off the 'hot spot' again today and on hand for the All-Star baseball game by the combined expedient of an airplane flight from St Louis and an equally airy dismissal of all talk that he planned to take a 'run out.' The big Pioneers pitcher broke up a session of the high dudgeon society last night by strolling into the Federal Association's hotel, just as if nothing had happened, and proclaiming his unswerving desire to "do his darndest for the dear old Federal Association." "I'm just a big boy scout, here to do my good deed," smiled Sheppard, after disentangling himself from a horde of autograph-seekers and acknowledging greetings from a scout-master in behalf of thousands of Boy Scouts at Canada's national jamboree. "Who, Me?" Asks Shep Sheppard seemed dumbfounded when pressed on rumors he planned to remain in St Louis instead of pitching on behalf of the Federal Association. "Why, I always intended to be here. I just didn't like the idea of that train trip from St Louis after a double header with Detroit, so I decided, instead, to fly here. I'll give'em everything I got- for three innings. Say, that's all I've got to work, isn't it?" There is a distinct feeling among baseball troupers that Sheppard is riding for a fall, yet he seems to have the knack of extracting himself just when it seems he's headed for real trouble. Sheppard has ceased accepting speaking engagement since that notable occasion on which he addressed a church dinner at Belleville, Illinois, but he is still popping off. He still has plenty on the ball, too, when he steps into the box. "That," concludes Sheppard, "is what they pay off on, so what's all the shootin' about?" The Federal Association has not yet confirmed whether Sheppard, who is 13-5 on the season and leads both leagues in victories, will be their starting pitcher when the game begins Wednesday afternoon. 
__________________
Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports |
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06-23-2021, 01:53 PM
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#183 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 677
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This Week in Figment Baseball: July 12, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL JULY 12, 1937 A CLASSIC! FEDS PREVAIL 4-2 IN 19 INNING ALL-STAR MARATHON A capacity crowd of 37,592 - believed to be the most ever to attend a baseball game at Toronto's Dominion Stadium - witnessed an All-Star game that was truly worthy of the moniker classic. The fact that it took 19 innings and more than 5 hours to complete did nothing to deter the excitement of the event as the crowd was brought to it's feet in the top of the 19th inning when, after 12 scoreless innings proceeding it, the visitors from the Federal side hung a 3 spot on the board courtesy in no small part to Pittsburgh Miners third baseman Ed Stewart who delivered a 2-run homer off of losing pitcher Walt Wells of the Sailors. While some headed for the exits after that they perhaps should not have as the Continental Association gamely battled to further extend the game as they scored once to cut the margin to 4-2 and had the bases loaded with 1 out before ultimately falling short. It was probably a good thing too as both sides were running out of pitchers. Keystone righthander George M Brooks, last man off the bench for Joe Ward's Federal side, took over on the mound in relief of Lefty Allen, who ran into trouble in his efforts to close out the win. Brooks threw just 1 pitch, as that was all the Feds needed to seal their 4th victory in 5 all-star contests, as the Keystones pitcher induced a game ending 4-6-3 double play ball out of Jack Cleaves of the cross-town Philadelphia Sailors. Keystone reliever Don Attaway was the winning pitcher and named player of the game after he gamely threw 5 scoreless innings, allowing just 2 singles and a walk to help keep the zero's piling up on the scoreboard.   LIKE NIGHT AND DAY Another bad break for Pittsburgh - well, a sprain this time as Miners second sacker Sandy Grabow (.308,2,19) will miss at least a month with a sprained thumb. It has been one of those years for Pittsburgh as George Cleaves just returned from his second sting on the DL and slugging outfielder Mahlon Strong is done for the year after an injury plagued debut in the Steel City. This was Grabow's second lengthy injury as he just returned a few weeks ago after missing a month with a sore elbow.  The Cleveland Foresters have had great success on the road this season, except when they go to Toronto. The Foresters are now 1-4 at Dominion Stadium after the Wolves completed a 3-game sweep over the weekend. Toronto actually has been very good at home, where they are now 26-15 but the Foresters are strong on the road - posting a 24-9 record if you discount time spent in Ontario. The Cleveland stumble allowed Brooklyn to move back to within 3 games of the Foresters as the Kings won 4 of 5 in a week interrupted by the All-Star game. Rookie pitcher Jack Goff made his big league debut and with proud papa Danny Goff, who is the Kings bench coach, watching from the dugout the 21 year went the distance allowing 10 hits in a 12-3 win over the New York Stars on Monday. Goff may head back to AAA Rochester as the Kings still struggle to find a way to fill the gaping hole left by Tom Barrell's injury. Barrell will be sidelined another month with his hamstring issues.  JIGGS MCGEE COMMENTARY Despite the fact the New York Gothams gutted a championship club just over a year ago, the club still is making out pretty well at the box office. The Gothams farm system is now loaded, there is no question of that, but New Yorkers are famous for only backing a winner and the Gothams - no matter what they may claim - are certainly not that right now. The future is bright for Bibsby's Boys but it is also the future, not the present state of affairs. Yes, the club may crow about sweeping Detroit over the weekend and winning 6 of their last 8 but they are a long ways from contention. Goiing 22-14 since June 1st did a lot to erase the bitterness some might have felt when witnessing their 11-31 start but the truth is this team is not a .500 ballclub as it sits, not matter what the last month might indicate, especially when you consider they played 13 games against Detroit and Washington during that period, against whom they went 11-2 and were 4-2 against Philadelphia. Put first division clubs on the field against New York and the Gothams were 7-10, certainly much better then the first month and a half of the season but a far cry from contention.CROWDS KEEP COMING TO BIGSBY OVAL  KING OF PINCH-HITTERS It takes a special player to be successful as a pinch-hitter, being ready to deliver in a key situation as you come off the bench cold, but Frank Lightbody of the Brooklyn Kings seems to have mastered the art. Lightbody, who has missed the last two weeks with an ankle injury, is 8-for-17 as a pinch-hitter this season which gives him the lead in on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS+. Special mention should also go to Bill Eppler of the Philadelphia Sailors as the 28 year old has already hit 4 pinch-hit homers with the latest being a 2-run shot in the 7th inning last Monday to give the Sailors a 3-2 win over Cleveland and a split of their doubleheader. Eppler has hit 9 homeruns in his 159 games in the big leagues - five of them came pinch-hitting. Here are the top ten sorted by OPS+ with a minimum of 20 pinch-hitting plate appearances.  QUICK HITS
The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 7/11/1937
__________________
Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 06-23-2021 at 02:18 PM. |
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06-24-2021, 02:16 PM
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#184 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 677
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This Week in Figment Baseball: July 19, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL July 19, 1937  MORE BAD NEWS FOR BROOKLYN The Brooklyn Kings are short a Barrell. Make that two as the news was doubly bad for the defending Continental Association champions. First the Kings found out that ace Tom Barrell, who has won the last three CA Allen Awards as the loop's top hurler, will miss additional time with his hamstring woes. It appears the injury is not responding to rest as well as hoped and Barrell is expected to be sidelined six more weeks instead of the previously anticipated three. He went down June 12 and the Kings are 4 games under .500 since then at 14-18 after being 34-18 and two games up on Cleveland atop the CA the day before Barrell's injury. Barrell also suffered a lengthy injury two years ago and it included a setback that deserves to take at least part of the blame in why the Kings lost the 1935 pennant by a single game to the Foresters. Compounding the bad news for Brooklyn is the fact that shortstop Harry Barrell, Tom's younger brother, was also hurt last week. Nothing serious, just a banged up wrist from a play around the bag, but it is the second time this season Harry has missed time with a minor knock. Brooklyn will take no chances even though Harry insists he could plan. Skipper Powell Slocum says he will shut the 23 year old down for a week. The injury could not have come at a worse time for Barrell, who had a slow start to the season at the dish but had been enjoying his best stretch of the season over the past month.   KEYSTONE BAG WROUGHT WITH DANGER Perhaps it is time the magnates of baseball address aggressive play around second base. Harry Barrell was hurt because of a hard slide, or more what you could call a Barrell-role (excuse the pun) by Cleveland's T.R. Goins. Now old-timers will say Goins was just doing his job ensuring there would not be a double-play but this is the second time in just over a week a very talented young infielder has been hurt. Last week it was Pittsburgh Miners second sacker Sandy Grabow, who was knocked out of the game in much the same way that Barrell was this week. Grumpy old ex-ballplayers will scoff and say it is part of the game, but team magnates might think otherwise as that is a lot of contract dollars sitting on the disabled list in those two young stars. Perhaps it is time to revisit what is acceptable as aggressive play and what is simply dangerous to some of the games best young players.  QUICK HITS
FEATURE STORY - PROSPECT WATCH OSA ranks the top 4 minor league systems as belonging to the New York Gothams, Detroit Dynamos, Chicago Cougars and Baltimore Cannons. They are presently in that order but it is a fluid list with players dropping off all of the time as they reach thresholds of big league games played. Therefore if we looked a couple of weeks ago the Dynamos would have been number one because outfield sensation Sal Pestilli would still be on the list.  Here is a sample starting lineup with a 5-man pitching rotation for each of the four. Players present ages are listed beside their names as well as where they slot overall on the prospect ranking (or ML is noted for those presently on the big league roster). In addition we color-coded the list based on OSA's opinion of the future for the player. Note - in some cases because of need we moved players to a different position.  BALTIMORE CANNONS The Cannons are the most advanced of the 4 clubs with 5 of their players already on the big league roster, but they should be the most advanced as they have had the longest stretch of poor years out of the four. Clearly the pitching stands out with both John Edwards and Rufus Barrell being potentially excellent pitchers. A short time ago Gus Goulding might have also been in that class but it seems OSA has soured on him just a little bit and he has struggled a little this season after an amazing debut last year when he won his first 8 big league starts. The Cannons are also loaded with middle infielders as Clark Car, Jim Hensley and Charley McCullough all grade out as above average shortstops. Car is already playing second base in Baltimore so it was easy to slot him there. The lack of a high end third base candidate has us move McCullough to the hot corner but we downgrade him a bit as he would not be an ideal fit offensively as a third baseman. The outfield is also solid but we do have some concerns they lack a power hitter, especially when you factor in that Don Cress and Joe Rainbow are just average prospects at first base and behind the plate. CHICAGOC COUGARS The prize here is Billy Hunter, a 22 year old shortstop who recently made his big league debut. The Cougars system is deep and there are plenty more players bubbling just under this list that could easily surpass some of the guys on it. Pete Papenfus has future ace written all over him as we at TWIFB are a little higher on Pug Bryan than perhaps OSA is. DETROIT DYNAMOS The Dynamos are the only club with 2 players considered potential Hall of Famers. Calling an 18-21 year old kid a future Hall of Famer is obviously a huge assumption and we are not going to guarantee for any of the four players on our list that were given that grade. All we are saying is based on OSA's projection combined with some input from our staff it is felt that Sal Pestilli and Pete Casstevens have a shot at Hall of Fame type careers. The Dynamos have made huge strides in the past two seasons and have other prospects with a very high ceiling like Red Johnson and Ray McCarthy but it is clear looking at the number of positions listed as average on this list that Detroit still has some work to do to rebuild a farm system that was the worst in the game just 2 years ago. NEW YORK GOTHAMS John Phillips is the only Gotham outfielder playing in the big leagues right now that made this list although centerfielder Howard Brown Jr. likely would have been included had he not celebrated his 25th birthday two months ago. The Gothams have former High School hitting sensation Walt Messer who at this time OSA feels has a slightly higher ceiling that Red Johnson, despite the fact Johnson was selected one spot ahead of Messer in the 1936 draft. We like Roosevelt Brewer, who is presently listed as the number one prospect by OSA, and he might well eclipse the 4 players given Hall of Fame status on our list, but for now we place him just shy of that lofty perch. Give us a month to watch him in pro ball and our opinion might change just as Pete Casstevens might drop a bit with more obersevation. Pitching might still be a little thin behind Wheeler and Edwards and catching is certainly an issue yet to be solved but the Gothams infield has incredible potential. Needless to say if all goes right the future looks exceptionally bright for each of these four teams. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 7/18/1937
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06-25-2021, 03:58 PM
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This Week in Figment Baseball: July 26, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL July 26, 1937 DEADLINE DAY LOOMS This just might be a pretty exciting week in Figment baseball as there are plenty of teams that are thinking they could win a pennant if they just had that one or two more key pieces. The July 31st trade deadline is just a few days away and while a few teams should certainly be considering moves there is a lot of uncertainty if anything will indeed happen. As you can see from the standings below there are eight teams, 5 in the Federal and 3 in the Continental Association, who could be considered in the pennant race.  There were a few deadline deals done a year ago, most by the New York Gothams continuing their yard sale of whatever talent they had left, but the big moves were done a few weeks earlier. The key one was of course the move by the Chicago Chiefs to acquire Rabbit Day from New York with Pittsburgh trying desperately to keep up by adding Charlie Stedman from Boston. The Chiefs also added second baseman Pete Layton, who would be another key piece of their eventual title run, but that was also well before the deadline. So while the deadline itself was fairly quiet last season there were big names moving in the month and a half proceeding it. This year that has not been the case as there have really not been any major deals of note. There is still time for that to change but the odds are looking long. Why? A number of factors perhaps. Certainly the change in structure for the top 32 prospects being removed from the draft has created a tidal wave of uncertainty as teams grapple with what the value of draft picks actually are now. Switching the draft date from it's historical December timeframe to mid-June might also have added another layer to perhaps weaken the incentive of rebuilding teams to stock up on picks. The other possibility is simply the makeup of the league now. The top teams have for the most part been the top teams the last 2-3 years and have already dealt a lot of prospects away and picked clean most of the valuable veterans from the rebuilding teams. There is just less premier veteran talent and more young prospects on teams in the bottom half of the league now compared to recent years. We also don't have a team that was previously a contender now on a rapid decline, like the Gothams last year or Detroit the previous season, doing a major house cleaning of stars. All of those are likely factors in why we have seen less movement so far and quite possibly will see little in the way of significant deals before the end of the month. HOW CLOSE WAS A WHEELER FOR DAY TRADE? Late news out of Chicago today leaked that the Brooklyn Kings had proposed a straight up trade of Al Wheeler for Rabbit Day. The Chiefs refused to move the reigning Federal Association Allan Award winner in exchange for the two-time defending Continental Association Whitney Award holder Al Wheeler. It would have been a deal that shocked the league and possibly the first ever involving two superstar players swapping teams. Stars have been dealt often before, in fact between them Wheeler and Day have been moved three times, but always with prospects going the other way. How big would it have been if the two defending pennant winners had swapped two of the best players in the game? Wheeler is 29 years old, leading all of FABL in rbi's with 76 and leading the CA in homers with 18 while batting .309 on the season. He has won a triple crown, three home run titles and led his league in rbi's three previous occasions while winning 4 Whitney Awards as his league's top hitter and made 4 All-Star game appearances. Day recently turned 33 and just won his 200th career game earlier this month. He struggled to start the season after an amazing 25-3 campaign a year ago for which he won his third Allan Award as the best pitcher in his association. He has picked things up recently and is 10-6 on the year with 3 all-star game selections and a 6-1 career World Championship Series record to go with 2 titles. By the sounds of things the Chiefs immediately nixed the talk so it was likely never close to happening but if it had the move would have been one of the biggest trades of all time.  IS THE WONDER WHEEL ON THE BLOCK? So how serious are the Brooklyn Kings about moving Al Wheeler. The Kings have apparently made several offers to multiple teams and with very conflicting directions to them. One one hand the Kings are shopping Wheeler, and also 35 year old third baseman Frank Vance (.329,8,43) and 33 year old pitcher Joe Shaffner (12-3, 3.10) but they also are rumoured to have made overtures to at least two rebuilding teams that are rich in talented young pitching in an effort to pry one of the arms lose. The offer reportedly included 4 draft picks including 3 of the new lottery selections and a pick of any player in the Kings farm system. No confirmation on who they were after but you have to think Baltimore, with it's huge supply of young pitchers but a shortage of offense, would have been one of the targets. It sounds like the Kings are unsure of what path they should take. The club, already reeling from years of disappointing seasons filled with historically bad starts, incredible late season implosions and the one year they finally reach the Series a total collapse of their previously dominate offense. Brooklyn had dangled stars before in an effort to land an elite young arm, with Harry Barrell's name being bandied about last October after the collapse in Chicago. It has always been known that their pitching staff depends nearly entirely on Tom Barrell for momentum and a dreadful record once their ace went down has the club looking to plug holes in the pitching staff once again. Many have speculated that standing pat is the best course of action for a Brooklyn team that acts like the sky is falling despite the fact they only sit two and a half games out of top spot in the CA. However, Brooklyn has been there, done that far too often this decade and perhaps there comes a time when you just need to retool. The likely result is they don't find a trade partner willing to give them what they want for Wheeler but perhaps Vance or Shaffner is moved. If it is Shaffner it will signal a clear step back for Brooklyn as the focus would be on draft picks in an effort to land their own future ace pitcher but that would also almost assuredly take them out of the pennant race this season. Vance is a more likely possibility to go as while his bat will certainly be missed it would give the club the opportunity to shift John Langille back to his natural third base position and clear a path for one of the few promising infielders in the Kings system in Jim Lightbody to get to Brooklyn in a year or two with Walt Layton being a sure-handed second base option in the meantime. If Vance was moved an ideal trading partner could be either Pittsburgh or the Philadelphia Keystones. Both could use third base help especially the Miners who just added Ed Stewart to their growing list of wounded. Stewart (.276,16,69) will miss at least a month and leave a gaping hole in the Miners lineup that could be filled nicely by Vance, or perhaps they attempt to pry John Lawson (.336,15,61) away from the Chicago Cougars. The Keystones may also have interest in one of those two but Philadelphia has some big worries about their offense, something previously unthought of in Keystone-land. 27 year old Bobby Barrell (.296,13,55) should be in his prime but he is on pace for the worst season of his 7 year career and Rankin Kellogg (.258,11,41) has many around the league speculating his best days are behind him as the 34 year old's numbers have fallen off a cliff this season. St Louis and Boston are also both still in the thick of the Federal race. The Pioneers offense has been running wild all season but pitching depth is a concern. Can the Pioneers catch the Chiefs with the very inconsistent Red Ross (5-8,5.34) as their number four start. Perhaps they could dangle a prospect like the recently promoted Zip Sullivan to a team like Baltimore in exchange for Pinky Conlan - assuming Conlan's multitude of minor injuries this season after missing much of last year with a wonky elbow don't scare teams off. As for Boston one Federal Association rival suggested that an upgrade at second base was a must for the Minutemen to challenge. In the CA we have talked plenty about Brooklyn but what of Cleveland and Philadelphia, who are separated by just a game and a half at the top of the standings. Does one team make a bold move to secure the CA? The Foresters might be in limbo waiting on the status of catcher T.R. Goins. He banged up his knee and the original thought was he would miss 5 days but that was a week and a half ago and the training staff still feels he is at least 5 days away. Do the Foresters dare gamble that Mickey Patterson can handle the catching duties if Goins is shelved for any length of time or do they try to find a veteran to provide insurance? Cleveland pitching should be fine as long as Sergio Gonzales' back can hold up. He left a game again the other day with back troubles and it is the third time this season it has disrupted him. The Sailors don't necessarily stand out in any one facet of the game but they seem to do everything well and have a pretty steady lineup. Jack Cleaves (.326,5,41) just hurt his arm on Saturday and an extended absence would be tough to overcome but word is the injury is very minor. Assuming he is fine the Sailors best course of action might be to talk to the Cougars about Lawson as Mack Deal, while very solid with the leather at the hot corner, is perhaps the weak link in the Sailors batting order. While the early indications are this will be a very quiet year for big deals involving contenders there clearly are a lot of things that could happen. The question is which, if any, teams will pull the trigger?
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06-28-2021, 10:00 AM
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This Week in Figment Baseball: August 2, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL August 2, 1937 A 'DEAD'LINE Despite a number of big names being bandied about and several contenders with holes that, had they been filled, would likely have greatly enhanced their pennant hopes this was the quietest trade deadline in years. The only deal actually made at the deadline involved a pair of minor leaguers and the biggest move in the month of July saw 33 year old outfielder Henry Jones (.278,6,14) move from being a backup with lowly Detroit to Pittsburgh as the Miners desperately search for a replacement for the injured Mahlon Strong in right field. Many had speculated the Miners might be in the market for a third baseman, with Ed Stewart being the latest Pittsburgh player sidelined following news last week that he will likely not be back until September. The Miners, who trail first place Chicago by 6 games and are trending in the wrong direction, might have been the team that most needed to make a deal last week. Instead Pittsburgh decided to stand pat as did a Philadelphia Keystones club that also might have been a perfect destination for a third baseman such as the Cougars John Lawson (.336,15,61). Perhaps you can forgive the Boston Minutemen for not being buyers as they recently added young pitching star Dick Higgins back into their rotation after a year long absence. Higgins, who is 5-0 with a 1.89 era since his return, is almost like a deadline pickup for the suddenly red hot Minutemen, who are 16-5 since the All-Star break and 4 and a half games back of the Chiefs. You could also forgive the Chiefs for doing nothing beyond trying to plug one of their few holes - landing 31 year old switch hitter Vince York (.286,2,10) from Toronto in yet another attempt to find a platoon partner with lefty Cliff Moss in right field. The St Louis Pioneers did not make a move despite speculation that an improvement on fourth starter Red Ross (5-8, 5.34) seemed necessary if they are to win their first pennant since the late Warren Harding was beginning his term as President. Not a lot was heard out of Continental Association leading Cleveland this time around but, as speculated last week, the Foresters may have hit a snag in any plans to make changes because of the uncertainty surrounding the injury to All-Star catcher T.R. Goins. If Goins was out for any stretch of time Cleveland could be a much different team from the one that is presently atop the Continental Association standings but it sounds like the Foresters got good news on Goins' status early today. Brooklyn made a lot of noise and seemed to be desperately try to land another top of the rotation pitcher while also looking at perhaps getting younger with a move to part with 35 year old third baseman Frank Vance but in the end nothing happened as the Kings could not find anyone to dance with. As it turned it it was the Philadelphia Sailors who made the only move in the last couple of days leading up to the deadline. It was hardly earth shattering as the Sailors landed Marty Roberts, a 25 year old minor league outfielder with 13 career FABL games on his resume. To find the last time there was so little accomplished on the mid-season trade front you likely need to go all the way back to 1931 when the only deadline deal was made by the New York Stars as they were trying to keep pace with the first place Baltimore Cannons (yes, you read that right) by acquiring 29 year old pitcher Charlie Stedman from Montreal. Stedman, by the way, went 4-5 for the Stars down the stretch as both they and Baltimore fell apart in the second half allowing the Chicago Cougars to win the CA pennant before beating the New York Gothams in the World Championship Series. Since then we have seen at least one big move every year prior to the trade deadline. 1932 had a pair of big deals in July as Max Morris returned to Cleveland in a trade from the New York Gothams while the Chicago Cougars made a doozy of a deal in sending Tom and Fred Barrell to Brooklyn in exchange for Tommy Wilcox and Mike Taylor. It did not pan out for either club however as the Cougars ended up second to the New York Stars that season with Cleveland a distant third. 1933 we saw Cleveland load up again with the late July acquisitions of T.R. Goins and Dan Fowler but it was not enough to allow the Foresters to catch Chicago for the CA pennant. 1934 was an arms race between Cleveland and Brooklyn with the Foresters winning the pennant by a game after adding another solid bat in Charlie Barry near the deadline while Brooklyn tried to counter with pitchers Jim Shaffner, Ken Carpenter and Max Wilder all being brought in. 1935 gave us a pair of great pennant races with Cleveland once again nosing out Brooklyn by a game in the CA while the Gothams finished 2 ahead of St Louis and the lengthy list of players who changed sides between mid-May and the July 31st deadline included Al Wheeler, Frank Vance, Cliff Moss, Rabbit Mudd, Tom Taylor, Lou Kelly and Al Carroll. Last year of course had the great New York sell off with Rabbit Day and Pete Layton leaving the Gothams and Stars respectively to lead the Chicago Chiefs to a World Championship Series victory. Not to knock on Henry Jones and Vince York, but it really feels like a let down deadline period this time around compared to all of those other seasons. BOSTON CONTINUES TO SURPRISE IN FED The Boston Minutemen have a huge week ahead of them with a weekend series against the Chicago Chiefs. The Minutemen, who ae the hottest team in baseball of late with a 16-5 record since the All-Star break, are just a half game back of the front-running Chiefs thanks to winning 5 of 6 games this week including a 3 game sweep of St Louis. It is certainly no coincidence that the Boston resurgence corresponded with the return of 24 year old Dick Higgins (5-0, 1.89) to the pitching mound. The former 2nd overall pick missed over a calendar year with elbow troubles but has emerged from the layoff as an even better pitcher than he was prior to getting his golden right arm banged up. While the Minutemen have been playing outstanding ball of late the front-running Chiefs, were mired in a 7 game losing streak that they finally ended by salvaging the finale of a 3 game set in Pittsburgh. It does not get any easier this week for the defending World Champions as the Chiefs have the previously mentioned torrid Boston squad to contend with but not before they visit Philadelphia to take on the equally scorching Keystones, winners of 7 of their last 8 contests. The Continental Association is starting to look like it will strictly be a two-horse race as the struggling Brooklyn Kings had a rough week, both on the field and in the injury department. The Kings were swept by the fourth place Chicago Cougars, who are making some noise themselves with 10 wins in their last 12. Brooklyn went just 2-4 on the week and received distressing news when Joe Shaffner (12-3, 3.07) hurt his back running the bases and is expected to miss 3 weeks. That is just terrible news for a team already without it's ace Tom Barrell. The Philadelphia Sailors took 4 of 6 last week and are within a half game of first place Cleveland, but the Foresters did get good news to end the week as they learned catcher T.R. Goins (.291,7,50) has been cleared to play after being sidelined since July 16th.  QUICK HITS
FLASHBACK - PUTTING THE SPOTLIGHT ON BNN's TOP PROSPECTS SUCCESS I thought it would interesting to go back to the 1930 season and take a look at how the players BNN labelled as top prospects turned out. As you will see they certainly got a lot right, hard to argue with pre-injury Mahlon Strong, Hank Barnett or Fred McCormick all making the top five but also some question marks like why was Bobby Barrell ranked behind Ken Curry among outfielders or how did Dutch Sheldon and Frank Crawford look like better prospects on the mound than Bobby's brother Tom. Other guys badly underrated include another Barrell in first baseman Dan who was number 374 on the prospect list while all-star pitcher Del Lyons was 326th and Claude Merrill, who has had some marginal success with Detroit was only considered the 730th??!! best prospect of 1930. Here are the top twenty five as of October 1930 and also the system rankings with who was perceived to be the top players in each organization.  1- MAHLON STRONG OF: In 1930 Strong was finishing up his second season ranked #1 on the BNN list and the scouting report said he could make multiple trips to all-star games. First off we should give BNN credit for predicting the birth of all-star game 3 years before the first one happened but also I do have to say that is pretty impressive for Strong, who was originally an 8th round draft pick. True to predictions Strong has been to 3 all-star games already and is a tremendous talent when healthy. The pattern of injuries that have wreaked havoc on his career was already started by 1930 when the then 21 year old had already suffered 3 injuries of at least two weeks in duration including a knee problem that cost him a month and a half. 2- LOU WILLIAMS OF: As a 22 year old playing Class A in 1930 BNN felt Williams could be an everyday center fielder who can make an impact on a top-tier team. The 1929 first round pick out of Detroit City College has turned into a solid outfielder with the Philadelphia Sailors but, despite making one all-star appearance, I would say at this point he has not lived up to BNN's expectations. He is a good player but there are a lot of good outfielders scattered throughout FABL. 3- JOE OWENS OF: The love for outfielders continues with Owens, who at this point was an 18 year old taken in the second round of the previous year's draft and was projected by OSA scouts to be an elite starting left fielder. He made the big leagues with Pittsburgh in 1933 and has not looked back but much like Williams I would call him a solid corner outfielder rather than an elite player. Part of the issue may not lie with BNN here, as I am not sure they would have been able to recognize the glut of solid outfielders we were just starting to end up with. 4- HANK BARNETT 2B: Unlike the outfield, it seemed their were very few second base prospects of note in 1930. Barnett was the only one to make the top 25 with Boston's Ben Scarboro next on the list at 28. Brooks Meeks and Sam Orr were there as well but a little further down the list and Brooklyn's Jake Shadoan would have just reached the games played threshold to drop off. As for Barnett, he was a 6th round pick out of high school in 1927 who did not crack the top 100 prospect list until the start of the 1930 season when he suddenly appeared as #5 on the list. Barnett actually made his Montreal debut a few months prior to this list and hit an impressive .305 in a 54 game late season trial. OSA felt he had good potential and a very promising future. He is still with the Saints but has shifted to third base and is a .282 career hitter who is in his 8th FABL season. 5- FRED McCORMICK 1B: The second Gotham on the list but his stay in the New York organization would be short-lived as less than a month later McCormick was sent to St Louis as the key piece in a package of players to bring Max Morris to New York. McCormick has gone on to be a 4-time all-star and one of the best hitters in the Federal Association. He was also another one of those late round picks that teams loved to end up with back in the days of the feeder leagues and before the mock draft. An 11th round selection in 1927 he was already being called the type of player who can make an impact on a top-tier team in OSA's 1930 assessment. If anything, McCormick was too low on this list. 6- VIC CRAWFORD OF: We are back to the outfielders although Crawford would eventually find a home in Montreal as a first baseman. He was taken 3rd overall in the 1929 draft after one of the greatest college careers of all-time at Commonwealth Catholic. OSA spoke of his elite raw power and high ceiling after the 22 year old's rookie pro year. Seven years later he is a 29 year old veteran of 750+ FABL games with a .310 career average. His plus power has been more noticeable with doubles because he is playing in Parc Cartier, where fly balls tend to die in the vast pasture that is their cavernous outfield. He has led the CA in two-baggers three times and and may make it a fourth this year. In 1936 he hit 53 doubles which is tied for the 7th most all-time in a single season. 7- CHUCK COLE P: Finally a pitcher makes the list. Cole was the 4th overall pick by the Toronto Wolves out of high school in 1928. OSA did not mince words in calling him a future Allan Award winner with immense talent. Seven years later he still does not have an Allan Award but did win 21 games in 1936 and was an all-star the previous season with an 18-11 record. Today OSA feels he is more suitable to the back of the rotation and the list below maybe should be seen as a cautionary tale for the teams with pitchers high on the current top prospect list. Take a look at the names on the list below and pay special attention to just how many of them failed to reach their potential and how many could have were it not for injury. Obviously if you redid that list today you would have Tom Barrell (19th), Dean Astle (61st) and Dave Rankin (42nd) near the top and guys like Dutch Sheldon, Frank Crawford and George Kyle much lower. Johnny Jacob is another name that might not immediately trigger memories, except for Brooklyn Kings fans as his future seemed to be limitless until a serious of shoulder problems forced him to retire with only 20 career FABL wins.  8- JOHNNY JACOB P: I already mentioned him above but Jacob was already sidelined at this point with shoulder pain and it was the second time he had missed substantial time so clearly foreshadowing of the ailments to come. He was a 4th round pick out of high school by Baltimore in 1927 and was in the top 50 prospect list immediately. Traded to Brooklyn prior to the 1929 season he remained a top prospect but also one with a wonky shoulder and his career was done by age 25. So perhaps the lesson to be learned from this entire article is if you have a position player in the top prospects you are likely getting at the very least a decent ballplayer but if you have a pitcher it is much, much less predictable. 9- GEORGE THOMAS P: The 7th overall pick in 1927 out of high school did not debut on the top 100 list until 1930 and was in the top ten by the end of that season. At that time OSA called him raw and inexperienced but felt he had the chance to be an ace. I might not say ace, or at least not yet, but at 27 he is a solid middle of the rotation arm who has posted 18 win seasons each of the past two years for Montreal. He is also one of the few who has bounced back successfully from a pretty serious shoulder injury, one which cost him the back half of the 1933 campaign. 10- KEN CURRY OF: Oh, BNN you were doing so well until Curry's name came up. OSA says his career looks extremely promising and BNN gives him the nod over fellow 20 year old Bobby Barrell, who checks in at #11. Barrell was coming off a .353,23,122 season at AA as a 19 year old while Curry had struggled at Class B that same year, batting .277 in 98 games although he did miss a month with a sprained ankle. We all know about Bobby Barrell's 2 Whitney Awards and 5 straight All-Star appearances since then. But Curry, well he is still kicking around as a spare part with the Baltimore Cannons who has hit .266 in 217 career FABL games. OSA now feels there is very little to suggest Curry can hold down a big league job. SUMMARY - For the most part I would say BNN did a pretty good job, especially considering that some players failures, like those of Johnny Jacob, being out of BNN's control to predict because injuries played a big factor. Curry was obviously the biggest miss on the top ten and you can see by perusing the list above there were some guys in the top 25 who deserved to be much higher. Further down the list, aside from pitchers that we have already discussed, are names like Ed Stewart (#27), an all-star third baseman for Pittsburgh, Washington outfielder Wally Flowers (#37), Chiefs first baseman Ron Rattigan (#40) and Cleveland's Dan Fowler (#41). Outside the top 50 are also a few guys that turned out pretty good such as Doc Love, Sam Orr, Brooks Meeks, Larry Vestal, Harry Shumate, Rabbit Mudd and John Wickland. Look beyond the pitchers that were shown in the above pitching chart you would find guys like Sam Sheppard(78), Doc Newell (98), Hardin Bates(116), Ron Coles(144) and Mike Murphy (265). So while it is fairly rare, there are always examples of guys that BNN paid little attention to in their rankings that might just surprise you. CHIEFS HAVE SHOT AT RECORD BREAKING ATTENDANCE NUMBERS The Chicago Chiefs have a shot at a new attendance record but it will be close. So far thru 53 home games the defending champs have drawn 1,143,111 paying customers which pro-rated puts them on a pace for 1,660,746 fans. That number would leave them about 30,000 fans short of the record but I am only pro-rating the numbers and a tight pennant race down the stretch might have them improve upon their season average. The Chiefs would need to average 22,788 over the last 24 home games. Their last home series with the Keystones a week ago averaged 26,190 so the odds look pretty good of it happening. Here are the top 10 Attendance marks of all-time. Code:
YEAR CLUB W-L ATTENDANCE RESULT 1932 Cougars 97 57 1,690,014 2nd 1937 Chiefs 1,660,746* 1931 Gothams 93 61 1,653,719 Pennant 1931 Cougars 91 63 1,606,116 WCS Winner 1933 Cougars 97 57 1,532,848 Pennant 1930 Cougars 84 70 1,460,380 4th 1930 Gothams 98 56 1,446,763 Pennant 1936 Chiefs 101 53 1,401,382 WCS winner 1936 Cleveland 91 63 1,397,677 3rd 1930 Sailors 88 66 1,368,641 WCS Winner 1932 Stars 99 55 1,342,362 WCS Winner *projected Interesting to note that the next time the Kings play at Kings County ballpark we should see the 25 millionth fan ever to witness a Brooklyn home game come thru the turnstiles. Brooklyn's all-time attendance numbers include the early years of the old Border Association and has the Kings at 24,988,744 customers up to their most recent home game when over 17,000 witnessed Curly Jones pitch us to a 5-3 win over Toronto. So at 11,256 shy the 25 millionth fan should be in the park August 17th when, after a long road trip, the Kings return home to face the New York Stars. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 8/02/1937
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The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 06-28-2021 at 01:15 PM. |
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06-29-2021, 02:50 PM
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#187 |
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This Week in Figment Baseball: August 9, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL August 9, 1937 MINUTEMEN TAKE OVER TOP SPOT IN FED Like Paul Revere's famous ride, Dick Higgins rode the streets of Boston rousing a slumbering Minutemen team and inspired them to greatness. The Minuteman, for perhaps the first time since their last pennant win in 1915, and certainly the first time in the modern era (post-1925 when human GM's took over) are atop the Federal Association standings this late into a season. Higgins, who missed 13 months with an elbow injury, returned to the lineup just under two months ago and all he has done since is post a perfect 6-0 record and a 1.93 era. At the time of his return the Minutemen were 31-26 and sitting in 5th place in the Federal Association, 8 games back of front-running Chicago. Since then Boston posted a 31-15 mark and after taking 2 of three from the Chicago Chiefs over the weekend, including an 11-2 rout Saturday with Higgins authoring the victory, now find themselves 2 games ahead of Philadelphia atop the Fed. "Pistol is firing on all cylinders," gushed Boston skipper Bill Boshart after Saturday's win - the 6th in a row and 12 of their last 13 for the Minutemen, although the streak would end Sunday as Chicago did manage to salvage one victory from their series. "The rooters at McGreevy's are enjoying the fine ride the club is on," added Boshart in reference to the famous Boston watering hole while at the same time not losing sight of the fact there remains much work to do as he added "Big series this week against the 2nd place Keystones at Cunningham." If there is anyone who deserves more credit than Higgins for the Boston revival perhaps it is Boshart. With no previous big league experience - either as a player or manager - he was shockingly given the role when the club fired fiery Phil Catalfamo after a 35-31 start. The combative Catalfamo had a tense relationship with Higgins and several other key Boston players and there were rumours of infighting with his coaching staff. Enter Boshart, who may have lacked big league experience but more than made up for it with tremendous people skills, and the Minutemen have never looked back. The club is 26-10 under Boshart's guidance and he can no longer go anywhere in New England, especially not McGreevy's without someone buying him a pint of Boston's famous lager. Not bad for a player who spent over a decade in baseball's bush leagues, topping out at AAA but never getting a sniff of a big league ballpark. While there is plenty to celebrate as the Minutemen are finally back in a pennant race, there is still plenty of work to be done and plenty of competition in the Fed with 4 teams within 3.5 games of each other at the top of the table and fifth place St Louis just one big week from getting back in the race. The next two weeks might favour that happening as both St Louis and Chicago get a steady diet of cellar-dwellers Detroit and New York while the top three -Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh- will slug it out amongst themselves over the next 14 days.  KINGS FALL FROM POWER Cleveland and Philadelphia are looking like it will be a two month sprint to the pennant as both clubs have started August on a hot streak. The Foresters have won 5 straight and ten of their last fourteen ballgames while the Sailors winning streak is at 4 and they have won 12 of their last 16 games. The Brooklyn Kings free fall continued last week as the defending Continental Association champs lost 5 of 6 games against Cleveland and Philadelphia and after losing 9 of their last 11 Brooklyn has pretty much faded from the race. It is no secret why the Brooklyn Kings have collapsed. Prior to Tom Barrell's injury the defending CA champs were in first place with a 34-19 record. Since then they have gone 21-29 including 2-5 after Joe Shaffner joined Barrell on the injury list. Regardless of the cause it looks like another year of bitter disappointment for long suffering Brooklyn fans as the Kings seemed destined to remain the only FABL club never to win a World Championship Series. *note the following Jimmy Wood column is taken almost word for word from a real 1937 commentary. Some slight changes were added to fit the Figment storyline.   CARROL CHASING .400 While the Washington Eagles have had a very disappointing season that has certainly not been the case for their 25 year old third baseman as Mel Carrol is enjoying a breakout year and captivating the attention of D.C. fans. Carrol was named Federal Association player of the week for the fifth time this season and in the process he raised his batting average to .415 on the season - it's highest point since Carrol was hitting .416 after his 2-for-5 performance in a loss to Chicago on June 12th as he bids to become the first player to hit .400 since Max Morris turned the trick in 1925. Carrol was a fourth round selection of the Eagles out of Hartford High School in 1929. Hartford High has picked itself up a pretty good reputation for developing talent as in addition to Carrol other recent grads include three pitcher you might have heard of in Lefty Allen (14-9 for Pittsburgh), Al Miller (14-6 for Chiefs) and John Edwards (9-11 for Baltimore). It took Carrol some time to get to the big leagues but not because he had trouble hitting. He finished second in the Gulf Coast League with a .397 average as a 20 year old in 1932 and two years later he led the AAA Century League in hitting with a .411 average for Kansas City. Washington promoted him the following season and he hit .299 as a rookie before improving to .354 in his sophomore campaign last year - an increase of 55 points on his batting average and he is threatening to have a similar climb again this season. Here is the list of players to hit .400 and the man who is making a bid to become the newest member of that exclusive club.  QUICK HITS
The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 8/08/1937
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06-30-2021, 12:26 PM
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#188 |
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This Week in Figment Baseball: August 16, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL August 16, 1937 WILD RACE IN FED HEATS UP It was the Pittsburgh Miners turn to take step forward in the Federal Association pennant chase. The Miners won 5 straight to end the week including a 3 game sweep of their in-state rivals from Philadelphia. With Boston cooling off a bit this week, as the Minutemen went 3-3 vs the Keystones and Washington, the Miners pulled to within a half game of front-running Boston. Pittsburgh has been as hot as Boston of late with 13 wins in their last 17 contests. The Minutemen had won 21 of their last 25 before stumbling late in the week with 3 losses in their last 4 games. He didn't factor in the decision so he remains 6-0 on the season but the Minutemen lost Dick Higgins' start on Friday against Washington. It was just the second time in 11 Higgins starts this season the Minutemen failed to win the game. While Boston and Pittsburgh are playing very good baseball of late, we have Chicago and Philadelphia going the other way. It was a rough week for the Keystones as they dropped 2 of 3 in Boston before getting swept by Pittsburgh over the weekend. The defending champion Chiefs had another rough week that finished with 5 straight defeats at the hands of the two worst teams in the league in the Gothams and Detroit. The Dynamos shut out the Chiefs twice in 3 games, just the third and fourth shutouts on the year for a suddenly hot Detroit team, winners of 7 straight including 3 of them by shutout. Chicago, meanwhile, is reeling with just 3 wins in their last twenty outings. Chicago does return home after a 3-15 road trip with a load of pressure on the defending champs to come up with a couple of big weeks against primarily second division clubs. St Louis, which dropped to 5th thanks to a dismal 2-14 run, may have regained some momentum with a weekend sweep over the New York Gothams. The Pioneers are 7 games out so a big homestand which begins Tuesday with Detroit and also includes the Gothams and Washington before the Association big boys head west, is a must. The only thing certain about the race in the Fed is, as many predicted in April, is that it is going to go down to the wire.  QUICK HITS
The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 8/15/1937
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The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 07-01-2021 at 07:30 PM. |
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07-01-2021, 07:39 PM
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#189 |
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This Week in Figment Baseball: August 23, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL August 23, 1937 FORESTERS RETAIN 2 AND A HALF GAME CUSHION The Continental Association leading Cleveland Foresters and the second place Philadelphia Sailors both missed an opportunity last week as each could only manage just a split of 6 games with Toronto and Chicago. The Sailors especially have to be disappointed in losing twice at home to Toronto, the club with the worst road record in the CA, over the weekend and as a result they failed to take advantage of a gift from the Chicago Cougars. The Cougars won in Cleveland both Saturday and Sunday, and as a result on the Foresters lead on second place Sailors remains at 2.5 games. Third place Brooklyn is still barely clinging to life as the Kings also managed just a split of 6 games with the lowly New York Stars and Baltimore Cannons- getting shut out twice by the Cannons in back to back games - and Brooklyn remains 7.5 off the lead. The Kings do get some good news in both Joe Shaffner (12-3, 3.07) and Tom Barrell (7-3, 2.66) will be back this week, and just in the nick of time. Brooklyn hosts Cleveland for 3 games beginning Thursday before Philadelphia comes to town for two. You have to think a sweep of the Foresters is a must for the Kings to have any sliver of hope at defending their pennant.  Boston would then drop two of three to Washington for the second week in a row but Pittsburgh failed to gain ground as the Miners fell twice over the weekend in Philadelphia so the Minutemen lead remains at 1 and a half games over Pittsburgh with 3 other clubs still with six of the lead. We suddenly have a race at the other end of the Federal Association as well as the New York Gothams, who appeared to be on the right track just a month ago, have suffered a complete collapse and dropped 19 of their last 23 games. Prior to the prolonged slump the Gothams had actually passed Washington and moved in to sixth place for a brief spell. Detroit, meanwhile had hit a low point on August 7th when their winning percentage fell to .282 but since then the Dynamos have found new life with 11 wins in their last 13 contests. What is even more impressive is that Detroit is taking the role of pennant spoiler to heart by taking 5 of 6 from both Chicago and St. Louis. The Dynamos are now just 5 back of New York and may yet crawl out of the Fed cellar, a spot that has been their base of operations each of the two previous seasons.  QUICK HITS
The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 8/22/1937
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07-02-2021, 03:05 PM
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#190 |
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This Week in Figment Baseball: August 30, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL August 30, 1937 SMOOTH SAILING FOR PHILADELPHIA It's been seven years since the Philadelphia Sailors last finished atop the Continental Association standings but thanks to some steady pitching - always a hallmark of a Sailors squad - Philadelphia finds itself in first place as the calendar is about to turn to September. The Sailors, who finished second a year ago but have not lead the CA since winning three straight pennants for 1928-30, started slow this season and were 18-20 as the end of May approached. Since then they have posted a 54-29 record (.651 winning percentage) and yesterday took over sole possession of top spot in the Continental Association for the first time all season. Steady as she goes has been the mantra for the Sailors as the club has had very few big runs of victories but also no prolonged slump. Since June 1st the Sailors have had 2 five game winning streaks and never lost more than 3 in a row but it has been almost like clockwork that they win four and lose two pretty much every week. Last week was no exception to that trend as they split a pair in Baltimore, took two of three in Montreal and then won the opener of their brief two game stop in Brooklyn. William Jones (17-6, 2.91) and Doc Newell (15-7, 3.67) have been solid at the top of the Sailors rotation with the 33 year old Jones making a case for Allen Award consideration. The longtime Sailor righthander recently won his 150th career game and has been nothing short of amazing the post two months, going 10-0 over that stretch. Cleveland had been in first place ever since overtaking Brooklyn on June 22nd, but the Foresters, much like Brooklyn a couple of months ago, seem to have suddenly fallen on hard times. Cleveland lost to Montreal 5-4 yesterday for their fourth straight defeat and it was enough to knock them out of top spot. The Foresters have dropped 7 of their last 8 games including a 3 game sweep in Brooklyn that perhaps breathed new life into the Kings, who seemed rejuvenated with the return of Tom Barrell and Joe Shaffner to the mound. Perhaps missing #3 starter Lyman Weigel took it's toll on the Foresters, by Weigel returned from a 3 week absence and started the only win of the week for the Foresters, an 11-8 slugfest over the last place Stars in New York. Cleveland and Brooklyn have always played each other tough and this year is no different with the Kings going up 10-9 in the season series following the sweep that included a pair of 1-run Brooklyn wins. Philadelphia, Cleveland and Brooklyn have all played each other very even this season and perhaps it is those remaining head to head games with will determine who takes home the pennant. Cleveland and Philadelphia still have 6 games remaining head to head.  It was just an awful stretch for the second place Miners, who won just once last week and dropped 3 of their games by a single run including a heartbreaking 2-1 loss in 17 innings to Detroit. The result is a Federal Association race, that had looked to be one that would go down to the wire and feature as many as 5 teams in the thick of a September battle, is starting to look like a runaway victory for Boston, a club that has not won a pennant since 1915. There is obviously a long ways to go and anything can happen but the Federal Association picture might come into perfect focus for the Minutemen with a strong week. It is a crucial one for all of the Fed as the Minutemen, after looking to complete the sweep of a 2-game set in St Louis Monday, head to Chicago for 3 games with the fading Chiefs before returning home to Cunningham Field for a pair with second place Pittsburgh. One has to think the Chiefs need a sweep to get back into the race. MORE BAD NEWS FOR HUNTER Talented Chicago Cougars rookie shortstop Billy Hunter is hurt again. The 22 year old's bad luck started with a hamstring injury in June that cost him six weeks. He finally got back in the lineup three weeks ago but now is likely done for the season after hurting his elbow making throw on a routine ground ball Friday in Baltimore. When healthy the 1932 first round pick has been very good, batting .319 with 6 homers and 29 rbi's while playing outstanding defense in 51 games with the Cougars this season. DYNAMOS GIVING FANS A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE (courtesy of the Detroit World) With things going so well in Detroit right now it might not be a good idea to make any changes but the Dynamos are looking to decide which of their deep collection of prospects to bring up for some September action. With AAA Newark fighting for the Union League crown they have a decision to make. Most likely we will see SP Jack Wood return to the big leagues after 10 fairly successful starts for Newark (4-1 3.26). He went down to figure out his control issues and while not great they are better 4.06 bb/9. Also getting the call will be C Clem Bliss who struggled in spring training he lost his spot on the big league roster. After a terrible start in Newark he has rebounded of late hitting close to 300 since June 1st in a shared catcher role. SP Ray McCarthy will come up for a couple of starts towards the end of the season. McCarthy has started 17 games since his demotion in May after going 0-4 with an ERA of 7.49. His main problem was his walks per 9 innings was higher than his bloated ERA at almost 8bb/9. Others under consideration are SP Karl Wallace (5-2 3.11) and Stumpy Beaman (6-6 3.10) who both came over in a trade from the Chicago Cougars during the draft. Both have pitched very well and are likely to join Wood and McCarthy in a very young starting rotation which might be anchored by “SuperStar” Chuck Murphy. LF Jay Buckingham will also likely get promoted. His future is likely a 4th/5th OF with good speed and base running skills. He also keeps the clubhouse loose. He is hitting 300 +/- and has done all he can at AAA. Finally there are 2 more that are under consideration but neither are on the 40-man (neither are SP Wallace and SP Beaman). Right now there are 38 guys on the 40-man (39 if I keep P Alex Vaughn who was waiver claimed). RF Wayne Morgan is one candidate. I wish he was hitting closer to 300 (currently 259 but up from earlier in the season). Decent power and speed and could join Buckingham as a reserve in next years OF. He could also be a platoon candidate for Elmer Nolde in one of the corners. The other guy under consideration is 1B Red Johnson. Red is proving himself well in AAA hitting 327 with 8 home runs and 21 RBI’s in just 98 AB. His walk to strike out ratio is strong at 20:2 so he doesn’t seem overmatched. The only thing holding him back is the desire of the club to give Max Morris all the opportunities to get a few more stats before he ends his hall of fame playing career at the end of the season. QUICK HITS
The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 8/29/1937
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07-05-2021, 01:57 PM
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#191 |
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This Week in Figment Baseball: September 6, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL September 6, 1937 FED RACE TIGHTENS UP What a difference a week makes. Just seven days ago the Boston Minutemen were riding high. Boston had a 5 and a half game cushion on second place Pittsburgh atop the Federal Association and were on a 5 game winning streak. Flash forward to today and the Boston lead is suddenly down to 1 and a half games with not only Pittsburgh, but also the Philadelphia Keystones and Chicago Chiefs right back in the thick of things. Boston had a week they would rather forget as the Minutemen suffered 6 straight defeats including 3 in Chicago and a pair at home to the second place Miners. Pittsburgh went 4-2 to cut the gap including wins in Boston by 6-5 and 6-1 scores with Saturday's 6-1 loss especially difficult for the Minutemen to absorb as the Miners blew the game open with a 5 run outburst in the 8th inning. The week was not all good news for Pittsburgh as the Miners suffered yet another injury. This time it is shortstop Les Tucker (.248,5,56) who went down. Tucker, who has been bothered by a wonky back in the past, is done for the season after reinjuring it against Boston. It's hard to imagine any team in recent history that has been hit harder by injuries to position players than the Miners have this season. Mahlon Strong remains out while Ed Stewart, Sandy Grabow (twice) and George Cleaves (twice) have all missed substantial time. The Chicago Chiefs did the essential, sweeping a 3 game set that allowed them to inch back into the race but Chicago shot itself in the foot over the weekend, dropping two of three to the lowly New York Gothams. Next up might be more trouble for the Chiefs as they have a Labor Day doubleheader in Detroit before moving on to St Louis. The Chiefs have struggled of late against the bottom three clubs in the Fed, and have dropped 5 of their last 6 contests with the Dynamos. The Philadelphia Sailors took another big step forward in the Continental Association race by sweeping a pair from Brooklyn that adds another nail in the coffin of the defending CA champs. The Sailors went 5-1 last week and now lead second place Cleveland by 3 and a half games after the Foresters limped thru a 2-4 week that included absorbing a pair of weekend losses at home to Toronto.  QUICK HITS
SCOUTING THE 1938 DRAFT CLASS It is still a long ways away but TWIFB thought it would take a look at the players OSA feels have the best chance to be part of the new 32-man lottery. We found 29 players that OSA at this point in time projects to be a solid big league regular. Over the next few weeks let's take a closer look at each of them. We will feature a different position group each week. We start today with the Catchers. There have been some great catchers in the feeder league days: guys like Dick York, T.R. Goins, Alex Diaz, Fred Barrell and George Cleaves were all first round picks. However, since the death of the feeder leagues we have seen a big run of high quality catching prospects popping up regularly. In 1934 we had a debate over which Tennessee native was better - Adam Mullins the college kid who played at Eastern Oklahoma or Dunlap High Schooler Woody Stone. Mullins would end up going 6th and Stone 8th in that year's draft and both have made their big league debuts. 1935 the story was Bill Van Ness, who Boston took with the 6th pick. 1936 was a bit of a drop-off but two catchers went in the second round in Bill Wilson and Cliff Smith. Last year we had the highly touted Pete Casstevens as one of the prize picks of the new player lottery. Casstevens went to Detroit while Washington also landed a solid catching prospect in Paul Wilkerson. This season may not give us a player of Casstevens talents behind the plate but there are a few good ones, led by the son of current Terre Haute manager and former Detroit Dynamos legend Dick York. It is asking a lot, probably too much for Rick York to approach the career his father had, and he will need a huge senior season to even come close to being compared with last year's catching gem Casstevens. If it isn't York, the next big catching prospect may not be that far away as Cal Morgan, a Cincinnati born 16 year who just completed his sophomore high school season at Alexandria (IN) High is a 2-time High School All-American with a .529 career batting average. While he lacks Casstevens raw power, Morgan did have a higher batting average than the Detroit prospect in each of the last two seasons. Morgan will draft eligible in 1939. There are 4 catchers from the 1938 draft class that OSA feels have big league potential. Here they are in alphabetical order: BILL JOHNSON: 17 Jacksonville (FL) High School Size might be a concern as the diminutive Johnson stands just 5'9" and weighs in at 140 pounds but has a work ethic that is off the charts. The odds are against Johnson as just 8 Florida born catchers have ever played major league baseball led by Will Ogan, who appeared in 524 games over 8 seasons with the Philadelphia Keystones in the 1920s but there are 2 current Floridan catchers in the big leagues in Baltimore's Joe Rainbow and Bill Smith of Detroit.MIKE LOGAN : 17 Catholic Central HS, Detroit, MI At 6'2", 195 lbs and growing there is hope Logan could develop a bit of power. He hit 3 homers as a junior but just 1 last season although he did deliver 31 doubles over that time frame. He hit .462 at Catholic Central last season which places him in the upper range of high school hitters. OSA says Logan won't win any batting titles but should be a solid hitter.SOLLY SKIDMORE: 17 Monroe (GA) High School Only 3 high school catchers hit for a higher average than the .488 Skidmore put up last season. He hit just 1 homer in 21 games last season which as a junior was his first year of high school ball. While lacking the power you might like to see in a catcher he does project to be a .310 hitter with decent defensive abilities. Like Logan, Skidmore has plenty of size.RICK YORK: 17 Terre Haute (IN) High School The son of former major league catching legend Dick York and younger brother of infielder Joe York, who was Brooklyn's first round pick this past June. Rick was a two-time honourable mention for the High School All-American team and projects to be a pretty solid hitting catcher. Not blessed with much speed but he has good instincts and stole 19 bases the past two seasons in high school ball.Next week we will take a look at the corner infielders to watch for next June. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 9/05/1937
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07-06-2021, 01:03 PM
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#192 |
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This Week in Figment Baseball: September 13, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL September 13, 1937 CHAMPS CLIMB BACK UP FROM CANVAS The Chicago Chiefs have shown the gritty determination of a World Championship prize fighter as they have recovered from what some observers felt was a devastating haymaker in the form of a 7-16 run to start the month of August. However, the champs got back up off the canvas by winning 11 of their last 15 games and are back to within a game and a half of first place in the Federal Association. The Chiefs had been on fire for nearly a full calendar year starting in late June a year ago when Pete Layton and Rabbit Day joined the fold. Those two helped carry the club through one of the best second halves in Federal Association history and then they rolled over Brooklyn in the World Championship Series. That pattern of dominance continued this season as they began the 1937 campaign with a 31-13 record. However when the temperatures heated up in the summer the Chiefs suddenly got ice cold, winning just 19 of 51 contests starting with a July 2-4th sweep at the hands of St Louis. Just over 2 weeks ago, on August 29th the Chiefs had fallen 7 and a half games off the pace and were reeling after absorbing a 3 game sweep at the hands of Washington and with the second place Pittsburgh Miners and front-running Boston Minutemen heading to Whitney Park things could have been fatal for the Chiefs hopes of defending their title. Instead, a game Chicago team regained it's feet with a dramatic 3-2 come from behind walk-off win over Pittsburgh. Pinch-hitter Len Jones would be the hero on that late August afternoon as he delivered a dramatic pinch-hit two-run single with one out in the bottom of the ninth but it was also the effort of Day, going the distance while allowing 2 Pittsburgh runs on 6 hits to improve his record to 14-10, that picked up the Chiefs. Chicago would beat Pittsburgh the next day as well, and then take 3 straight from Boston. Now as the temperatures are cooling with autumn in the air, there is also a air of confidence in the Chicago Chiefs who, following a 5-2 week, are now just a game and a half back of first place Boston with two games coming up between the two foes starting Tuesday at Cunningham Field. The work is far from done for Chicago as these next 9 games really are the season for the Chiefs. They are all on the road, 2 with Boston, 3 with Pittsburgh, and 4 with two clubs against whom we have losing records: Philadelphia and Washington. It is the Minutemen who are feeling the pressure now as Boston dropped 3 straight over the weekend and have won just 4 of their last 10 ballgames. Below is a look at the Fed pennant race as of August 29th and today.  The fact that the Pittsburgh Miners are still in the race is a testament to their depth. Injuries just keep coming and the Miners take them in stride and keep on rolling along. Sandy Grabow (.279,4,31) is the latest and this one really hurts as Pittsburgh just shifted Grabow to shortstop a week ago after Les Tucker went down for the year. With those two down for the count it might be a good time for an enterprising young lad to get his resume into Fitzpatrick Park, as the Miners might just be that desperate for shortstop help down the stretch. It has been just a brutal year for the previously very healthy Grabow. He missed a month in May with an elbow injury and then just after returning to the lineup he sprained his thumb and missed much of July and August. Now this week he hurt his thumb again and is done for the year. Imagine what the Miners might have done had they been healthy all year. The defending Continental Association champions from Brooklyn may also be back in the race. Brooklyn appeared all but out of the race after a 17-24 stretch over the summer that coincided with hot stretches from Cleveland and Philadelphia - their two main competitors for the pennant. On the morning of August 18th the Kings were 8 and a half games back of Cleveland with the Sailors in second place, 2.5 games behind the front-running Foresters. Brooklyn was also without it's two best pitchers in Tom Barrell and Joe Shaffner, but since that date the Kings have won 17 of 25 games while Cleveland has gone 7-17 and Philadelphia has posted a 13-11 record. Barrell and Shaffner are both back for Brooklyn but with mixed results. Barrell, who has won the last 3 CA Allen Awards, is back but clearly not 100% having dropped his last 2 starts while posting an 8.53 era in the process. On the other hand Shaffner is 4-0 with 3 shutouts and a 0.25 era to improve his season totals to 17-3, 2.47 and ignite talk that the 33 year old 3-time All-Star may finally win his first Allan Award. There is much work left for Brooklyn to do in order to catch Philadelphia and it begins with a key five game stretch this week when Brooklyn heads to Cleveland for 3 games followed by two in Philadelphia against the Sailors. Things get further complicated with the fact that Shaffner pitched yesterday, a 4-1 win over New York, and will likely be on the mound Thursday in Cleveland so he will not go against the Sailors. Barrell, who has had some minor back issues, will get an extra day or two of rest so he won't be available for the Cleveland series but is expected to start in Philadelphia. That means added pressure for Mike Murphy, who has won 4 straight but is just 12-12 on the year and ex-Gotham cast-off Curly Jones, who has looked great at times in Brooklyn, but very poor on other occasions. The Sailors will have their ace William Jones (18-6, 2.89), who with Cleveland's struggles recently is likely Shaffner's biggest competition for the Allan Award, ready to go against Brooklyn on the weekend. Jones did not factor in the decision but pitched Thursday in a loss to Cleveland in what was the first time the Sailors lost with Jones on the mound since July 11th. He will likely get the call Monday against the Cougars and then pitch Saturday in the second game of the set vs Brooklyn, possibly against Tom Barrell. Cleveland meanwhile has gone into a free-fall dropping 7 of their last 9 but perhaps their slim pennant hopes were salvaged because the two games they did win last week came against the front-running Sailors. Cleveland has Brooklyn this week and then another showdown with Philadelphia for 3 games starting September 24th.  QUICK HITS
SCOUTING THE 1938 DRAFT CLASS PART TWO: CORNER INFIELDERS There is no highly touted power hitter like Red Johnson or Walt Messer were in recent drafts but there should be some decent talent available for teams looking for a solid hitting corner infielder. ROY BOSWORTH: 3B 16 Mariana (AR) High School Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, which is the birthplace of Rankin Kellogg and 1934 first round pick Adam Mullins. Defense is the name of the game with Bosworth as OSA feels he is one of the best defensive High School infielders in the nation. He hit just .446 as a junior - his first season of high school ball - with only 12 extra base hits so teams will be wanting to see an improvement in that area.FRANK BUNCH JR: 1B 17 Port Jervis (NY) High School There are several sons of former big leaguers in this draft including Bunch, who's dad played 169 games for the Gothams in the early 1920s. Junior is said to have decent strike zone judgement and very advanced ability to make contact. He hit .515 last season which was 25th out of over 800 high school players but you have to wonder if Bunch will develop the power to play first base at a high level. He homered just once in each of his two seasons and his .732 slugging percentage was just 130th best among high schoolers last year.WALT KNIGHT: 1B 17 South HS, Youngstown, OH We have to question what OSA sees in the 17 year old Erie, Pennsylvania native. Knight is just a career .437 hitter over 3 seasons of high school ball and has a .674 career slugging percentage with just 2 homers in each of his 3 seasons. OSA feels he can be a second division starter with a solid batting average but TWIFB staffers feel he will need to show a lot this season to remain on this list of top players.BILL NEIL: 3B 20 Cumberland University, Hometown Memphis, TN. The second Memphis born third baseman on this list is a rarity as he is the first college player we have seen so far. He actually had a better freshman season (.292,9,50) then the numbers he put up as a sophomore (.268,6,34) but his forte is his work with the glove. While he hasn't shown it yet OSA feels he will develop above average contact potential and more than his share of walks.HERB RHODES: 1B 16 Washington HS, Portland, OR There was another Portland born first baseman who garnered a lot of attention a couple of years ago but for Rhodes the comparisons to Red Johnson end there. OSA does feel that Rhodes has shown some signs of raw power after hitting 5 homers last season in his first year of high school ball. They love his hustle and feel he can be a solid big league hitter. Portland has been a bit of a pipeline for talent of late with Boston third baseman Art Spencer and young Pittsburgh shortstop Les Tucker also hailing from the Rose City.DANNY RICHARDSON: 17 1B/3B/OF Elgin (IL) High School Versatility is a big selling point on Richardson who can also play centerfield as well as first base. OSA likes his swing, and while he won't set records, he could be a .330 hitter with an above average eye. Has a cannon from third base which helps make up for his limited range defensively. Numbers have been very consistent all 3 seasons of high school ball including a .480 average last season. His .569 on base percentage was among the top 50 high school players in the nation last season.While not on the OSA shortlist also worth looking at is Maury Campbell who was a HS All-American last year. The 17 year old who hails from Decatur, Illinois - the home of Al Wheeler -certainly does not have Wheeler's power but his 3 year batting average at Decatur High is .510 and his .520 mark a year ago was 20th best in the entire high school ranks. OSA is not very high on Campbell, calling the 17 year a bubble prospect at best. Pete Frisbie, a AIAA first team All-American, is another player that OSA regards pretty lightly. The 20 year old Los Angeles native hit .340 with 9 homers in 59 games for Gates University last season. His batting average was the fourth highest in the nation and his homers tied him for 10th in that category. Despite the lack of endorsement from OSA, TWIFB is very high on Frisbie and a big season next year might boost him into the top 32. Next time we will take a look at the top middle infield prospects. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 9/12/1937
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This Week in Figment Baseball: September 20, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL September 20, 1937 WHAT A RACE! The Federal Association has been a dogfight all season and things got even tighter this week as the Pittsburgh Miners overtook the slumping Boston Minutemen for first place but the Philadelphia Keystones and Chicago Chiefs are hot on their heels. Despite being riddled with injuries and using a patchwork middle infield of rookie Ben Edwards and light hitting backup Johnny Guzzo, the Miners have remained in the race throughout the season and now take over top spot after winning 7 of their last 8 games. The rookie Edwards (.366,2,18) has been on fire of late, after being thrust into a starting role with injuries to Sandy Grabow and Les Tucker but he is far from the only Miner who has stepped up. Henry Jones is hitting .385 with 11 homers in the 48 games since he came over from Detroit for a 9th round draft pick at the trade deadline. Pitchers Charlie Stedman (18-14, 3.40) and Lefty Allen (19-12, 3.13) have each found another gear in September as well, combining to go 7-2 on the month and Allen came within one pitch of a no-hitter against Boston recently. The pennant, which would be the Miners first since 1924, is still far from secure as the Keystones and Chiefs sit just 1 game back. All three of them, and Boston as well, better watch out as the hottest team in FABL since the All-Star break is the Washington Eagles. The Eagles are still 5 and a half games back but have gone 48-25 since July 1st and just benefited from two outstanding outings from Bill Anderson (7-13, 5.38). Anderson was expected to lead an Eagles team that would contend for the pennant this season but, after going 22-14 a year ago, he got off to a 4-12 start and was a big reason the Eagles were 16 games under .500 at the end June. Hot pitching, or rather a top pitcher living up to expectations is also why the Chicago Chiefs are back in the race after seemingly out of it just a few weeks ago. Rabbit Day had a decidedly un-Rabbit Day like start to the season but has won his last 7 starts and the Chiefs are on a roll. In Philadelphia the pitching has been surprisingly consistent but the Keystones strength has always been their offense and the big bat of Rankin Kellogg (.256,17,74) is finally going after struggles early in the season caused some to wonder if the 34 year old was perhaps on a downward spiral. Speaking of spirals, it is the Boston collapse that draws the most attention for as good as the Minutemen were in the first half of August, they have been equally inept the past few weeks. It is almost unfathomable that Boston was 5 and a half games ahead of second place Pittsburgh just 22 days ago but now find themselves in fourth place after an 8 game losing streak. Boston is certainly not out of the race but they need a reversal of fortunes almost immediately although there is concern that young ace Dick Higgins is worn out. Higgins missed over a year with an injury but won his first 6 decisions when he returned in late June and gave the team life. However, Higgins seems to have hit a wall with 2 straight losses and 4 in his last 6 outings. Higgins got shelled by Chicago in his last start and couldn’t survive the 5th inning in a 13-6 pounding.  Brooklyn has made up 6 games on the Sailors since September 2nd but looking at the next two weeks the schedule does seem to favour Philadelphia slightly. The Kings play 10 of their final 13 games on the road although all but one are against second division clubs while the Sailors get to enjoy the confines of Sailors Memorial Stadium for 10 of their final 13. Philadelphia does have 6 games remaining with third place Cleveland. QUICK HITS
SCOUTING THE 1938 DRAFT CLASS PART THREE: MIDDLE INFIELDERS There usually is a deep crop of quality shortstops and second baseman available and the expectation is the 1938 draft will be no different. Here are the players OSA feels have the potential to crack the top 32 and take control of their own fate by being part of the elite group that gets a say in their destination. JOE BISHOP: 2B/3B/SS/OF 17 Allderdice HS, Pittsburgh, PA It's been a while but there used to be a pretty good tradition of quality middle infielders coming out of Pittsburgh. The best of whom were Gil Hice, who played primarily for the Cougars at the turn of the century, 19th century Brooklyn Kings star Albert Davis and Davey Kincaid, who starred for the Chiefs in the early days of FABL. Since then we have not seen a lot of talent come out of the city but Joe Bishop has a chance to change that. He is not exceptional at any one facet of the game but according to OSA he does everything well. Plus eye, okay swing, decent contact hitter and an average defensive second baseman.HENRY BUSH: 2B/SS 20 Daniel Boone College, Hometown Sheffield, AL The 20 year old showed some power last season with 8 homers in just 43 AIAA games. His .283 average puts him middle of the pack but he does have great speed and has shown promising pitch recognition skills. There are some concerns about his ability to handle off-speed stuff but OSA feels he can be a solid second division starter. Bush reminds us an awful lot of Daniel Boone College alum Jim Parmelee, who was selected by Detroit in the 4th round of the 1935 draft. Detroit also took a former Frontiersman by the name of Harry Bull with their second round selection in 1934, but he never panned out and is now on a reserve roster in the Lone Star Association.HERB CAREY: 2B/3B/OF 17 West Point (VA) High School Herb Carey can hit. He has a .536 career batting average thru three seasons at West Point High School and despite having the lowest total (.524) of his career last season as a junior he was still an honourable mention for the High School All-American team. He did earn All-American status as a freshman when his .547 average was second only to Ted Brown, a 1936 third round pick of Montreal, among infielders. Described as very smart on the base paths, has a smooth swing, quick hands and good pitch recognition skills as well as he is considered a leader.HUB KELLY: SS/2B/3B 17 New Albany (OH) High School Kelly went to high school in New Albany but was born in Dayton, a city which has had a pretty solid recent history of producing high draft picks. In 1935 it was Bill Van Ness, a catcher who went in the first round to Boston. The following year Dayton born Northern Mississippi University product pitcher Jack Clements was Toronto's second round selection and last year Felix Anderson, an outfielder, went to Washington with the 8th overall pick. OSA feels Kelly will be next in line and calls him an above average, everyday big league player. He did have a fair drop off in his stats last season compared to his debut year as a high school sophomore so I would think a big year is a must for Kelly to get into the lottery portion of the draft.HOWARD RIVERS: 2B/SS/OF 17 Brandeis HS, New York, NY A high school All-American last season as a junior, the 17 year old is projected to hit for a high average and play quality defense. He has put up some really strong numbers as a three year starter for his high school club, averaging .534 in 66 career games and was second in the nation among high school players with a .552 average last season. Rivers has a baseball pedigree as well. His cousin John Rivers is a 29 year old minor league infielder in the Brooklyn Kings system.SPENCER SMALL: SS/2B 20 Brooklyn Catholic University, Hometown Joliet, IL OSA is pretty high on the 20 year old, who is a very athletic shortstop. He is called an advanced hitter but OSA is likely looking for an improvement on his .297/.385/.438 slash line in his junior season. Four Brooklyn Catholic players were drafted last season headed by pitcher Preacher Pietsch, who went 5th overall to the Chicago Cougars.WILLIE WEISS: SS/2B 17 Monroeville (OH) High School Weiss seems like more of a project that a finished piece but OSA feels with his improving pitch recognition and ability to make consistent contact he has the potential to be a second division starter. Weiss was born in Detroit but grew up in the town of Monroeville, Ohio which sits about halfway between Toledo and Cleveland. He is a three year starter on his high school club but his numbers don't stand out, at least not enough in TWIFB's opinion to warrant inclusion in the top 32 next June. Of course a big senior season could change that thought very quickly.Also worth noting are a few players that OSA is not as high on but have put up some solid numbers. High School All-American Verlin Alexander out of Lexington, Missouri has shown some improvement in each of his 3 seasons. Pascal Lefreniere who was honourable mention All-American as a sophomore out of Rabouin High School in New Orleans but took a step back last year. A couple of college middle infielders to keep an eye on are Frank Hill of Talmadge State, who was an AIAA second team All-American at shortstop last season while Snipe Ellison was first team All-American two years ago at Eastern State but did not quite play at that level last season. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 9/12/1937
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This Week in Figment Baseball: September 27, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL September 27, 1937 HANG ON! WILD FINISH AHEAD IN BOTH ASSOCIATIONS Whatever happens the final week of the season the 1937 campaign will certainly be long remembered. You had Max Morris winding up his playing career and starting a new chapter as a manager by mentoring two of the game's next superstars in Sal Pestilli and Red Johnson in Detroit. Pestilli became just the third player to go straight from college to the major leagues and did so in dominating fashion. You also had a breakout season from 25 year old Washington Eagles infielder Mel Carrol, who is days away from becoming the first player to hit .400 in a season since Max Morris did it 12 years ago. But all of that pales when placed alongside the drama of the two pennant races this season - especially in the Federal Association where 6 teams are still in the running, mathematically at least, with only 7 days left in the season. For Boston, St Louis and a hard-charging Washington club it is all but impossible to see them winning it, but each could play a key spoiler roll as the 3 real contenders for the Fed crown are narrowed down to Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Chicago. What a story it would be for any of the three to win it all. The Miners finished second a year ago but were 8 games back and have not seriously contended since their 1924 pennant winning season. To perhaps win it this year, in a season in which the club has been decimated by injuries, would be a very special achievement. The Philadelphia Keystones got off to a slow start but picked it up after a 13-4 run in early June while the defending World Champion Chicago Chiefs looked down and out after an awful stretch in late July-early August. To try and correctly call any sort of outcome in the Fed seems like a fool's wager as it has been so unpredictable all season. As late as September 9th, Boston had a 4-game lead in the Fed. Chicago took over first on 9/15 and held it until Pittsburgh took the lead on 9/19. The Keystones and Miners were briefly tied on 9/20, as were the Miners and Chiefs from 9/23 - 9/25. Pittsburgh reclaimed sole possession of first yesterday, 9/26. And here we are--the final stretch. Note that 9/20 was the only day this season that the Keystones had at least a share of the lead. Of the pennant contenders (Pittsburgh, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston), the Keystones are the only club to not have spent any time alone in first place and quite conceivably could have sole possession of first place only on the day they win the pennant. In the Continental Association the Philadelphia Sailors have a half-game lead on a surging Brooklyn Kings club that appeared to be all but out of the race less than a month ago. Cleveland has collapsed in September but the Foresters took two of three from the Sailors last week and with 3 more games against Philadelphia to finish the season this weekend could play a pivotal role in who wins the pennant. Lost in all the excitement of the pennant races is we could see for the first time ever an All-Philadelphia World Championship Series. It is surprising the Keystones and Sailors have never met, especially considering how close they came to doing so multiple times. There was a 7-year period (1927-33) where a Philadelphia team was in the Series six times (all but 1931), but they have never faced off in a "Liberty" Series.  THE WEEK AHEAD It is rare we get two great pennant races to close a season but there have been some years recently that delivered down to the wire excitement in both the Fed and the CA. Just two years ago each race was decided by less than two games as Cleveland, despite losing their season finale against Philadelphia, held off Brooklyn by a single game for the CA crown when the Kings lost their final 2 of the year to the New York Stars. It was the second year in a row the Kings had lost the pennant to Cleveland by a single game. The Fed saw St Louis mount a strong finish in 1935 but ran out of time and had to settle for second place in the Fed, two games back of the New York Gothams. To find a year with two races that went down to the last day of the season you have to look at 1927, which might end up being the only season to surpass what we could witness this time around. The Federal Association was a three team battle that year in which Philadelphia and Detroit tied for top spot with the Chicago Chiefs 2 games back. The Keystones would win a 1-game playoff - the last time we have needed an extra game to decide a pennant winner. Meanwhile, the CA was a battle all year with the Brooklyn Kings holding off the Philadelphia Sailors and Toronto Wolves by a single game and Cleveland was just 2 back. The official league historical records sum up that CA race as follows: Quote:
ONE GAME PLAYOFF? There have only been two such tiebreaker games ever required but we could possibly see two more of them this year. The first one in FABL history occurred in 1917 when Cleveland beat Montreal in a 1-0 thriller ending the Saints string of two straight pennants. Records are spotty but it is likely a good guess that 22 year old Max Morris (his name comes up so often doesn't it) played a key role. Still pitching as well as playing the outfield at that time, Mighty Mo was 21-17 on the hill and led the league with 13 homers. The other tie-breaker game was a rout, as the Philadelphia Keystones blasted the Detroit Dynamos 7-0 to claim the 1927 Federal Association pennant before going on to beat Brooklyn in the Series. So is there a pattern? A tiebreaker was needed in 1917 and again in 1927. 1937? I guess we find out in a week. FEDERAL ASSOCIATION PENNANT RACE  Boston, St Louis and Washington are all pretty much out of it but each has the chance to make life very difficult for one of the top three. The Eagles may play the most pivotal role. They start with 3 against Philadelphia, a team they have dominated with a 16-4 record head to head this season. They finish with 2 vs Pittsburgh, who at 8-11 against are the team that has given them the most trouble this year and the Eagles just lost back to back games at home to the Miners. CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION PENNANT RACE  The Sailors play the tougher opponent in that they have 3 games against third place Cleveland to end the season but all 6 of their games are at Sailors Memorial Park with Toronto providing the opposition for the first three. Brooklyn, on the other hand has 4 round games - 2 each in New York at Baltimore before ending the season at Kings County Ballpark with 3 against Montreal. Brooklyn has been in this same situation twice in the past three seasons as the Kings came up a game short in both 1934 and 1935 before finally winning the pennant in 1936 as they held off a hard charging Philadelphia team by 3 games. QUICK HITS
DYNAMOS LOOK TO NEXT YEAR WITH PITCHING QUESTION MARKS The question on the mind of Detroit fans is what is the matter with SP Jack Wood. Early in the season Wood was 4-8 with an almost 6.00 ERA. He had struggled with his control so he was sent down to AAA Newark. At Newark he went 4-1 in 11 starts with a 3.27 ERA and an okay 3.84 bb/9. He only tossed 63.1 innings in those 11 starts. His triumphant September return has been well, a nightmare. In 3 September starts totaling 18 IP he is 1-1 with a 9.50 ERA. Even more startling is his bb/9 ratio of 10.00 (20 walks in 18IP). So what is wrong with the 24-year-old lefty? He was as high as the #41st overall prospect. Was it pushing him after the Brooklyn trade too fast (AAA after the deal)? Just growing pains? Or does he just not believe in his stuff? Pitching coach Jack Johncox will be tasked with figuring out what’s wrong with Wood and getting him straightened out in spring training. Management has felt Wood could be a very solid #3 type SP, but the lack of going deep into games at AAA and the complete wildness this September have made them question that assessment. Right now Detroit’s starting rotation for next season is looking to consist of Chuck Murphy, Roger Perry, and perhaps Hank Spencer. They are counting on Ray McCarthy to be ready next spring and then either/both Karl Wallace and Stumpy Beaman to be at the bottom of the rotation. Wood’s titanic struggles are giving the GM tremendous pause in potentially trading Chuck Murphy. SCOUTING THE 1938 DRAFT CLASS PART FOUR: OUTFIELDERS Unlike the catching and infield situation, the top outfield prospects for the 1938 draft that OSA has it's eyes are almost exclusively college lads. LEO BARNHART: 21 Midwestern University, Hometown Wellesley, MA .A terrific defensive center fielder that according to OSA will make flyball pitchers look better, Barnhart is going to be the first player from Midwestern to turn pro. His .313 batting average a year ago in his college debut season as a sophomore was 16th highest in the AIAA. ED LANG: 21 New Castle State, Hometown New York, NY Like Barnhart, Lang will be the first player ever drafted from his college. Lang's .367 batting average was surpassed only by National College player of the year Alex LaComb and freshman sensation Danny Goff Jr. last season but he failed to make the AIAA All-American teams due in large part to the lower level of competition he faced at the Delaware school. The New York City native is expected to make solid contact but is primarily a ground ball hitter.RAY PATILLO: 17 Burlington (WI) High School It looks like a very weak class of high school outfielders if Patillo is the only one that OSA sees much potential in at this point. He is very athletic and with great speed, maybe a little too much so for a corner outfield position as, although he has seen some time in center, was used primarily as a right fielder at Burlington High School in Wisconsin. One of the many Chicago born players from recent seasons, Patillo's numbers through two seasons of high school ball are not overly impressive - a .429/.515/.793 slash line. OSA feels he has the potential to be a second division starter. 1935 Baltimore Cannons 5th round pick, pitcher Billy Crane, also went to the same high school as Patillo.LES RICH: 20 Charleston State, Hometown Baltimore, MD Rich hit .307 and showed a bit of power with 8 homers in 45 games last season as a sophomore. He stole 33 bases and has elite speed with OSA projecting him to be roughly an average big league centerfielder. He hails from the West Virginia Charleston State school, not to be confused with the school of the same name in Illinois or Charleston College, which is also in Illinois and was the alma mater of Keystones 1936 third round pick Hans Wright. Just to complicate matters further for those that don't follow the AIAA closely there is aslo a baseball powerhouse in Charleston, South Carolina called Charleston Tech.LEN WERNER: 22 Maryland State, Hometown Elmira, NY As one of the original AIAA schools from the feeder league days Maryland State has a rich tradition of developing quality talent including longtime New York Stars outfielder Gordie Loftus as well as current Boston prospect and 1936 first rounder Denny Andrews plus last year player lottery pick Spud Bent, who signed with Pittsburgh. Werner is one of the few college seniors in the draft as he was selected by Toronto in the 13th round last season but failed to agree on a contract with the Wolves. It might be an indication of how week this draft class is when you consider OSA now feels Werner is a front-runner for an audition at centerfield. TWIFB staffers feel it is a real longshot for him to be included in the top 32 prospects especially after a very pedestrian .271/.269/.394 slash line for the Bengals last year.To be honest we have no idea why Happy Ellison is not higher on OSA's radar. The 17 year old from Sycamore High School in Cincinnati was a two time All-American (freshman and junior seasons) and earned honourable mention status his sophomore year. Ellison has a .541 career high school batting average entering his senior season and was fifth in the nation in batting average last season. Mike Towsley is another high school player to watch closely. He was an All-American as a sophomore two years ago but the Honey Brook, Pennsylvania High Schooler slumped a bit last season. On the college side keep an eye on Oakland product Lou Clark, who was a second team All-American last season as a sophomore at Coastal California. He has above average defensive skills and finished fourth in the nation in hitting last year but a lack of power is the knock against him. Clark does have good size so perhaps the power will come. Next we will finish off our very early 1938 draft preview with a look at the top pitchers. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 9/12/1937
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07-09-2021, 01:04 PM
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This Week in Figment Baseball: October 4, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL October 4, 1937 WE'RE NOT DONE YET TIE-BREAKER NEEDED TO DETERMINE CA CHAMP It only seems fitting that a season with two outstanding pennant races would need more than 154 games to determine the World Championship Series participants. As it was noted in these pages last season there have been two previous campaigns that required a playoff tie-breaker: in 1917 and 1927 so with how tight both races were this year it seemed a safe bet the trend of a playoff every ten seasons would continue and Fortuna, the goddess of luck smiled on baseball fans by providing us a tie atop the Continental Association. The Philadelphia Sailors and Brooklyn Kings endured a wild final week of the season and each finished with a FABL leading 91 victories but this year it will take a 92nd win to crown a champion in the Continental Association. The final week was a back and forth battle with close calls and tough losses for both. Here is how last week went for the two: The week began with Brooklyn a half game back and that contest was made up on Monday when, with Philadelphia idle, the Kings pulled even with an 8-3 win over the New York Stars in a game that was much tighter than the final score indicated. Brooklyn blew it open in the top of the ninth with a grand slam off the bat of veteran Frank Vance (.318,21,86). A day later the Kings were alone at the top as Joe Shaffner (20-4, 2.32), who has been amazing since his return in late August, shutout the Stars 3-0. It was his 6th shutout of the season, the most in one year since 1926 when John White also tossed 6 while pitching for the Sailors. Meanwhile Philadelphia dropped out of at least a share of first place for the first time since August 28th thanks to a 10-8 loss at home to Toronto. It wasn't for a lack of trying on the Sailors part as they staged a wild ninth inning rally to score 7 runs and had the tying run on base with one out before ultimately falling just short. The time out of first was short-lived for the Sailors, who pulled even thanks to another late rally against Toronto. The Wolves had a 5-0 lead after six innings and were up 6-2 heading to the bottom of the ninth but the Sailors mounted a comeback, which turned out to save their season, with a 5 run ninth culminated by a two-out rbi single from outstanding Philadelphia rookie shortstop Rip Lee (.282,4,78). Brooklyn dropped back to a tie for the lead after plenty of dramatics in Baltimore. The Kings squandered a 4-1 lead when Billy Marshall hit a 3-run homer in the bottom of the 8th to tie a game that the Cannons would end up winning 5-4 in 14 innings. So with 4 games remaining the Sailors and Kings were tied and it would stay that way through the weekend. Both clubs won Thursday: the Sailors with a 5 run 7th to rally past Wolves 7-5 while Kings hung on for a 7-6 win in Baltimore. There was plenty of drama Friday in Brooklyn as Kings needed a 4 run bottom of the 9th to scratch out a 7-6 win over Montreal while the Sailors chopped down the Cleveland Foresters 17-2. Both clubs lost on Saturday but each responded with a win in the do or die Sunday afternoon contests. In Brooklyn Tom Barrell went the distance in a 5-2 win over Montreal while William Jones stumbled a little late in the game but was picked up by Rudy Fisher’s 20th save as the Sailors gave up a 4-run lead but eventually prevailed 6-4 over Cleveland to set up Monday’s excitement. For Barrell, it was a redemption of sorts as he was in a similar situation on the final day of the 1935 season but got shelled by the New York Stars and the Kings finished a game back of Cleveland. Monday's game will be the third playoff tiebreaker in FABL history and the first for both Brooklyn and Philadelphia. The Kings have lost the pennant by 1 game in 2 of the last 3 years but finished 3 up on the second place Sailors last season. Many, including all but the most ardent of Brooklyn supporters, felt the Kings were out of it when Al Wheeler in particular, but most of the team in general, went into a terrible swoon after both Tom Barrell and Joe Shaffner - the Kings top two hurlers - went down with injury at the same time. Wheeler went thru a stretch of 46 games in which the 4 time Whitney Award winner hit just 1 homer, but before and after his power took that late-June to early August sabbatical, the Wonder Wheel socked 29 homers, good enough for a third straight CA homerun crown. Barrell was rolling along, leading the CA in era at 2.66 and with a 7-3 record in mid-June before a hamstring injury knocked him out of action for over two months and to make matters worse Shaffner missed a month over the same span. Looking ahead to the playoff game there is very little to separate the two clubs. The Sailors have scored a Continental Association best 792 runs on the season, 3 more than the Kings. Brooklyn pitching has allowed the fewest runs in FABL, just 655 against while the Sailors are tied for the second lowest with 681 against. Head to head the two clubs split their 22 games this season but Brooklyn, surprisingly, won just 4 of the 11 at Kings County Ballpark where the tiebreaker will be held. Home field advantage should give Brooklyn a slight edge but when you consider the Kings top two starters, Shaffner and Tom Barrell, are likely unavailable after pitching on the weekend while Philadelphia has a well rested Doc Newll (20-7, 3.63) ready to go it makes the game a toss-up. Brooklyn will likely counter with Mike Murphy (16-12, 3.67), who has been very good of late in winning his last 8 consecutive decisions.  MINING FOR GOLD. PITTSBURGH WINS THE PENNANT Pittsburgh now gets a little time to rest as they wait to see who they will face in the World Championship Series. Either way it will be a new opponent as Pittsburgh has been to the Series 6 times but have never faced the Sailors or Kings. Miners are 1-5 with their only Series win coming in 1901 over Cleveland after reaching Series but losing each of the previous 3 years, twice to the Cougars and once to Toronto. They also lost in 1907 to Baltimore and 1924 to the Stars. The Miners only Series win was a sweep. 4 of their losses were in 5 games and the fifth needed 6. So I guess the thing to look for in Series will be a CA win. Judging by the very small trend if they Miners lose 1 game they will lose the Series. (Not to put any undue pressure on Allen or Stedman in games one and two)   For Carrol, a 4th round pick out of high school in 1929, it was a breakout year and he is quickly being considered one of the best players in the game. The .400 mark almost never seemed in doubt as he went 3-for-4 on opening day and only was below .400 for his season average on 19 days over the season and never after July 29th. His low point during the season was .392 on July 27th after going 1-for-4 against Chicago but he quickly followed that up with 9 hits in his next 14 at bats to get back over the .400 mark for good. He raised his batting average .055 from an outstanding .354 season a year ago and more than doubled his homerun total from 11 in 1936 to 26 this time around. He led both leagues in batting average and rbi's (130) and was tied for second in the Fed in homers, trailing only Detroit rookie star Sal Pestilli, who hit 33 of them. Carrol should be a lock for the Whitney Award in the Federal Association. He was Fed batter of the month twice and player of the week 6 times this year.  QUICK HITS
KEYSTONES ARE CLASS OF MINOR LEAGUES If minor league success breeds a winning major league organization then the future is very bright in Philadelphia as Keystones and Sailors are 1-2 in minor league success this season. The Keystones 5 minor league affiliates combined to post a .590 winning percentage and claim titles at 3 minor league levels. The cross-town Sailors, who always seem to have a successful minor league program, finished with the second best winning percentage but for a change failed to win a pennant at any of the five levels. The Sailors Class B affiliate in the Southeastern League came close but the Miami Sailors lost in a playoff tiebreaker to the Tampa Cigar Kings, a Brooklyn affiliate. The Miami entry has long been the class of the Southeastern loop with 8 pennants in the league's 12 year history including seven of the last nine years.Here is a look at the cumulative minor league standings for each of the 16 FABL organizations and a list of 1937 pennant winners.  SCOUTING THE 1938 DRAFT CLASS PART FIVE: PITCHERS As has been the case in recent years there are several highly touted high school pitchers including one who has the makings of a future superstar. Of course predicting the future success of a 17 year old pitcher is risky business as injuries have derailed the careers of many promising arms but you have to think that Donnie Jones has the potential to become one of the best pitchers of his generation. OSA does not like pitching so odds are only 1 or two of these guys will make the list of 32 that go into the player lottery but expect a good portion of the remainder to be first round selections in the actual draft phase. JOHN DOBRZYNSKI 20 Eastern State University, Hometown Philadelphia, PA Dobrzynski tied for the AIAA lead in victories last season with his 9-5 record and his 3.27 era was among the best in the college ranks. He combined with teammate Jim Douglass to give Eastern State the best one-two punch in the AIAA last season and much the same should be expected from the duo this year. The righthander from Philadelphia is not pegged to be an ace by OSA, but the scouting services feels he can be a solid middle of the rotation arm.JIM DOUGLASS: 20 Eastern State University, Hometown Haddonfield, NJ Certainly not the same stature as Bobo White and Gus Goulding, who were teammates at St Blane College and went 1-2 in the 1934 draft but Douglass and Dobrzynski may be the most talented pair of college pitching teammates to enter the draft together since the Fighting Saints duo. Douglass was 8-2 with a 2.96 era last season, second lowest in the AIAA. At 15-5 for his college career he stands an outside chance of finishing in the top ten all-time in career AIAA victories. Ed Stevens, who pitched for Travis College from 1925-27 is currently tenth with 26 wins while the leader remains former Georgia Baptist ace Tom Barrell who won 34 games as a collegian. As for Douglass, OSA likes his chances of being a big league starter but feel his ceiling is the back end of the rotation.SAM GOULDING: 17 Springfield (KY) High School Not believed to be any relation to the previously mentioned Glen Goulding. Sam is actually pegged as a reliever by OSA and has come out of the bullpen in nearly half of his 41 high school appearances over the past three seasons. He is a groundball pitcher blessed with plenty of movement on his offerings, the best of which is a nifty curveball. Might be a high risk pick as OSA really does not see him as a starter but does believe he has the makeup to finish games. Perhaps best case is he becomes a Del Lyons type arm and that is not bad as while Lyons has struggled as a starter, he has been terrific coming out of the pen and made a pair of all-star game appearances with the Brooklyn Kings.DONNIE JONES: 17 Minneapolis (MN) High School The next great star perhaps? Donnie is the younger brother of Johnnie Jones, 1936 4th overall pick by the New York Stars, and by all indications will be an even better prospect than Johnnie was. He still has a year of high school eligibility left but has already claimed a list of accomplishments longer than his powerful right arm. Jones is a 2-time High School All-American and received consideration for the Adwell Award both times. He is one of only 4 high school pitchers to go 12-0 in a season. Jones set the single season high school strikeout record in 1936 with 215, no one else ever topped 200. He added 184 k's (8th highest all-time single season) last year and for his three seasons Jones is 4th right now with 525 career strikeouts with another year of eligibility remaining. It seems very likely he will surpass Al Duster's career high school mark of 637 strikeouts. Jones is 33-3 for his career and is also expected to set a new all-time wins mark for a HS pitcher (Al Duster also leads this category with 38). Jones had a 0.43 era in 1936, a standard only surpassed by Rufus Barrell II's 0.38 in 1935 and he will also likely finish among leaders in career HS era. His 0.97 ranks third presently behind only David Molina and Pete Papenfus. OSA might be understating their assessment of Jones saying simply he "has front of the rotation potential." His brother Johnnie earned the moniker "The Patron Saint of Groundballs." Donnie has a similar style and an equally flashy nickname as he is known simply as "Mole Killer." RAY KIRCHNER: 17 Franklin High School, Portland, OR Ray is the son of Raymond Kirchner, who was taken 4th overall out of High School in the 1912 draft but never made the majors. The elder Kirchner did play 15 seasons of pro ball, primarily with AAA Portland and won 165 minor league games. Ray was born in San Francisco while his dad was playing in the Philadelphia Sailors system but he grew up in the Pacific northwest and is another of the growing list of high school phenoms that have come out of Portland in the last few drafts. He has a 28-3 record to go with a 1.23 era over 3 seasons at Franklin High and looks like a potential top of the rotation starter. It might be a stretch for OSA to include him in the top 32 prospect list but if not he will likely be gone in the first couple of picks of the regular draft.TACK ROBINSON: 17 Carver Institute High School, Baltimore, MD The only lefthander in the group being featured, Robinson was overshadowed by some of the other top prospects but seems to be a very comparable pitcher to Sam Goulding. Like Goulding, OSA sees his long term potential as being in the bullpen which devalues him slightly. He does have 3 pitches but his changeup needs a lot of work compared to a good slider and average fastball which might be the reason OSA sees him as a future late inning powerhouse.LYN TREASE: 17 St. Ignatius Prep, San Francisco, CA It is hard to find a pitcher with a better legacy to follow that the 17 year old Trease. His family is baseball royalty with grandfather Lynwood Treaase being a legendary catcher who played 1843 FABL games and won 3 championships as a player and a fourth as a manager. Lyn's father Woody Trease has won 7 minor league pennants as a manager in the Philadelphia Sailors system and presently runs the Sailors AAA outfit in San Francisco but prior to that Woody was also a legend like his father. Instead of catching, Woody was a pitcher and one of the best as he won 325 big league games with Boston and Detroit despite being forced to retire at the age of 31 with arm troubles. Woody won 3 World Championships as a player including one with Boston when his dad was the manager in 1904 and the duo became the first father-son to ever appear on a FABL field together when Lynwood came out of retirement to catch two games. That in itself is an incredible legacy but young Lyn also has a great uncle by the name of Frank Trease who played parts of four seasons in the 1880's before going on to spend close to two decades as a major league manager. With that kind of family history you have to think young Lyn will become a manager someday as well.For the present you have to think he will be a high draft pick on name alone. OSA is not sure if he has the ability to be a big league starter so, barring an incredible senior season at Ignatius Prep the expectation is Trease will not make the top 32 but will draw considerable interest in the first round of the draft. Regardless of OSA's opinions, Trease has put together some solid numbers through 3 high school seasons. He is 31-5 including an 11-0 freshman campaign that earned him All-American status. He also has a shot at ending his high school career with more wins than any other pitcher but is presently 2 behind Donnie Jones.  JACKIE YATES 17 Christiansburg (VA) High School Others to consider are Woody Yanez, who led the AIAA in strikeouts last season at Bayou State and George Sacchetti, a Redwood University righthander who was 6-3 with an impressive 3.41 FIP. On the high school side a pitcher to watch this season might be Slick Wesolowski who was among the high school leaders with 165 strikeouts while posting a 9-2 record for Affton High in St Louis, or perhaps Perth Amboy(NJ) righthander Bert Charles, who was 9-1 with a 1.65 era as a junior. We could likely list more but given the OSA's disdain for placing pitchers high in the mock draft no one else that makes this list will likely qualify for the top 32. TWIFB feels, barring a dominant college newcomer entering the season, there will be just the one pitcher on the final 32 just as Duke Hendricks was the only one a year ago. It will be Donnie Jones almost assuredly but who knows, a big year like his freshman campaign from Lyn Trease could get him there as well. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 10/03/1937
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07-09-2021, 11:13 PM
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#196 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 677
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This Week in Figment Baseball: CA Tie-Breaker edition
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL OCTOBER 5, 1937 : Special CA Tie-breaker Issue KINGS RETAIN CONTINENTAL CROWN After a pair of great pennant races including the Continental Association ending in a dead heat and requiring a tie-breaker, that extra game proved to be far less dramatic and much more one-sided than anything else we have seen all season. The Brooklyn Kings scored three runs in the bottom of the first and then relied on an outstanding pitching effort from Mike Murphy as the Kings rolled to an 8-0 victory over the Philadelphia Sailors to claim their second straight pennant. Brooklyn manager Powell Slocum could not have come up with a better script had he penned it himself as his Kings struck early, received a 4-hit shutout from Murphy and added plenty of insurance later in the game to send the crowd of 22,606 into a wild frenzy in the closing innings. Slocum has often been second guessed over the past four season despite the fact his club has the best record in baseball during that span, but on this day he seemingly pushed every button correctly. It started with the decision to hand the ball to Murphy over Joe Shaffner. Murphy got off to a slow start this season and was 6-10 at the end of July, but since then he has been terrific, winning his last 9 starts to finish the year at 17-12. Some had felt that the Kings, who have tasted more than their share of disappointment in big games the past few seasons should have given the ball to Joe Shaffner instead despite the fact Shaffner had pitched just two days prior. Joe insisted he was ready should be called on, but also said the club had plenty of confidence in the 29 year old Murphy, who has gone 97-55 over the past 5 and a half seasons in Brooklyn. All Shaffner did was lead the CA in ERA and shutouts, tossing 5 of them down the stretch and finishing with a 20-4 record. As it turned out Slocum had the magic pencil in putting Murphy's name on the line-up card as it allows the red-hot Shaffner to start the Series opener against Pittsburgh with a fully rested Tom Barrell saved for game two and presumably Murphy getting the third game. It was also a redemption of sorts for 24 year old outfielder Bill May. Like Murphy, May had a rough start to the season and was batting just .233 in mid-June. The Brooklyn lead-off man did lead the CA in stolen bases with 30 thefts but his .275 batting average and .326 on-base percentage were both down substantially from his first two seasons as an everyday player. None of that mattered on Monday as May was the offensive star of the game, going 3-for-4 with a homerun, his 9th of the season, 5 rbi's and 2 runs scored. Oh and he also found time to swipe two bases. It wasn't a hit but rather May's lead-off walk, something he has done far too infrequently this year, that set the tone for a 3-run first inning that immediately sent the Sailors, and starting pitcher Doc Newell (20-8), on their heels. Joe Perret delivered a one-out double to plate May and then Al Wheeler followed with an RBI single to score Frank Lightbody, who was forced to replace Perret after the veteran tweaked his back legging out his double. An error by rookie Sailors shortstop Rip Lee, the first of his two miscues on the day, allowed Brooklyn to get a third run which as it turned out would be far more than Mike Murphy would require to bring another pennant to Kings County.  The Philadelphia Sailors, while clearly disappointed with the ending, have to be very happy with how their season went and it is clear that they will be in many more pennant races in the coming years. The Chicago Cougars are also a team on the upswing so for Brooklyn, a team that is certainly not old but one with a much smaller window and perhaps more competition for pennants going forward, needed to finish the job here. It also helped exorcize demons that have plagued the club for four years and include two 'final day of the season' pennant losses to Cleveland before finally winning the CA title a year ago but struggling down the stretch and nearly being caught by a rising Sailors club before being swept by the Chicago Chiefs in the series. The true test of whether this Brooklyn team finally can stop being it's own worst enemy, and finally vanquish the so-called Curse of Ferdinand Hawkins, will come in the next few days as the Kings turn their attention to the Pittsburgh Miners. Pittsburgh does have one World Championship Series title, something the Kings remain the only FABL club never to claim, but the Miners have been nearly as inept as Brooklyn (0-for-4) in Series play with their only win in 6 attempts coming way back in 1901. None of the current Miners were born when Pittsburgh last won the title and none of them played on the Miners when the club last reached the Series in 1924 so their wounds are much less fresh then the many cuts the Kings have endured the past few seasons. Add the two-headed albatross that Brooklyn wears in the forms of zero World Championships and the Curse talk and you can bet there will still be some Brooklyn players gripping the bat a little too tightly when the Series gets underway, but at least now there is hope that the win over the Sailors in an elimination game might finally allow the team to just focus on playing the baseball they are capable of. On paper Brooklyn should win this series, especially considering Pittsburgh will be forced to start lightly regarded Johnny Guzzo at shortstop because their roster is so injury depleted. The Kings have been expected to do much better than they have done over the previous three years so anything can happen but one has to think this is Brooklyn's series to win or lose. Add in the good luck charm that is backup catcher Jim Kyle and the odds should really tip in the Kings favour. Kyle, as has been well documented, plays sparingly and the 31 year old is on his fifth team but he somehow seems to be in the right spot at the right time every three years. He won a World Championship Series with the Sailors in 1928, with the Cougars in 1931 and with the Foresters in 1934. Well, it's 1937 so that alone should secure a Brooklyn win....well, as long as the Luck of Kyle can triumph over the Curse of Hawkins. QUICK HITS
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07-10-2021, 12:03 AM
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#197 |
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All Star Starter
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Seattle area
Posts: 1,022
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Let me tell you this. When Detroit gifted C Jim Kyle to Brooklyn before the start of the season it was for this expected outcome. When Brooklyn fans and management were in a panic in August being 7 games out, there was Jim Kyle. When it took a run at the end of the season to force the tie, there was Jim Kyle. And today when the Kings were in a 1 game winner take all CA Finale, there was Jim Kyle.
While the 31 year old is basically a career backup (other than a brief time being the Foresters everyday catcher until we brought in TR Goins). He has hit 288 this in Brooklyn and driven in 21 RBI’s in just 104 at-bats. He has played behind Goins and Taylor who were both top of the line catchers in his career. So remember when the Kings take the field against the Miners that you have baseballs every 3 year good luck charm. While many in Brooklyn are fearing the curse of some old dead SP from the past (Ferdy Hawkins). Remember that Jim Kyle fears no man, ghost or curse. He is the good luck charm that Brooklyn has needed. His mere presence means more than his bat or glove. He is the curse killer and he will deliver Brooklyn their long awaited World Championship. His name is Jim Kyle and he will end the curse in 6 games! (PS - Just remember I need him back for Detroit’s magic run in 1940) |
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07-10-2021, 05:38 AM
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#198 |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Ontario Canada
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Very nice and hopefully Kyle has a little more magic left in him. It is great how these stories like Jim Kyle develop and take on a life of their own.
As for 1940. It will be tough to promise a return to Detroit. The magic that is Jim Kyle doesn’t seem to work for the same team twice so if the Kings somehow did get that elusive first WCS title I would likely have to move him in the off-season to provide any hope of a championship run in 1938. And the price for Kyle would be huge if you were just buying a backup catcher, but a mere pittance when one considers he is also a talisman carrying a promise of glory for someone new every third season. But I am clearly getting ahead of myself. The Kings have much work left to do still.
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Cliff Markle HOB1 greatest pitcher 360-160, 9 Welch Awards, 11 WS titles |
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07-10-2021, 10:47 PM
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#199 |
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All Star Reserve
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This Week in Figment Baseball: 1937 World Championship Series
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL OCTOBER 8, 1937: WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES GAME ONE ALLEN LEADS MINERS TO WIN IN SERIES OPENER A tremendous outing by Lefty Allen allowed the Pittsburgh Miners to strike first in the World Championship Series, as they coasted to a 7-2 victory in front of over 43,000 frenzied fans at Pittsburgh's Fitzpatrick Park. Except for a slight struggle in the fourth inning when Allen surrendered back to back doubles to Brooklyn's John Langille and Fred Barrell, the 23 year old Miners star was in complete control of the game, scattering seven hits while walking two in going the distance. In contrast, Brooklyn starter Joe Shaffner had a day he would wish to soon forget. Shaffner had been outstanding the past month and a half and had the lowest ERA in either league during the season, but that did not impress the Miners hitters who jumped all over him right from the get go. Shaffner got Miners lead-off man Joe Owens to ground out to start the game but then he walked Cy Bryant and allowed a single to George Cleaves. A sac fly from Ray Cochran and a Lou Kelly double had the Miners up 2-0 after one inning and their bats never slowed down, adding another run on a solo homer from Henry Clayton in the second inning and made it 4-0 on a Kelly sacrifice fly in the third. Brooklyn briefly made a game of it with their 4th inning outburst to cut the Miners lead in half but that was all Allen would allow and the Pittsburgh bats chased Shaffner in the 6th by adding some insurance with 3 more runs. Lou Kelly, with a first inning double to score the second run of the game and a sacrifice fly also had a strong outing as did Pittsburgh second baseman Henry Clayton, with a homer and two runs scored, but the star of the show was Allen, who led the Federal Association with 22 wins during the season. "Nothing fazes Lefty," gushed Miners Manager Dan Andrew after the game. "Looking at him out there on a stage like this, it's hard to believe he is just 23 years old." Fred Barrell, who has had a trying season this year hitting just .211 -nearly .100 points below his average a year ago - was the best of a struggling Kings offense today. Barrell, who was MVP of the 1931 Series when he was with the Chicago Cougars, went 2 for 3 and drove in both Brooklyn runs.
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
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07-10-2021, 11:33 PM
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#200 |
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All Star Reserve
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This Week in Figment Baseball: 1937 World Championship Series Game Two
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL OCTOBER 9, 1937: WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES GAME TWO CONTROVERSIAL DECESION LET'S KINGS UP FROM CANVAS PITTSBURGH MANAGER PULLS STEDMAN AND MINERS COLLAPSE ENSUES A seven run outburst in the top of the 8th inning brought the Brooklyn Kings back from the brink and gave the club renewed hope as they rallied for an 8-4 victory in game two and evened the World Championship Series with the Pittsburgh Miners at one win apiece. When we look back at this series it is quite possible that baseball historians will point to a highly questioned move made by Pittsburgh skipper Dan Andrew as the turning point in the Series. Pittsburgh fans, and once again there were well over 40,000 of them in attendance, went from a raucous party atmosphere to one of complete shock in a matter of minutes as the game turned on their club so quickly. Charlie Stedman pitched the first 7 innings for Pittsburgh scattering six hits and, aside from a first inning when Brooklyn scratched out a run without getting a hit - a walk to Frank Vance, a stolen base, a wild pitch and then he scored on Joe Perret's ground out - Stedman was in complete control and up 3-1 after 7 innings when Andrew told him he would not be going back out to pitch the 8th inning. Yes, Stedman had allowed 2 singles in the 6th inning and a double to his opposite number Tom Barrell in the 7th, but the Kings look demoralized and like a team that was once again in danger of being swept, perhaps weighed down as much by all of the talk for years about living with "The Curse" as much as they were overwhelmed by a gutsy Pittsburgh club. But then something almost instantly changed as Stedman remained in the dugout with his warmup jacket on while Lou Ellertson trotted out to the mound for the 8th inning. Ellertson, a 30 year old in his first season with the Miners after a number of years and a World title with the Gothams in New York, had saved 10 games this season and boasted a 13-4 record. All looked right in the world to Miners fans when Ellertson fanned the first Brooklyn hitter he faced, Joe Perret, who was caught looking on a full count fastball and walked back to the Kings dugout looking as dejected and beaten as the rest of the club appeared. Then the walls came crumbling down. Ellerston walked Al Wheeler on 4 pitches and proceeded to do the same with pinch-hitter Alf Pestilli. He did throw a strike to John Langille but only one and walked the Brooklyn second baseman to suddenly load the bases. Suddenly there was chatter in the visitor's dugout and, for the first time a sense of hope. Doug Lightbody, the longest tenured King and lone holdover from their 1927 pennant winning club, delivered a huge pinch-hit single on a 2-2 count to score two runs and tie the game at 3 and the body language in both clubs instantly reversed. The Kings weren't done with Ellertson yet, but Pittsburgh skipper Andrew probably should have been. Instead Andrew, like nearly everyone else in the stadium not supporting the Kings sat silently with mouth agape at what was transpiring before their eyes. A Harry Barrell triple plated two more and even Brooklyn pitcher Tom Barrell got in on the act with a single to score his younger brother. Joe Perret, who started the inning with a strikeout, got another crack at Ellertson this frame and with two out, delivered an rbi single to make the score 8-3 before, mercifully, Ellertson ended the carnage by fanning Al Wheeler. Pittsburgh would get a run back in the bottom of the ninth off of Bob Cummings, who took over from Tom Barrell for the final frame after Barrell pitched 8 solid innings, but the Miners, their fans, and probably even the Kings were in disbelief at the sudden turn of events. Charlie Stedman had little to say after the game so we don't know if he was tiring after 121 pitches - he did allow 3 of his 6 hits against in the two previous innings - or if Andrew, who simply said it was his decision as he glumly faced reporters in their Miners clubhouse afterwards, just felt the move made sense based on Ellertson's strong season. What is known is this: We suddenly have a Series when just a short-time earlier the Brooklyn Kings, a team used to September and October disappointments and were swept a year ago in the Series by the Chicago Chiefs, seemed to be on life support until Ellerston, and his skipper Andrew allowed their hopes and dreams to be resuscitated, bringing Brooklyn back into the Series. The question now is 'Will Andrew's decision and Ellertson's collapse' be looked back on as what cost the Miners the Series or will Pittsburgh recover and it be merely a footnote? Only time will tell as the two clubs board the train for Brooklyn today in advance of tomorrow's third game.
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