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05-31-2021, 02:51 PM
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#161 | |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
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This Week in Figment Baseball: April 12, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL APRIL 12, 1937 SPRING TRAINING We are down to just a week remaining of spring action before the games count for real and there may be some small cause for concern for last season's pennant winners as both the World Champion Chicago Chiefs and Continental Association pennant winning Brooklyn Kings have seen a shortage of offense in preseason action. Could it be a post-season hangover? The bats in Brooklyn actually went into a deep freeze long ago, as the club went into a funk last September and by all indications this spring the Brooklyn bats have still not thawed out as we hit the final week of spring training. Starting catcher Fred Barrell is hitting .050 in camp, his brother 4-time all star shortstop Harry Barrell just .205, and veteran third baseman Frank Vance is batting .243, The three backup infielders (Jake Shadoan, Walt Layton and Jud Hall) are batting a combined .181 while outfielders Frank Lightbody and Joe Perret are both having a rough camp. Doug Lightbody has been the one positive at the plate for Brooklyn as the Kings have given him plenty of at bats to determine if the 33 year old can bounce back from another injury plagued season. Doug has looked very good, hitting .350 in camp and evoking memories of his 1934-35 seasons when he won one batting title and finished second the other season. Another positive in Brooklyn has been the pitching as 7 of the 8 pitchers expected to break camp have looked very good with the lone exception being Del Lyons, who has been inconsistent this spring.  DRAKE IS OFF TO SLOW SPRING START Leon Drake is struggling in Detroit, hitting just .214 but does have a pair of homers. Drake will certainly by on Max Morris' lineup card come Opening Day but the outfield might be crowded for the Dynamos with Buck Waldrop, Irv Brady and the rookie Sal Pestilli all hitting well in Florida. The first 2 are out of options as is Ray Cochran, who is having a rough spring. And you still have to find space for Serna and Henry Jones, but they each have an option remaining as does Pete Thomas who looked good in a brief audition last season after coming over from the Gothams.  Of course the big question for Morris on everyone's mind is how much will he play. Might Max has yet to homer, or even have an extra base hit in the spring but he is batting .364 in 22 at bats so looks like he can still contribute. It remains to be seen how often Morris will put his own name on the lineup card as the only current player/manager in FABL. Sources in Detroit expect Morris to be playing 4-5 games a week, at least to start the season. ANOTHER SETBACK FOR ROBINSON A couple of his former teams weighed on Earle Robinson after the 21 year old righthander suffered yet another serious injury last week. Robinson was recently acquired by Cleveland in the deal that sent Leon Drake and Max Morris to Detroit. The former first round pick has been plagued by injuries and it's feared this time it might be one that firmly ends his status as a future ace. Detroit assistant General Manager Ben Hathaway wonders what could have been. "When we got him in the Wheeler/Vance deal, I really thought he’d be a keeper and long term eventual solution. Then 2 seasons of injuries that significantly limited his action made the Dynamos decide to try and deal him. Now that he’s moved on I see he is out 4 months once again. What would his career have been if he wasn’t “wrecked” injury wise at 21?" Brooklyn Manager Powell Slocum had similar thoughts on their former prospect: "Unfortunately, he is another Bill Dengler or Johnny Jacob. Kings just seem to attract these types of pitchers - super potential but careers get derailed by injuries. Robinson was a 5th overall pick who suffered a 3 month back injury 1 month into his career that bothered him that entire season. Traded to Detroit and throws a no-hitter (to go with a HS perfect game) in his Dynamo minor league debut against our Tampa farm team. A month later the back problems flare up and he is shut down for the year but does rise to #21 on the prospect list entering the next season (1936). Two months into the '36 he fractures his elbow ending another season for him. Now in camp with the Foresters after being part of the Morris/Drake deal and he gets hurt in camp -elbow again - which means he will miss most of the season once again and is no longer listed as a top 100 prospect. I hope the kid can come back from this latest setback but it does not look promising." QUICK HITS Lew Seals is making nice progress this spring, the top 20 prospect has hit well in Pittsburgh camp and Miners’ manager Dan Andrew thinks he should break camp as the starting center fielder, but before this spring, Seals had never played in any level higher than the Class A Heartland league. Gus Goulding is human after all. The Baltimore Cannons young phenom went 8-0 in his first 8 big league starts and then won his spring debut followed up by a decent showing but no decision in a win the next start. Well he finally lost - twice in a row but it was more due to run support as the Cannons scored just 1 run in each of the two defeats. KINGS ADD GOOD LUCK CHARM Did the Brooklyn Kings just discover a good luck charm that will trump the Curse of Ferdinand Hawkins? The Kings - the only FABL club never to win a World Championship Series - just added a backup catcher who has won 3 World Titles with 3 different teams. Those victories for Jim Kyle came as a 22 year old rookie with the Philadelphia Sailors in 1928, with the Chicago Cougars in 1931 and with the Cleveland Foresters in 1934. So if the pattern holds Kyle will win his fourth championship with four different Continental Association clubs this October. I don't think you will ever find a backup catcher who has had a more interesting career than Kyle. He has 2 more World Championship rings than he has Series plate appearances.  Smith was a long-time favourite of Kings General Manager Tiger Fan as he was part of the GM's first draft class back in 1935. Here is what the Kings had to say about the deal. Quote:
TREASE FAMILY LEGACY SET TO CONTINUE The 1938 draft is still well over a year away but there seems to be a number of top prospects with ties to famous names in FABL that will possibly be selected early in the selection process. You know it has to be a good draft when you see the names Slocum, Trease and York among the class. They are not Hall of Famer Powell Slcoum, nor are they Woody Trease or Dick York but they are the sons of those three. York, a long-time Detroit catcher and now a manager in the Dynamos system, actually has a son eligible in each of the next two drafts. Joe, a shortstop, is entering his senior season at Terre Haute (IN) High School and is possibly a 5th-10th round prospect in the upcoming June draft. 17 year old Rick is a junior and like his father, a catcher. Rick was an honourable mention on the 1936 High School All-American team as a sophomore and, while it is still early, he is considered a potential first round pick in the 1938 draft. Powell Slocum, who was recently named to the inaugural class of the Hall of Fame and is baseball's all-time hit leader, also has a son eligible for the 1938 draft. Well a step-son actually as Powell adopted the grandson of Rufus Barrell after marrying the boy's mother. 17 year old James is a junior outfielder at Brooklyn's Xaverian High School and like Rick York, is drawing some early attention as a possible first round selection. One player can go even further tracing his baseball roots as pitcher Lynwood Trease III is actual a third generation prospect. His grandfather Lynwood was a catcher from 1876-1904 and had 2,262 career hits and won 3 Championships while his father Woody won 325 games for Boston and Detroit between 1901-1912, all before his 32nd birthday. After having his career cut short due to arm troubles, Woody went into coaching and has been the manager of the Philadelphia Sailors AAA affiliate in San Francisco the past four seasons, leading the Hawks to three Great Western League pennants during that time. Woody's son Lynn is a 17 year old righthander for St. Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco and has posted a 21-2 record over two seasons with the Wildcats. Young Lynn. now a high school junior, will have quite the legacy to live up to as both his father and grandfather appear to be likely candidates to at some point be enshrined in the newly created Hall of Fame. In addition to stellar playing careers the Trease's also spent time in the coaching ranks and Lynwood holds the distinction of likely being the oldest player to ever suit up for a big league game and also the only one to appear on the field in a contest with his son. It happened in 1904 when Lynwood, now 53 years old and retired for over a decade, was a coach with the Boston Minutemen. He came out of retirement to catch a pair of July games including one in which his son Woody, then a 23 year old Minutemen hurler, was pitching. The pair would team up to win the World Championship Series that year. It would be Lynwood's only coaching stint in the big leagues as he moved on to the Eastern Association as a manager. Woody would perhaps be known as the winningest pitcher in baseball history had he not been forced to retire at the age of 32 and move in to coaching. Even with the tragic early end to his pitching career, Woody is still considered one of the greatest pitchers in FABL history. 
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 05-31-2021 at 02:52 PM. |
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06-01-2021, 03:31 PM
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#162 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 677
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This Week In Figment Baseball: April 18, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL April 18, 1937 SAILORS SET COURSE FOR PENNANT Looking to build on a solid second place finish in the Continental Association a year ago, the Philadelphia Sailors made a statement as they posted the best record of spring training. The Sailors went 17-7 to finish 3 games up on the Chicago Cougars among Continental Association clubs. The defending CA champion Brooklyn Kings finished at 11-13, good for a 5th place tie with Toronto. While 8 games separated the Sailors from the last place New York Stars and Montreal Saints in the Continental Association, the Federal Association saw all 8 teams finish within 2 games of the lead- which was shared by the defending World Champion Chicago Chiefs along with Pittsburgh and Washington.  BALTIMORE - While most of the focus will be on young guns Gus Goulding, John Edwards and Rusty Petrick, veteran Cannon pitchers Pinky Conlan and Ben White enjoyed strong springs. Conlan allowed just 1 earned run in 16 innings of work as the 27 year old looks to try and finally have his first winning season as a big leaguer. It will be his 7th year with Baltimore and Conlan is 25-49 for his career including 3-7 a year ago. The 31 year old White was brilliant out of the pen, surrendering just 2 hits and no runs against in 13 and two-thirds relief innings. BOSTON - The Minutemen were sent reeling early in spring when 1934 first round pick Bob Donoghue suffered a fractured thumb. The good news is Donoghue should be back in a week and looking to build on the terrific start he had last season prior to a season ending injury suffered in May. Minutemen fans have to be delighted with the spring John Wicklund enjoyed. The 27 year old catcher who was acquired from the Gothams last summer, hit .333 with 4 homers and 11 rbi's in 16 spring appearances. Wicklund is a two-time participant in the FABL all-star game. BROOKLYN- The Kings unveiled new uniforms in the spring but other than that there were no changes in Brooklyn as the exact same 23 players who finished the year with the pennant winners are back in Brooklyn this year. Curly Jones (2-0, 1.12), the former Gotham first overall pick, had a solid spring as did Tom Barrell (0-0, 0.690, Mike Murphy (1-0, 1.35) and Joe Shaffner (2-1, 1.33). The bats started slow in the spring but most picked up with the notable exception of Fred Barrell, who hit just .118 in spring play. Veteran Doug Lightbody (.292,0,6) cooled off after a strong start but the Kings say he will get the nod over Elmer Nolde as the opening day starter in left field. CHICAGO CHIEFS - The defending champs pitching staff looked ready to go but their were a lot of Chiefs hitters struggling at the plate with none perhaps more noticeable than Bob Martin. The 30 year old third baseman, who hit .355 a year ago, went just 9-for-48 (.182) in spring action. CHICAGO COUGARS - Will the Pug Bryan era in Chicago begin? The 1934 second round pick who enjoyed an outstanding college career at Lincoln College looks like he earned a spot on the Cougars 23 man roster following a spring that saw him post a 1.65 era in 4 starts. The rotation might get crowded in Chicago with Dave Rankin, Dick Lyons, Hardin Bates and Oscar Morse, a veteran waiver pickup from the Sailors all likely earning spots. Does this mean it might be the end of the line for Tommy Wilcox in the Windy City. If so it will be a sad ending for the 30 year old who was among the best, if not the best pitcher in the game just a few short years ago but then suffered a devastating arm injury. CLEVELAND FORESTERS - The injury to top pitching prospect Earle Robinson put a real damper on Foresters camp early in the spring and the club executives had another mild scare this week when Sergio Gonzales left a game with a back injury. The good news is the 25 year old, who had a breakout 15-7 season a year ago, should be fine and is expected to be ready to start this week. Cleveland recently moved pitcher Eddie Quinn (13-10, 4.17) to Washington so a lengthy injury to Gonzales might have been very concerning. Other than that it has been a quiet spring from Cleveland, so perhaps the Sailors and Kings better watch out as Cleveland's fall to third place last season after two straight CA pennants likely leaves the organization motivated for a big year this time around. DETROIT DYNAMOS - While much of the talk in Detroit surrounded the absence of owner Eddie Thompson from spring activities the big news was the play of first overall draft pick Sal Pestilli. The two-time Christian Trophy winner from Narragansett College looked right at home in his first big league camp, hitting .327 with 4 homers and a .459 on base percentage. His boss, player-manager Max Morris, led the club in spring hitting with a .414 average but surprisingly the all-time homerun king and Hall of Famer did not deliver any extra base hits in his 33 plate appearances. Detroit claimed third baseman Buck Sargent off waivers from the Philadelphia Keystones. The 28 year old hit just .185 for Philadelphia last year but looked very good the previous season with 15 homers and a .266 average in 110 games. MONTREAL SAINTS - I tried to find a positive thing to talk about in Montreal but there just isn't much after posting a 9-15 mark, tied with the New York Stars for the worst spring record among the 16 teams. The pitching was not good and to make matters worse, 26 year old Pete Sparks - who won 20 games at AA Dayton a year ago before being selected by Montreal in the rule 5 draft - is going to start the season on the shelf with a nagging muscle strain. Very few Saints hitters did much in the spring with the best of the lot likely being outfielder John Collins, who hit .280 with a pair of homers. I guess we can take this as good news: Adam Mullins, the Saints promising young catcher who missed the final two months of his rookie season with a broken hand, is healthy and played in 18 spring games, batting .240. NEW YORK STARS- Pitchers Gene Stevens and Harry Carter, who both missed time late last season with back injuries, each had a strong spring. Both the 31 year old Stevens, who was 9-9 a year ago, and the 26 year old Carter, who posted an 8-9 record in 1936, pitched 16 spring innings and each had a sparkling 1.12 era. 32 year old outfielder Mike Mason was the best of the spring hitters for the Stars as he hit .310 in 42 spring at bats. Like Stevens and Carter, Mason was hobbled by a wonky back last season which limited him to 106 games: his lowest total in 6 years. Mason did hit .318 a year ago, the high water mark for his career. NEW YORK GOTHAMS- The rebuild is underway and Gothams fans will need a program to recognize all of the newcomers. Among those who impressed in spring action are outfielder Howard Brown Jr., who hit .370. The 24 year old Brown, who was acquired from Boston along with pitcher Dick Gentry and a second round pick in the deal that sent all-star catcher John Wicklund to the Minutemen, actually made his FABL debut last September with Gothams. Gentry, who joined the Gothams right after the trade and made 12 starts a year ago will be, barring a late waiver wire pickup, the pitcher with the second most FABL games started on the Gothams roster come Opening Day. Veteran Jim Lonardo remains the New York ace but the rest of the rotation could be Mule Earl, Ernie Wise and Gary Heuser, who have combined for 12 FABL starts in their careers. PHILADELPHIA KEYSTONES - Let's hope this is not a sign of things to come. Rankin Kellogg hit just .217 (although he did blast a pair of spring homers) in his 72 plate appearances. Last year the three time Whitney Award winner got off to a terrible start before coming on strong in the second half of the season. For the Keystones to bounce back they need a much more consistent effort from Kellogg this time around. Pitching is the other big worry for the 'Stones and concerns were alleviated slightly after Frank Crawford posted some outstanding spring numbers. The 28 year old had a rough season a year ago so a bounce back year is needed. It remains to be seen if the Keystones brass feels 21 year old Jim Whiteley showed enough to earn a ticket north with the big club. The 1933 first round pick out of Mobile High School posted a 1.69 era in 4 spring starts and looked right at home in the starting lineup. The question is do the Keystones feel a half season of AAA competition was enough to justify giving Whiteley some April starts in the big leagues? PHILADELPHIA SAILORS - Are the Sailors now the team to beat in the Continental Association? Other than a serious shoulder injury to rule 5 pickup Walker Pearce everything seemed to go right for the Sailors this spring. The pitching, as usual, looks solid and, unlike many of their CA foes, the Sailors bats looked to be in midseason form with veteran infielders Mack Deal and Jack Cleaves leading the way. PITTSBURGH MINERS - In my spring preview I said outfielder Lew Seals was a player to watch in Pittsburgh and wow, did he deliver. The 23 year old, who was taken 7th overall out of Bluegrass State in the 1934 draft, had not played above Class A but he went out and hit .423 (11-for-26) with a pair of homers in 19 spring games. Meanwhile, veteran center fielder Cy Bryant hit just .233 with no extra base hits so is that enough to earn Seals the starting job in centerfield. Staying in the outfield there is little doubt that Mahlon Strong, when healthy, is one of the best sluggers in the game. The key word is healthy and the often-injured Strong is dinged up again to start the season. It's just day-to-day but is his hip strain something that can linger much longer than the 2 weeks it is expected to affect him? Looks like 28 year old third baseman Ed Stewart is ready to try and improve upon his career best 31 homer season from last year. The 7 year veteran was tied for the FABL spring lead with 4 round trippers. It looks like the Miners are getting good news about Lefty Allen. After a late season arm injury caused some concern and put a damper on the 23 year old former first round pick's breakout 17-11 season a year ago, Allen looks fully recovered. The lefthander made 3 spring starts and did not allow a run, fanning 7 and surrendering just 4 hits in 12 innings of work. ST LOUIS PIONEERS - Three of the Pioneers top prospects failed to make the club after struggling in the spring. Pitcher Dixie Lee, outfielder Al Tucker and catcher Heinie Zimmer will all head back to AAA. Lee struggled last season with the Pioneers, posting a 3-12 record with a 5.25 era and was equally poor in the spring so he gets farmed out to Oakland. Big things were expected of the 24 year old Tucker and 22 year old Zimmer, both top 15 OSA prospects, but neither showed much in the spring. Zimmer hit just .185 and was dispatched to Oakland last week while Tucker was given some time again this past week to show what he can do, but the 1931 third round pick struggled hitting just .169 in spring play. The big surprise is Hal Sharp as the 23 year old outfielder cracked the 23-man roster after spending last season in AA. Sharp was outstanding at that level a year ago with a .354 batting average and he carried his hot bat to camp where he hit .379 to earn a roster spot. TORONTO WOLVES - Offense has been an issue this spring for a number of teams but perhaps no one more so than the Toronto Wolves, who have hit just .199 as a team this spring. Their top hitter this spring was Jim Higginbotham, a 25 year old catcher acquired from independent Sacramento over the winter. Higginbotham, who played his college ball at Chicago Poly before being taken by the Sailors in the 13th round of the 1932 draft, went 7-for-17 with 2 homers in 9 spring appearances but will start the season in the minors. The good news for Toronto is the pitching was very good, especially from young star Joe Hancock and 31 year old lefthander Otis Cook. WASHINGTON EAGLES - Pitching was the big concern entering the spring for the Eagles but perhaps they found an answer in Bobo White. The first overall pick of the 1934 draft had an awful year in AAA Kansas City last season, going 6-16 with a 6.35 era but he earned himself a spot in Washington and the opportunity to make his big league debut after a spring training for the ages. White made 5 starts and threw 18 scoreless innings. Yes, it is only spring training but the Eagles are clearly excited to see if the former second team All-American at St Blane is ready for big league glory. Almost overlooked with the hype surrounding White was the efforts of 26 year old righthander Mike Knight this spring. The former 15th round pick who was lost in the rule V draft but later returned to the Eagles was 2-0 in 4 spring starts, posting a 1.12 era in 16 innings of work. Knight was 9-8 with a 5.37 era last season for the Eagles, his third year in the big leagues. FIGMENT SPORTING JOURNAL'S MOCK DRAFT The 1937 draft class is about a month away from reveal date but The Figment Sporting Journal weighs in with an early look at what we consider to be the ten best prospect available. This year's draft will have a new format so there should be plenty of excitement and a lot of unpredictability as to who goes where among the top 32 players in the pool but here are the ones we feel are the cream of the crop. 1- ROOSEVELT BREWER 2B/SS Washington High School, Chicago, Illinois Described as having plus defensive skills, impressive speed and well above average contact potential, the 17 year old Chicago native looks like the prototypical FABL middle infielder. Brewer was a High School All-American selection after hitting an impressive .551 last season. Seems to be very comparable to Billy Woytek, who went 3rd overall to the Keystones a year ago. 2-WILLIE HALL SS/2B Athol High School, Athol, Massachusetts Although he played his high school ball out of state, Hall is another of the great talents to come out of Rhode Island recently. The Pestilli boys including last year's first overall pick Sal are the big names putting Rhode Island on the baseball map but Hall is a player who will add to that excitement. The state actually has a rich tradition of supplying big league talent led by former infielders Jack Arabian (1896-1915) and Fred Roby (1888-1910) each of whom surpassed the 3,000 hit plateau in their careers. When his career is over perhaps Hall might one day be compared to fellow Woonsocket native Arabian. 3-AL DUSTER - RHP Council Bluffs High School, Council Bluffs, Iowa Babe Freese, who went 76-77 for Montreal between 1916-1922 is the most famous pitcher to come out of Council Bluffs, Iowa but that will likely change in the near future with the emergence of Al Duster. The 1936 High School All-American played for Council Bluffs High School but was actually born in Nebraska. The 18 year old is 29-3 over 3 seasons with the Reivers and stands a great chance of breaking Rufus Barrell II's career record for wins by a high school pitcher. Deuce was 35-6 for Macon High School in Georgia before being selected first overall in the 1935 draft. Duster, who is nicknamed 'The Prince of the Prairie' has the potential to be an ace, with four solid pitches highlighted by an elite change-up. 4-BILL WILLMAN - RHP Strub College. Hometown: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Our pick to be the first college player to be drafted, Willman is a 20 year old Pittsburgh native who starred for his hometown Strub College Sycamores. The competition level is just average but Willman followed up a decent freshman campaign with a terrific sophomore season, posting an 11-3 record and being named a second team College All-American. Described as a real worm killer, his plus sinker ball is the best of his three pitches. He might not have quite the upside of Duster but is projected by OSA to potentially be a top of the rotation starter. 5- PETE CASSTEVENS - C Syracuse High School, Syrcause New York The son of Clint Casstevens, who was a former first round pick that played 1,259 games for Montreal and Pittsburgh, Pete was born in Montreal but is playing high school ball in Syracuse, which was the final stop of his dad's decade long career as an outfielder. Described by OSA as possessing all the tools to be an elite catcher, Pete was a High School All-American as a junior after he hit .500 with 10 homers and only 1936 2nd overall selection Walt Messer had more longballs than Casstevens hit last year. 6- SPUD BENT - 3B Maryland State, Hometown: New York City Bent has already played 3 seasons of college ball and was a second team All-American selection last year after batting .308 with 9 homers in 58 games for the Bengals. He is expected to provide above average defense at the hot corner and projects to be an elite hitter, but does need work on strike zone recognition. 7- LUKE MICHEALS - SS Santa Barbara High School, Santa Barbara California Another of the elite middle infielders at the top of this draft class, the 18 year old Los Angeles native has a .511 career average over 3 seasons of high school ball. He is projected to be a tremendous hitter and is a very athletic shortstop. 8- ALEX LACOMB - OF/1B Cuyahoga University: Hometown Cleveland, Ohio LaComb first drew attention two years ago as a freshman when he hit .357 and edged out Sal Pestilli for the college batting crown. He was named a second team All-American selection that year and followed it up last season by earning first team honours as a sophomore but finished second to Pestilli in the batting race. He has not shown the extra base power that Pestilli showed last season but perhaps this year will reveal that facet of LaComb's game. The one knock on his numbers might be that, like Pestilli, LaComb played against just average level competition in college. Blazing speed is the first thing you notice of LaComb in the outfield and he will not hurt his team defensively while also displaying the potential to be a .350 hitter in the big leagues. 9- PAUL WILKERSON - C Oklahoma City State University : Hometown Cleveland, Ohio Much like the 1934 draft when we had a pair of elite catching prospects in college star Adam Mullins and high school catcher Woody Stone, this class also gives us a pair of catchers with high ceilings. Casstevens is certainly the prize of this draft but Wilkerson would be a nice consolation prize for a team looking for it's catcher of the future. He is raw having played just one season at Oklahoma City State but what a year it was as Wilkerson hit .338 and was named a first team All-American selection. He should be a solid hitter but his biggest strength is the above average defensive value Wilkerson brings to the table. Surprisingly only one player born in Cleveland has ever been selected in the first round. That was Carl Mellen, a pitcher who won 187 games after being selected 16th overall by Baltimore (then known as the Clippers) 16th overall. There have never been two players selected in the first ten rounds of any draft that were born in Cleveland* but that will certainly change this year with LaComb and Wilkerson. *The 1934 draft did have one player (Jimmy Gibbs 8th round) born in Cleveland and one from East Cleveland (Woody Quartey 7th round) selected 10- PREACHER PIETSCH - RHP Brooklyn Catholic University: Hometown Raleigh, North Carolina There was no way I could just list 2 pitchers in the top ten as recent history (5 went in the top ten last year, 3 in 1935, 5 in 1934) indicates we will certainly see more than two of them off the board that quickly. However, the new modified rules for this draft involving a lottery process for the first two rounds of mock draft listed players will likely diminish the number of pitchers taken in the first two rounds so it will be round three that we see a run on arms. Either way, I expect several teams will be looking very closely at Pietsch. Pietsch is one of the few players in this class who was drafted before but failed to sign out of high school. The 21 year old went 8-1 for his high school team in 1934 and was selected in the 7th round by Washington but opted instead to attend Brooklyn Catholic. The move appears to have paid off as he went 15-10 over his first two college seasons and, while he still needs time to develop, OSA feels he possesses great talent and seems destined to eventually break out in a starter's role. I would consider him a real reach in the top ten but FABL clubs have shown a tendency to often reach for pitchers in the opening round of the draft. QUICK HITS In honour of Pete Casstevens possibly being the top player in the official OSA mock draft let's take a look at a few facts about Canadian born players. 32 year old Tom Taylor, a British Columbia native, moved into second place for career hits by a Canadian born player late last season when the Philadelphia Sailor outfielder surpassed James Rice with his 1,473 career hit. Taylor, who is back in Philadelphia with the Sailors but a long ways removed from his back to back Whitney Award winning seasons of 1928 and 1929, enters the 1937 season with 1,476 hits. Only St. Thomas, Ontario native Jake Hooper, who had 1,850 hits over his 19 year career with Cleveland, Brooklyn and Pittsburgh from 1908-1926, has more. Taylor is already the runaway leader in homeruns by a Canadian born player with 227. Hooper is second in that category with 86. Taylor is also the highest drafted Canadian born player as he was selected 4th overall by the Sailors in 1923. The only other Canadians ever selected in the first round are Marion Boismenu, a third baseman that the Sailors drafted 7th overall in 1931 and made his Philadelphia with 5 games last season, and pitchers Jim Taylor and Dan Rivard. Taylor was selected 10th overall by Boston in 1931 and is 15-16 over 2 seasons with the Minutemen while the 21 year old Rivard just completed his first pro season with the Pioneers organization after St Louis selected him 14th overall in the 1935 draft. The first Canadian ever drafted was Jake Beck, a pitcher who won a World Championship series with Montreal in 1921 but had a career record of just 18-25 over parts of three seasons with Cleveland and the Saints. The Foresters selected him out of Boulder State in the 6th round of the 1916 draft. Beck also became the first Canadian player to win a FABL World Championship Series while playing for a Canadian based club. Canadian born Billy McBurnett did play 6 games during the regular season (the only 6 games of his FABL career) for the 1911 World Champion Toronto Wolves but he was released late in the regular season and signed with a minor league club prior to the Wolves series win over Detroit. In total, 99 Canadian born players have played at least one major league game since the formation of the Century League in 1876. 7 Canadians were on major league rosters last season for at least one game including the previously mentioned Tom Taylor, Jim Taylor and Marion Boismenu. The others were infielder John Langille, who hit .294 in 151 games for Brooklyn, 27 year old pitcher Pierre Claudon, who went 1-4 in limited action with Baltimore and outfielders Abel Man and Birdie Jackson. The 32 year old Man hit .286 in 135 games for the Cannons while Jackson was a .224 hitter who played in 102 games for St Louis.
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 06-01-2021 at 03:58 PM. |
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06-02-2021, 10:22 AM
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#163 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 677
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This Week in Figment Baseball: Opening Day edition
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL 1937 SEASON PREVIEW EDITION APRIL 19, 1937  BATES ON THE MOVE AGAIN On the eve of Opening Day the Detroit Dynamos made a deal for a pitcher who won an Allan Award just three years ago. It came as a bit of a shock that Detroit would be the team to pull the trigger on a trade with the Chicago Cougars to acquire 30 year old Hardin Bates, who was the Federal Association's top hurler in 1934 and a key piece of the New York Gothams 1935 World Championship team. After posting a 53-24 record over three seasons between 1933-1935, Bates world caved in last year when after a 3-7 start with the New York Gothams he, along with practically everything else in the Gothams clubhouse that wasn't bolted down, was traded away. Bates destination was Chicago, to the Cougars in exchange for pitching prospect Charlie Wheeler and a 7th round pick. Things did not get any better for Bates last season once he was moved west, as the righthander went 3-8 for the Cougars and finished his season with a 6-15 record and a 5.95 era, which was nearly double his 1935 number.  As for Bates, if he can even approach the form he showed in New York he will immediately become the Dynamos ace and can become a positive role model to young Detroit starters like Ray McCarthy and Jack Goff. The big question remains which Hardin Bates will the Dynamos get? There seemed no reason for his sudden downturn a year ago as he did not suffer any sort of injury but he did struggle a bit in finding the strike zone a year ago as his walks per nine innings were up over the previous seasons. The other big thing that stands out is that 3 of the first 5 years of his major league career he had the lowest BABIP in the entire Federal Association. That number shot up substantially from a league best .261 with the Gothams in 1935 to .323 in half of the the 1936 season in New York and was not much better once he moved on to Chicago. Was it a case of a combination of good infield defense and good luck early in his career that simply ran out for the groundball specialist or has he lost a little something and hitters are simply seeing the ball better? OSA, the league scouting service paints a much bleaker picture of Bates skillset as we prepare for the 1937 season compared to what they saw after his Allen Award winning 1935 campaign. Here are 3 different reports on Bates through the years.  In his favour is the fact that Bates entire career came about because he beat the odds as he went from an undrafted high school player to the pinnacle of the sport so perhaps this slight by OSA, and 2 teams giving up on him just might fuel a resurgence. Overlooked and perhaps rightly so in the 1925 draft after posting a middling 7-11 career mark for Scranton High School, the Gothams offered him a minor league contract and assigned the then 19 year old to Class B, which was the lowest minor league at the time. He ended up spending most of his rookie pro season in A ball and got beat up pretty badly but was returned to Class B the following season and fared much better. By 1930 he was in AAA and in 1931 as a 24 year old he found himself pitching, and pitching quite well, for a pennant winning Gothams team. The Gothams had a rash of pitching injuries that year and when Lou Ellertson went down at the end of June, Bates got his call. He made his big league debut at home against Philadelphia on July 2, going 8 innings but getting a no decision in what would ultimately be a 5-3 loss to the Keystones. Two starts later he would get his first victory, a complete game 4-hitter in a 3-2 win on the road over Pittsburgh. Bates would remain in New York the rest of the 1931 season and after going 10-6 for the Gothams Bates made two starts in the Series that year, losing both but had a decent showing in each. He was in the big leagues to stay. His 1932 season was not overly impressive at 9-16 but he had a breakout year in 1933 and then followed that up with his Allen Award winning 1934 campaign. Now he finds himself in Detroit and being counted on to be the veteran arm that helps lead the young Dynamos staff into contention over the next couple of seasons. He is just 30 years old, has been pretty healthy throughout his career so now it is up to him to prove last year was just a fluke. It is interesting to note that Lou Ellertson - the player who's injury paved the way for Bates to make his big league debut in 1931 - was also just traded this week. The Gothams moved Ellertson to the Pittsburgh Miners in exchange for a fourth round draft pick. Like Bates, Ellerston is 30 years old but he has been beaten up much more, suffering an elbow injury in 1931 that cost him 13 months, a shoulder injury that forced him to miss 3 months in 1935 and was bothered by nagging arm issues for much of last season. Ellertson pitched primarily in relief last season and was 5-7 with a 4.57 era for the Gothams. CANNONS HOPE PITCHING CAN CARRY THEM TO RESPECTABILITY The Baltimore Cannons pitching staff was much improved over the second half of last season thanks to the arrival of the first two of their four high end pitching prospects. Gus Goulding, taken second overall in 1934, was the first to arrive and the 23 year old did so with a huge bang....winning all 8 of his starts after being called up and finishing the season with a 2.90 era to go with his perfect 8-0 record down the stretch including a complete game 3-0 shutout of the New York Stars in his big league debut.  Next came John Edwards, who the Cannons selected out of Hartford High School third overall in 1933. Edwards made his big league debut last September at the age of 20. He was not as dominant as Goulding but still posted a very respectable 2-2 record with a 1.80 era in 4 starts with the highlight being a complete game 7-1 win over Brooklyn in his third big league appearance. Rusty Petrick, a 21 year old that the Cannons picked up from the New York Gothams three years ago in the deal that sent Rabbit Day out of Baltimore, will finally make his Cannons debut this week. The 10th overall pick of the 1933 draft, has long been considered a top prospect - even before he threw a no-hitter in just his third professional start back in 1934 in Class C (where he was a teammate of Edwards for much of the season as the two progressed through 3 levels of minors.) Petrick spent most of last season at AA Erie but did finish the year with a 3-1 record and a 3.19 era in 8 AAA starts. After going 1-1 with a 2.25 era in 4 spring appearances the Cannons have announced that Petrick will join Goulding, Edwards and veteran Pinky Conlan in the Baltimore rotation when their season begins at home against the New York Stars with a doubleheader tomorrow. Conlan, who went 3-7 with a 5.46 era in 10 starts last season before an elbow injury ended his year in late June, will be the fourth member of the rotation but 34 year old Dutch Leverett, who suffered through a 12-20 season a year ago is waiting in the wings. Either way, the two of them are just keeping the rotation spot warm until Rufus Barrell II is ready. The fourth member of the Cannons dream rotation was the first overall selection of the 1935 draft and is tabbed as a can't miss prospect. Barrell's rookie pro year lasted just 3 starts, and an unimpressive 0-2 record with a 4.11 era before he suffered a season ending shoulder injury. It remains to be seen where the Cannons will start the now 19 year old phenom. Will it be back in Class C Burlington, where Goulding, Edwards and Petrick all got their pro starts, or will Baltimore decide Barrell is ready for a higher level right off the get go? Either way, the rest of the Continental Association may soon need to fear the Cannons, who have been the doormat of the CA for far too long.  While pitching may no longer be a question mark for the Baltimore Cannons there are still plenty of concerns over how the long struggling club will generate offense? A recent report in the Baltimore News-Post the three big questions on the Cannons offense are as follows: 1- Is Frank Covarrubias ready to be the Cannons every day third baseman? 2- Will Joe Rainbow ever live up to his potential? 3- Can an offense led by Clark Car, Bunny Stapleton and Abel Man generate enough offense to squeak out some wins? Let's take a look at each of these. First on the topic of Covarrubias. He is 25 years old but the 1934 third round pick out of Piedmont University has a grand total of 48 AAA games under his belt. He hit .290 for Indianapolis in that trial last season, which is much lower than the numbers he posted at each of the previous levels in his stops along the way the past two seasons. OSA presently has Covarrubias as the 6th best third base prospect and #83 overall. Several scouts I talked too love his skillset and few players outwork him but I am not sure if he is ready to step in right away. I am not one to put a lot of faith into spring numbers but his .242 average and 0-for-7 showing in the final week of tune-up action helps reinforce my thinking that Covarrubias might benefit from a half season in AAA before he makes his Baltimore debut. I have a hunch the Cannons might not find that pot of gold they are hoping for from Joe Rainbow. The 23 year old has come a long ways from being an 18th round draft pick out of high school in 1931 and has spent seemingly forever in the top 50 OSA prospect lists but it seems even OSA is souring on the now 23 year old. Rainbow is perhaps an appropriate description of his throwing motion which is a real liability. The Cannon catcher threw out just 27% of would be base stealers a year ago, which was far and away the worst percentage of any catcher who played at least 40 games last season.  Finally let's look at their overall offense. The Cannons had the least productive offense in the Continental Association last season, which coupled with allowing the most runs against in either league makes for a very a long year. The pitching should be improved this season if the young guys can continue to develop. Offensively, the three players mentioned above are all very strong but I am not sure the supporting cast is there. Clark Car burst on to the scene last year and hit .355 in 51 games. He might not match that total but should be a very good lead-off man for years to come. Stapleton missed half the season but still tied for the team homerun lead with 9. He is an average first baseman who enjoyed a career year in 1935 when he hit .352 with 13 homers in 108 games. If he stays healthy he might push the 20 homer mark and bat .300. Solid numbers but not an all-star first baseman. Outfielder Abel Man has had a lot of injuries over the years but did manage to stay healthy most of last season and put up decent numbers (.286,8,77) but, like Stapleton, Man is just an average ballplayer at best. There are some pretty good prospects on the way, such as Fred Galloway, Al Jennings and Jim Hensley but they are all a couple of years away. Car is a rising star but he needs a much better supporting cast for the Cannons offense to show much improvement this season. The pitching might get them out of the Continental cellar after three straight 8th place finishes, but I can't see them passing more than one, possibly two teams this year. They are headed in the right direction but there is still a ways to go on the journey to contention for the Baltimore Cannons.
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 06-02-2021 at 10:24 AM. |
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06-03-2021, 12:20 PM
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#164 | |
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This Week In Figment Baseball: April 26, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL APRIL 26, 1937 DYNAMIC START FOR THE DYNAMOS The changes in Detroit seem to be paying off, at least by the look of the opening week for the Dynamos. Detroit, which posted a record of 98-210 over the past two seasons, by far the worst in either league during that span, is off to a 4-2 start after the opening week of games this season. The Dynamos opened the season by taking two of three from the New York Gothams - the club they are expected to battle it out with in order to avoid a third straight last place finish - but then also surprised the St Louis Pioneers by winning two of three. Quite a turnaround in what some have taken to call "MoTown" after new player-manager Max Morris as a year ago the Dynamos started the season with an 8 game losing skid and were 1-13 two weeks into the campaign. It took Detroit 19 games a year ago before they registered their fourth win of the season but the standings look much different this season for the Dynamos after one week of play.  GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS IN PITTSBURGH The Pittsburgh Miners got off to a great start, winning 5 of 7 games vs Washington and Boston to take the lead in the Federal Association but it came at a heavy price. Mahlon Strong, the incredibly talented but often injured 28 year old outfielder the Miners acquired from the New York Gothams over the off-season, is hurt once again. This one could be lengthy as their are conflicting reports on the duration of his injury. Officially it is listed as an unknown return date but there are news reports Strong will be sidelined until June. This one is an oblique strain but he was also bothered in the spring by a sore knee and a wonky hip. Prior to the latest injury Strong had 7 hits in 11 at bats including 2 homers and 7 rbi's.  The Chicago Chiefs also lost a middle infielder as shortstop Bill White is out for three weeks. The 26 year old White hit .272 last season which was his first full year as big league player. Chicago will also miss another regular for a couple of weeks as centerfielder Bennie Griffith, who hit .300 in 123 games as a 23 year old on the Chiefs title team last year, strained a muscle in his right arm. QUICK HITS Harold Brown Jr, who the New York Gothams acquired from Boston in the John Wicklund deal, got off to a nice start by hitting .400 with 3 doubles for the week. Speaking of Wicklund, Nick Lake, getting his first shot at being an everyday starter, is doing his best to make Gothams fans forget their all-star catcher. Lake hit .350 with a league leading 11 RBIs. New York picked the 30 year old up from Cleveland over the winter at the price of just a fifth round draft pick. Originally a 7th round pick in 1925, Lake has been in the Foresters system for over a decade and had just 35 games of big league experience entering this season. Staying with the Gothams they have to be happy with Mule Earl who was picked up from Brooklyn last season in the Curly Jones trade. The 24 year old made his ML debut going 8 2/3 allowing 2 ER but taking the loss. What was this about offense being down? The Chiefs gave up 45 runs over the first 6 games. It seems the pitchers would have preferred to remain in Florida. Al Miller, last year's rookie sensation for the Whitney Gang, got rocked by St Louis in his debut, giving up 8 runs on 13 hits and failed to survive the fourth inning. It is clearly very early but the Chiefs WHIPs look a lot like ERAs after the first week: Rabbit Day 1.92, Ron Coles 3.00, Al Miller 2.59 and Charlie Bingham 2.13. It is never good when Jack Beach is your most dependable starter, no matter what time of the season it is. Washington's Mel Carroll was named Fed player of the week after slashing .577/.593/.846 while 38 year old Charlie Barry took the CA honours. The Cleveland third baseman just keeps on rolling as he went 13 for 26 and is now 4 hits shy of 2000 for his career. The Foresters are 5-1 and lead Brooklyn by a game atop the Continental Association standings. Barry's success prompted former Cleveland and current Detroit GM DD Martin to think back upon the deal to bring Barry to the Foresters. Quote:
Gus Goulding’s 8 game winning streak comes to an end. After starting his big league career 8-0 with Baltimore last season, the 23 year old second overall pick of the 1934 draft is 0-2 with a 6.46 era after two starts this season. Meanwhile Bobo White, who was the player selected ahead of Goulding and was also his teammate at St Blane, had a strong FABL debuting, going the distance in a 6-2 Eagles win over Philadelphia. And Eddie Quinn’s Washington debut was as impressive, topping the Keystones 8-1 DETROIT NOTES COURTESY OF FAST FREDDIE FARHAT AND THE DETROIT WORLD Detroit gave up the fewest runs in the FA during the first week with 34 on the fewest hits (50) and is 2nd in ERA at 4.08. The downside is the staff led the FA in walks allowed at 40 with the fewest strikeout at 14. That part of the equation doesn’t bode well. While off to a nice 4-2 start their run differential is -1 only scoring 33 (7th). Still the 5.6 rpg is a lot better than the 4.4 they scored last season. It looks like pitcher Chuck Calvert will lose his spot in the rotation after a rough spring and a terrible effort in New York. Chuck Murphy will take over his place in the rotation but likely sit in the number 6 spot for now meaning very few starts will come his way. Detroit also signed a pair of former Cleveland 3B men in giving minor league deals to Don Ward and Jake Moore. The insurance policy moves are in case Buck Sargent doesn’t work out at the hot corner. Sargent was 6-23 hitting 261 with 3 walks, a home run, 2 RBI’s and 3 runs scored. 63000+ fans came through the gates as Detroit hosted St Louis for their home opening series on the weekend. 28000+ for Opening night and then 17,000+ and 18,000+ the next 2 nights. A nice attendance turn around after the 35 season with sub 4500 crowds. Maybe the off-season estimate of 15000 per game has some legs after all. It appears that there is some excitement again in Detroit for baseball. PROSPECT TRACKING We know how first overall pick Sal Pestilli did in his pro debut but let's check out the other top picks from December who each began their professional careers last weekend but, unlike Pestilli, did so far away from the bright lights of big league cities. Second overall selection Walt Messer went just 1-for-6 in 2 games with Class C Rock Island but the one hit was a big fly as the two-time Adwell Award winner as the nation's top high school player, hit a 2-run homer. If the future New York Gotham becomes the power hitter in the big leagues some think he can than this may become a trivia question down the road but Messer's first pro homerun came off of Chicago Cougars prospect Grover Donahue, who was a 1935 second round pick out of Indiana A&M. Number three Billy Woytek, a high school second baseman chosen by the Philadelphia Keystones had a 4-for-9 debut in Class A with the Allentown Cokers. Most of the pitchers taken in the first round fared well in their first pro appearance. Johnnie Jones, who went 4th overall to the New York Stars, pitched well in relief at Class C, earning the victory in his debut. Sixth overall selection Pete Papenfus debuted in Class A for the Cougars. No decision for Peter the Hearer but he did fan 6 and allow just 1 run on 4 hits over 6 innings of work. The Gothams second first rounder, former college pitcher Bunny Edwards posted similar numbers to Papenfus in Class B. The 21 year old righthander went 6 and a third innings, fanning 6 and getting the win while allowing 1 run on 4 hits, but he did walk 5. 8th overall pick Wally Doyle, taken by Montreal, had a compete game 4-hit victory in a 3-2 win at Class C. The 'Waco Kid' fanned 11 in the contest while walking just 2. The one exception to the successful debuts was Carl Roe, taken 9th overall by St Louis. The 22 year old allowed 3 runs on 2 hits and a walk before having to leave with a sore elbow in the first inning of his start for Class B Charlotte of the Southeastern League. Fortunately the injury is not considered serious and he should be ready for his next start. MILESTONE WATCH A pair of all-star hitters will each join the 2500 hit club in the near future. 33 year old Rankin Kellogg of the Philadelphia Keystones entered the season needing 29 more hits while Cleveland catcher T.R. Goins is 68 hits away from the mark. Kellogg added 7 to his total the opening week of the season while Goins moved to within 61 his of the plateau. The 2,500 hit club presently has 19 members include one active player in Detroit player/manager Max Morris.  Kellogg is also just 7 round trippers shy of becoming just the second player to hit 450 career homers. Morris is, of course, the first with 702 homers so far in his Hall of Fame career. Another interesting note on Kellogg is his durability. In his 12 year career entering this season Kellogg has missed just 4 games and has played every game for the Keystones in 9 of those 12 years.  Rabbit Day needs 9 wins to become the 46th pitcher to record 200 victories in his career. Day made two starts in the opening week of the season but did not factor in the decision either time. The 32 year old Chicago Chiefs ace and 3 time Allen Award winner tops all active players presently playing in FABL. I say presently playing in FABL because Wayne Robinson, who won 194 games with 4 teams between 1921 and last season, is still technically active as he just signed on with the independent El Paso Missions after being cut by the Chicago Cougars during the spring. Day is coming off a 25 win season and perhaps is the best bet to become the just the 12th pitcher to win 300 major league games and the first since George Johnson notched his 300th with Washington in 1925. Day is also the active career strikeouts leader with 1639, which places him 25th all-time. The leader is Hall of Famer Charlie Sis, who fanned 3462 batters between 1903 and 1921 with St Louis and Toronto. SCOUTING REPORT PLAYERS TO WATCH IN THE 1939 DRAFT CROP We are getting a ways ahead of ourselves here but that doesn't stop The Figment Sporting Journal from trying to project the top players eligible for the 1939 FABL draft. The college players have not been added yet and there will be still more high school players to emerge but right now the top candidate in the 1939 draft class looks to be Bart Schneider, a righthander out of Rochester New York who went 9-2 with a 1.03 era as a freshman. Schneider appears, at the moment at least, to be the only premier pitcher in the class. Others worth following are catcher Cal Morgan from Alexandria (IN) and third baseman Wally Fuller from New York City's Collegiate HS. Both were named to the High School All-American team as freshmen. Reading (PA) high school's Leon Mosher and Del West, who plays for Charlottesville (VA) are two outfielders getting very good early reviews from OSA as is Chester (PA) first baseman Clem Coyle.
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 06-03-2021 at 01:32 PM. |
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06-04-2021, 11:32 AM
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#165 |
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This Week in Figment Baseball: May 3, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL MAY 3, 1937 CHAMPS ON A ROLL The defending World Champion Chicago Chiefs may have started slow, getting swept in St Louis to open the season, but since then it has been business as usual for the club that won a franchise record 101 games a year ago. The Chiefs are riding a 7 game winning streak and are 9-1 since losing the three contests in St Louis to start the season. The Chiefs face a big test this week as they will entertain Pittsburgh at Whitney Park for a three game set starting Tuesday. The Miners finished second to Chicago last season and presently sit just a half game back of the defending champs.  Al Wheeler had a slow first week of the season but the Brooklyn Kings outfielder made up for it last week with a performance that earned him player of the week accolades in the Continental Association. Wheeler hit .407 with 2 homers and 7 rbi's with the highlight of his week being a cycle in a 12-2 win over Montreal on Wednesday. Wheeler actually went 5-for-5 that game with a pair of homers while driving in 6 runs. It is the third time in his career Wheeler has hit for the cycle with the first two coming while he was with the Detroit Dynamos in 1929 and 1931. The 29 year old 4-time Whitney Award winner becomes just the fourth Brooklyn King to hit for the cycle joining Dan Barrell, who did it last year, along with Doug Lightbody and Dick Hand. The top player in the Federal Association this week was Pittsburgh catcher George Cleaves. The 23 year old went 15 foe 25 with 3 homers and 14 rbi's. It is the 6th time Cleaves has been player of the week. A three time all-star, he finished second in Federal Association Whitney Award voting last year.  From the "if they didn't have bad luck" department there are more injury troubles for the Boston Minutemen. Already without their young star pitcher Dick Higgins, now first baseman Bob Donoghue's knee is acting up again. Donoghue, who was the Minutemen's first round pick out of Iowa A&M in 1934 has spent time on the injured list every season. He missed three weeks with knee troubles in his rookie pro year, tore up his ankle last April and missed the rest of the season after a very impressive opening couple of weeks. He then fractured a thumb in spring action this season but returned last week, hitting .381 in 6 games but now his knee has slowed him again. The club doctor insists it's not serious but with Donoghue's history there has to be even more cause for concern. Meanwhile, Boston also announced that pitcher Joe Dorsainvil is done for the year. It is the second straight season the 32 will miss most of the year with arm troubles. Dorsainvil made just 4 starts last season before arm troubles shut him down and he only made it to 3 this time around before his season was pronounced finished. Dorsainvil has a lifetime record of 64-87 in his 8 seasons with Boston. Charlie Barry became the 59th player in FABL history to collect 2000 hits for his career. The 38 year old Cleveland Forester third baseman reached the milestone on Wednesday in a 2-0 loss to the Chicago Cougars. Barry's 2000th was a single to lead off the second inning off of Cougars starter Oscar Morse. He spent the first 10 and a half seasons of his career in Boston before joining the Foresters in a deadline deal in 1934. The 3-time all-star helped Cleveland win the franchise's first World Championship Series in '34 and is a lifetime .345 hitter who only seems to be getting better with age as Barry won his first Association batting title last season. TAYLOR MOVED TWICE Tom Taylor has accomplished a lot in his baseball career, but one can't help but feel that career is nearing it's end after Taylor was claimed on waivers by Brooklyn and then promptly traded to the Chicago Chiefs. The Kings thought they had an agreement with Taylor to report to their AAA club in Rochester and, if he performed well, he would get a ticket to Brooklyn, but the 32 year old had second thoughts and refused the minor league assignment so the Kings dealt him to the Chiefs for a 7th round draft pick. Taylor will be given the opportunity to platoon with Cliff Moss in right field for Chicago. One has to get the impression that this might be Taylor's last opportunity in the big leagues. It is quite a fall for a player who burst on to the Continental Association scene as a 23 year old rookie in 1928. He led the CA in homers and rbi's each of his first two seasons and won the Whitney Award both years. He also led the Sailors to back to back pennants and a 1928 World Championship. Philadelphia would win it all again in 1930 but Taylor missed the Series that year after hurting his elbow in the final week of the season. The Sailors shocked the baseball world by dealing him to the Chicago Cougars the following spring, getting infielder Mack Deal and a pair of what would turn out to be fringe players in return. Taylor's production dipped drastically in 1930 but he rebounded with some decent seasons in Chicago and won a third World Championship with that club in 1931. With the Cougars on a downslide Taylor was dealt to the New York Gothams in the middle of the 1935 season and would earn his fourth World Championship ring that year. The Gothams did not play him much and ended up releasing him as part of the great purge of their championship club last summer. A Chicago writer opined that the move to New York perhaps accelerated Taylor's decline. "As a 29 or 30 year old player, the worst thing that can happen in your career is to be traded to the Gothams. After hitting double-digit home runs for each season in his career, Tom Taylor found himself in a rough slump last season in New York. Not only did he lose his starting job, but he was unceremoniously released in July. There is no quarter for older players in New York." The Philadelphia Sailors, the club Taylor had so much early success with, claimed him of waivers last July and he played in 16 games for the Sailors down the stretch, hitting .291 with 3 homers bringing his career round-tripper total to 227, which is the 9th most all-time. After hitting just .211 in the spring the Sailors asked Taylor to go back to the minors, where he had spent some time last season. He refused and was released by the club leading to the Brooklyn waiver claim and subsequent trade to the Chiefs. No matter what happens going forward the outfielder from western Canada nicknamed the "Canadian Club" certainly left his mark on the game but it would be nice to see him get back on track in the Windy City. The move really has no downside for the Chiefs to see if Taylor can recapture some of the glory of his past as it comes at a very inexpensive cost.  CROSS-SECTION OF PREDICTIONS Here is a look at what some local newspapers and the Baseball News Network see for the year ahead. The following predictions come courtesy of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Chicago Daily News and the Detroit World and are the predicted order of standings from each paper's sports department. The four, including BNN, are unanimous on Brooklyn repeating as the champ in the Continental Association while the Chicago Chiefs are also favoured to repeat by three of the four in the Federal Association. The lone exception comes from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle which feels that St Louis will end it's 15 year pennant drought.   PUTTING WOOD ON THE BALL (Courtesy of the Pittsburgh Press) The Pittsburgh Press took a look at which pitchers in FABL have been the most successful at providing some offensive production for their respective clubs and on the flip side who has struggled. Here is what the paper discovered: Top 5 hitting pitchers (with at least 200 career plate appearances, ranked by OPS+) 1. Ed Wood - Boston - .256/.374/.448. 115 OPS+ 17 career homers. A good eye, real power, Wood's bat would play at just about any position, let alone pitcher. 2. Rollie Beal - New York Stars - .291/.360/.415. 103 OPS+. 15 career homers, another guy with an actual above average bat. Big drop off to 3rd: 3. Joe Newsom - Baltimore - .283/.298/.328. 69 OPS+, 0 career homers. Good for a single every once in a while. 4. Mike Murphy - Brooklyn - .243/.281/.349 68 OPS+, 5 career homers. Packs a bit more punch than your usual pitcher. 5. Bill Ketterman - Pittsburgh - .251/.297/.298, 1 career homer. Has quite a few more at bats than the other guys (besides Beal), but has a career of not embarrassing himself at the plate. Bottom of the barrel: 1. George Kyle - St. Louis - .092/.101/.141, 1 career homer. 2. Dean Astle - Cleveland - .107/.114/.143, 2 career homers 3. David Abalo - St Louis - .118/.154/.127, 0 career homers 4. Dave Rankin - Chicago Cougars - .126/.164/.142, 1 career homer. 5.Jack Elder - Washington - .134/.147/.176, 0 career homers (edited) Further to this I thought I would see how Wood ranks all-time among pitchers who have enjoyed some offensive success. Now the gold standard of course would be Max Morris, who actually debuted as a pitcher before making the move to the outfield but let's keep Mighty Mo out of the discussion because of his unique skillset. As you can see from the chart below Wood compares very nicely and presently is the ninth best pitcher all-time based on career OPS+. I used a minimum of 400 career plate appearances to qualify Here are the top ten hitting pitcher. As one might expect the list was dominated by 19th century players which makes Wood's accomplishments at the plate even more special.  ON THE FARM DYNAMOS WORRIED ABOUT FIRST ROUNDER KOBLENZ It maybe much ado about nothing but there is quiet concern in Detroit over the struggles of 3B Hank Koblenz who fell from Top 10 to #21 on the prospects ranking (and today was listed at #39). Some in the organization felt the 20 year old was not ready for Class B but he was promoted along with fellow 1935 first round pick Red Johnson, but both have struggled in the early going at Chattanooga. Johnson, who was the second overall selection in the 1935 draft, is still rated the #3 prospect in the game and does have a pair of homers to go with his .206 batting average in 10 games at Class B but Koblenz is just 3-for-30 with 10 strikeouts and looks completely out of his element at that level. It seems far too early to label the former #5 overall pick a flop but some in Detroit are worried if he doesn't start to turn it around soon he just might be one. Baltimore brass may also be getting worried about the number one pick of the '35 draft. Deuce Barrell is 0-2 with a 7.30 era and a 47 era+ plus in 2 starts at class C. Start #3 at that level last year ended his season so he is behind a bit but are there worries in Baltimore his injury might have had long term effects? The good news is Barrell must still be throwing smoke as he fanned 20 in 12 innings of work and his second outing, which came this week, was much better than his first. Baltimore may also be concerned about Gus Goulding. After going 8-0 last summer and taking the league by storm the 1934 second overall pick has lost each of his four starts this time around and his era is 5.04. The Cannons should not be worried about Goulding, at least not yet, as the overall body of work in 12 big league starts for Goulding is 8-4 with a 3.56 era. How is this for a quick adjustment. After starting his pro career 1-for-6 at Class C Rock Island, last December's second overall pick is on fire. 18 year old Walt Messer hit 6 homers in 7 games for the Gothams entry level farm team and is batting .333 and would be the talk of the Upper Mississippi Valley Association if it were not for Tiny Tim Hopkins. Hopkins, the 19 year old behemoth first baseman Brooklyn selected in the second round of the 1935 draft, is tearing up the UMVA with the league lead in average, homers, rbi's and several other offensive categories after starting .486 with 9 homers and 13 rbi's. One would think both Hopkins and Messer should be bound for Class B very soon. He is a little older than Messer and Hopkins but equally as impressive is the start of Art Powell in the other Class C League. Powell, a 21 year old third baseman who plays for the Philadelphia Keystones affiliate in Beaumont of the Gulf States League, has 22 rbi's in 9 games while also homering 8 times and leading the loop with a .436 average. It is Powell's third season at that level as he was selected in the 10th round of the 1934 draft out of high school but he has already hit 2 grand slams this season.
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports |
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06-04-2021, 04:00 PM
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#166 |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Ontario Canada
Posts: 9,712
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What is the Figment Sporting Journal
FIGMENT SPORTING JOURNAL PRIMER I am not sure if there are many outside our online league that are following this thread but just in case there is I thought I would give you some background on the concept of the Journal and the league itself. Figment Baseball is the brainchild of our commissioner, who goes by Legendsport on this board. He has a couple of great dynasty threads going. One that chronicles the history of this league and it was that story that first attracted me, previously exclusively a solo historical player, to join the league. The second story from this universe that Legendsport is sharing details the first family of sports in the Figment Universe - The Barrells. Both are great reads and I highly recommend them. In addition there is a third dynasty report he has started in which he discusses the very early days of Figment Sports. The great thing for those in our league or just an observer following it on these boards is that there are also several other team specific dynasty reports on the go as well and all are done exceptionally well. You can follow either of the two Chicago clubs - the Chiefs or the Cougars or the Detroit Dynamos as all three of those threads are updated very regularly. I also have one on the team I have controlled since the 1926 season: the Brooklyn Kings, however as my focus has turned to documenting the entire league I have not had as much time for many recent updates. A search of the Dynasty board using the keyword 'Figment' will also turn up several other reports on various clubs in our league so there is plenty of information out there. A short description of what Figment Baseball is would be as follows: It is a fictional OOTP online league with a historical slant that is currently set in 1937. Our commissioner pre-simmed out a history that somewhat mirrors real life but with entirely fictional players and teams starting in 1876 with the birth of pro baseball. There were teams coming and going, minor and major leagues beginning and folding, until finally in the mid 1890's the Federally Aligned Baseball League (FABL) was formed. It mirrored the real life NL and AL with 2 associations of 8 teams each. Those teams have existed ever since. Following the 1925 World Championship Series (our world's version of the World Series) the game went 'live' with human GM's taking over the 16 big league teams and their minor league affiliates. The league also included a number of independent minor league teams and at that point feeder high school and college leagues. Those feeder leagues were later removed when a version of OOTP introduced multiple draft classes being visible in game. What really makes Figment Baseball unique is there are no visible player ratings. The GM's must rely on written scouting reports and the stats to assess players. So there is plenty of second guessing going and surprises but for the most part after a decade of this the GM's have become pretty adept at spotting and developing talent. The commissioner does not own a team but rather oversees the universe and tweaks and creates various incoming rookies to give the league much more 'flavor' than a typical OOTP league. The result is some classic nicknames like "Blue Collar Billy", "Frederick the Great" and "Peter the Heater" which had to the mystic of certain players. In addition, While not based exactly on real major leaguers one can certainly notice some similarities if you look closely at some of the players the commish has tweaked. For example our Babe Ruth type player is named Max Morris, a pitcher converted to an outfielder who is the greatest homerun hitter of all-time with 702 and counting as his playing career nears it's end. Another example is the top rookie from the most recent draft is an Italian-American outfielder who has two baseball player brothers who are also well regarded outfielders. So one can surmise that Sal Pestilli is based loosely on Joe DiMaggio and we have his brothers Alf and Tony also in our universe. Just like real baseball there are many family connections in our world thanks to the commissioners intervention as new draft classes enter the league as it something OOTP lacks aside from the occasional player with the Jr. suffix named after his father. The Figment world not only has fictional major league teams but there are also 505 unique colleges that have become a well known part of our universe. There is no LSU or UCLA in this world instead we have schools like Bayou State and City College of Los Angeles (CCLA). The college teams are part of not just our baseball world but also appear in the Ballad of the Barrell Brothers dynasty as an active football league. Hockey, basketball and even the Olympic Games are also found in the Barrell family backstory. So far none of those other sports are playable in online leagues but that might be a possibility down the road with professional basketball perhaps being next on the docket. Legendsport has also, on his website, added a number of background seasons for college football and a professional hockey league and briefly dabbled with hockey as an online league but there were a number of issues primarily centering around historical limitations of available software so it was abandoned for the time being, perhaps to be revisited as the we enter the 1950's. In addition, I documented and completed a 20 year sim with Fastbreak College Basketball to document the origin of college hoops as a complimentary setup for Legendsport's universe but have not posted it anywhere as I don't want it to conflict with developing stories he may have evolving around the professional basketball league. So it is from those other sports that the name "Figment Sporting Journal" was inspired for this dynasty report. Obviously it's a take on The Sporting News with our publisher named Charles C. Clay and eventually the tagline "The Scripture of Sports" will be added to compliment TSN's "Bible of Baseball" moniker once we do add other sports to the mix. Jiggs McGee is my nom de plume for the lead writer of the FSJ and Percy Sutherland as our editor is the creation of another GM in our league. We also get the occasional post from Ol' Possum, who is a former minor league catcher turned key scout for OSA in this universe. Ol' Possum's true identity is unknown but believed to be that of Legendsport. The result is we have what I, and I believe many others in our group feel is as close to the perfect online league you can get. While Legendsport was the person who envisioned and created this league many others have also played a key role in making it what it is. We have a great group of General Managers, several very involved and writing regularly on their teams but that is not a requirement. A very active slack group which is what inspired me to do the This Week in Figment Baseball columns as much of the material is lifted right out of our slack chat and works perfectly to allow GM's who don't have the time or the inclination to do a full fledged dynasty report the opportunity to still have stories told about their teams and players. My hope has long been to find an online multi-sport league with cross-over two-sport players, the same core group of GMs and each sport running concurrently as it progresses through the years. It would be a huge undertaking, and perhaps too big to ever happen but Figment is the first step in that direction and hopefully one day the other sports will be added and this truly will be a "Sporting Journal" but until then I hope you enjoy following along with all of the exploits in Figment baseball, whether you are presently a part of the league or just a casual observer of Dynasty writing. And if you ever have any questions or want to here more about any team, player or happening in this league just ask.
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Cliff Markle HOB1 greatest pitcher 360-160, 9 Welch Awards, 11 WS titles |
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06-06-2021, 10:46 AM
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#167 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 677
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A Look Back at the 1927 Draft
A LOOK BACK AT THE 1927 DRAFT Scouting Directors are working overtime with the short turn-around to a June draft and that means a much earlier than usual look by The Figment Sporting Journal back at the group of first rounders from ten years ago. This year's draft is slated for June 22 after decades of it being held in December but before we get to talking about the top prospects available this time around, let's review how the first rounders from the 1927 draft class fared, a decade later. The first thought as I scan the list of first rounders is "Wow, this was an awful draft," as 5 of the 16 first rounders never played a major league game and 3 others played very little so at least 8 of the 16 picks have to be considered busts and an argument could certainly be made for a couple of others. However, the overall class itself was not that bad as it was more a case of what turned out to be some poor decisions being made in the first round. Before we look at each of the first rounders here are some later round picks from that draft that fared very well: Alex Ingraham, Brooks Meek, Mike Taylor, Fred McCormick, Hank Barnett, Leon Drake, Doc Love, Larry Vestal, Mahlon Strong, Fred Miller, John Wicklund, Ed Wood, Dave Rankin, Dean Astle, Milt Fritz and Pinky Conlan. Based on that list it is very clear there was talent in the 1927 class, just a lot of General Manager's overlooked it early. 1- CLIFF MOSS OF MONTREAL - Moss' career has been linked to that of the General Manager that originally drafted him. mjj55409 selected the outfielder first overall after a solid career at Pierpont, brought him to the major leagues just a couple of months into his rookie pro season and then, almost immediately after leaving the GM office in Montreal to assume the reigns of the Chicago Chiefs, he acquired him in a trade with the Saints. Moss enjoyed 3 pretty solid seasons in Montreal to start his career including a career best .345,26,101 showing in 1930. His numbers dipped as he approached his late twenties and he fell out of favor in Montreal but has had a resurgence of sorts since moving to Chicago where he has earned the reputation of strictly being a platoon player who can only enjoy success against right handed pitching. While not a star, he was a solid contributor to the Chiefs World Championship team last season and his 143 career homers to date are the second most amassed by anyone in his draft class. (second round Alex Ingraham has 153 for St Louis). Moss was number one on most draft boards and he has proven to be a decent major league player.  2- BOBBY MONTEFUSCO P BOSTON - The 1927 draft did not have a clear cut choice as top pitcher, although Huck Moore might have come close. In hindsight there certainly was a clear number one but it turned out to be a high school pitcher who did not win a game in his draft year. So you can not blame Boston, or any other team for overlooking Milt Fritz, who currently has 122 wins and an Allen Award on his resume but was not selected until the 12th round. There were other candidates as well such as Ron Coles (48-34) and Dave Ranking (60-98), who both lasted until the fifth round and current Cleveland ace Dean Astle (62-39) who was not selected until the 9th round. His career was tragically cut short by injury but Johnny Jacob, who could have been a star also was available, lasting until Baltimore grabbed him in the fourth round. The Minutemen decided to use both their first and second round picks on pitchers. They took Art Keeter out of Los Angeles High School in the second round and he has shown some value of late with a 20-21 record over the past two seasons. Boston also ended up with another pitcher taken in the second round as they acquired Ed Wood from Cleveland early in his career and the now 28 year old has enjoyed some decent seasons including a career best 22 win campaign a year ago. As mentioned earlier there was no clear cut best pitcher of the draft but the Minutemen decided to make Bobby Montefusco, who was coming off a pretty solid season with Grafton University, the number two pick. It did not turn out to be a bad choice as Montefusco has built himself a decent career as relief pitcher in Boston (15-16 career record in 171 appearances but just 8 starts) but he is hardly what one thinks of when they picture a second overall draft pick.  3- HARRY HUMPHREY OF CHICAGO COUGARS - Humphrey is the type of player that drives GM's nuts. He missed half of the 1926 season but hit .414 for Whitney College as a sophomore and then followed up by proving it was no fluke with a .413 season and played all 50 games of his draft year for the Engineers. The Chicago Cougars felt there was no way they could pass up the local kid (Whitney College is in Chicago) and BNN had him ranked second on it's top ten list. It seemed like a perfect match but Humphrey has yet to play above AA. Part of his issue was the game was changing as power hitting was now a desirable commodity in a corner outfielder and Humphrey, while he did hit 8 in his draft year, was certainly not a fly ball hitter. Some also questioned his work ethic and after 5 years in the Cougars system he was released. Humphrey caught on with Amarillo of the independent Lone Star Association but after being released a couple of seasons later the Cougars signed him to a minor league deal in 1935. He is now 31 years old and just a spare part to add depth to the Chicago system so seems pretty safe to say Harry Humphrey will never play in the major leagues and has to be one of, if not the the biggest disappointment of the 1927 draft. 4- FRANK LIGHTBODY OF PITTSBURGH - One has to wonder how seriously the Cougars looked at Frank Lightbody before selecting the local prospect Humphrey with the third pick. Lightbody was the top player on at least one team's board that year and had a great resume. His older brother Doug was a rising star with the Brooklyn Kings and Lightbody had 3 solid seasons under his belt at Mississippi A&M, which in that era was well known for producing quality outfielders. Pittsburgh grabbed him at #4 and, despite missing 7 weeks early in his first pro season with a sprained ankle he debuted with the Miners late that season. The rest is history as he has more big league hits (1480) than any other member of his draft class and only 8th round catcher Mike Taylor has played more than the 1149 FABL games Lightbody has appeared in. He joined his brother in Brooklyn after being traded to the Kings a year ago and while he still has the skills to start, has been relegated to a bench role because of Brooklyn's deep collection of outfielders.  5- BILL BALL SS BALTIMORE - Bill Ball is not a bad player but he is not the type that typically warrants a first round selection. Known as a slick fielding but light hitting middle infielder in high school ball, the Cannons might have reached a bit to select him although one other scouting director I spoke too had him ranked 15th on their depth chart. He made his big league debut in 1932 with the Cannons and after being up and down between the majors and AAA for a couple of seasons seems to have settled in as a backup infielder appearing in 433 games and posting a .247 major league average. There certainly were worse choices than Ball made in the first round.  6- HUCK MOORE P NEW YORK GOTHAMS - 1927 was the first year The Figment Sporting Journal named an AIAA All-American team. There was just a single team named that original season and the pitcher on that list was Huck Moore, coming off an 11-0 season when he helped lead Commonwealth Catholic to the AIAA title back in the feeder league era. Moore had an outstanding college career, going 29-6 for his 3 seasons as a Knight. The 29 wins was at the time an AIAA record equaling the mark set by Ralph Ohler in 1919-21 and duplicated by Walt Palmer (1924-26). Perhaps it was foreshadowing of what was to come from Moore as Ohler never played a big league game and Palmer lasted just 7 games for Pittsburgh in his career after being the second overall pick a year ahead of Moore. While he is still active and pitching for Amarillo in the lightly regarded independent Lone Star League, Moore's big league days are long behind him and he, perhaps more than any other player in FABL history has cause to be bitter about his FABL experience. He had a decent season at Class A as a 22 year old rookie pro but from 1929 until 1935 when he was finally released by the Gothams he endured some awful seasons - none worse than a 1-18 record with a 9.05 era for AAA Toledo in 1932. Why he was never sent down to A or AA to regain some confidence is beyond me but regardless he was converted to a reliever in 1933 and went 6-4 with 7 saves and a 5.38 era for Toledo while making 52 relief appearances that season. It culminated in a call-up to the big leagues and on September 22nd in a relatively meaningless late season game between the third place Gothams and 7th place Chicago Chiefs, Moore got his one, and as it would turn out, only chance in the big leagues. He started the game, something he had not done all season in AAA, and went 5 solid innings allowing 6 hits and 2 runs but only one earned it what would end up being a 4-2 New York loss. That was it for Moore's days in New York. He never got another shot with the Gothams as he was back in the Toledo bullpen the following season and eventually released midway through the 1935 campaign. He was picked up by Amarillo and has found his calling as a relief pitcher in the Texas loop. Despite Moore not panning out this was just an incredible draft class for the Gothams although much of it was by the AI (cpu makes selections for us after round ten) as they landed Frank McCormick, who became a star in St Louis after being included in the Max Morris trade, in the 11th round, all-star catcher John Wicklund in the 15th and Fred Miller, who also had success in St Louis, in the 16th round. The Gothams did have the foresight to select Mahlon Strong in the 8th round and Calvin Brown, who would go to St Louis with McCormick for Morris, was their second rounder in '27.  7- BILLY SMITH SS NEW YORK STARS - Much of what I wrote about 5th overall pick Billy Ball could easily have been said about Smith. He did post a little more offense than Ball in high school including 14 homers as a senior at Atlanta High but he has never been able to establish himself as someone who could hit big league pitching. Smith did make his big league debut at 26 last season for a very weak Stars club and he did make the club again this year but he is batting .224 in 73 career big league games. He does have a little pop in his bat with 7 round trippers. Smith was actually taken by the Philadelphia Sailors in the 1932 rule V draft but returned to the Stars even before camp started that March.  8- BERT HARRISON OF ST LOUIS - This is back in the pre-Mock Draft era but OSA actually had Harrison ranked 6th overall in it's top ten draft prospect email. He showed some power at Memphis High School with 27 homers including 12 in his senior year but aside from hitting 13 in 123 games at Class C two years after he was drafted that power has not translated to the professional ranks. In 1933 the Pioneers lost him to the Chicago Cougars in the rule V draft after he hit .328 at AA Dayton. He spent the 1934 season with the Cougars but only had 51 at bats and hit .255. The Cougars gave him 8 more big league at bats the following season and eventually waived him after he played sparingly in AAA last season as a 26 year old. There is perhaps still a small glimmer of hope he might get back to the majors as the Philadelphia Sailors claimed him and he is presently assigned to AAA San Francisco. Fortunately for Pioneers fans the club grabbed another corner outfielder in the second round. He has fared much better as Alex Ingraham has become one of the best players in his draft class. Not sure whether it was by design or not but the Pioneers loved their outfielders in 1927 as their third, fourth and sixth rounders also played that position. They were all quite forgettable as third rounder Bill Hart and fourth rounder Bill Duke are long since retired and sixth round Harry Burke is still languishing in AA ball at the age of 27. None of the three made the majors.  9- DICK KENNON OF CLEVELAND - Another of the players to never make the major leagues, Kennon perhaps can be best remembered as a college teammate of first overall pick Cliff Moss at Pierpont. Moss was only a starter alongside Moss for one season in the Purple outfield and hit .320 with 9 homers that year. He advanced as high as AAA for the Foresters but that was strictly a 3 game stint in Cincinnati in 1933 when he went 0-for-8 and was released at the end of the season. He did have a couple of decent years in the low minors and hit fairly well in Amarillo (which seems to be a haven for 1927 first round picks) before retiring last October. 10- ANDY CARTER 2B WASHINGTON - Already a two time all-star with over 1000 FABL games and a .323 career batting average Carter would likely be the number one pick if we were to redraft today. It was a circuitous route to the big leagues for the now 31 year old. He started only one season of high school ball and was drafted in the 12th round by the Philadelphia Keystones in 1924. This was in the pre-human GM era and the Keystones released him prior to camp so he enrolled at St Blane and spent two years playing college ball. Carter hit .337 in 1927 and was considered one of the best middle infielders available when Washington selected him. He had a strong rookie pro season and then tore it up in A and AA in 1929 before making the Eagles out of camp in 1930. Carter hit .317 as a rookie and has never looked back, leading the Federal Association in triples 4 times so far in his career. Despite the fact the Eagles second and third round picks never made the majors it was a decent draft for the franchise as Larry Vestal, who was eventually turned into 20 game winner Bill Anderson (another 1927 first rounder) in a trade with Toronto and has hit .304 in 651 FABL games, was their fourth round pick. Decent might be too strong a word in hindsight as aside from Carter and Vestal the only other Washington pick that year to have played in the big leagues was 24th rounder Jim Sears, a pitcher still with the organization in AAA who 9-12 in stints in the nation's capital in 1934 and 1935.  11- JACK BATES OF PHILADELPHIA SAILORS - I really miss the days before OOTP added the Mock Draft and why an option can't be added to block it from displaying is beyond me. In the good old days before OOTP21 all Figment General Manager's had to go on besides the written scouting report and stats was that top ten players available email the game would send us the day the draft class was revealed. I am not sure if BNN intended to mess up GM's on purpose or not but there always seemed to be a few players in there who it would turn out were just complete busts. Jack Bates was one of those guys. I kept a list of the ten players listed in the BNN email for the 1927 draft. I believe it is the one we got on the draft class reveal date and not the actual draft but here it is: Code:
1 Jack Bates CF 18 High school 2 Harry Humphrey CF 21 Whitney College 3 Brooks Meeks SS 18 High school 4 Roland Kumm CF 21 Maryland State 5 Loren Morgan LF 21 Mississippi A&M 6 Bert Harrison RF 17 High school 7 Jim Watson LF 21 Ellery College 8 Calvin Brown CF 18 High school 9 Rabbit Mudd SS 18 High school 10 Ralph Jackson 1B 18 High school Rube Carter, who was Brooklyn's scout at the time, had Bates 46th on his list and 9th among centerfielders. He was a three year starter in high school and his 6.3 career WAR was a Meridan (MS) High School record until Otto Deal broke it a few years later. Bates was certainly not a bad high school player. However, he spent 5 years in Class B and really did not improve much over that time. Next was Class A Peoria for two and a half seasons and now he is, at age 28, beginning his 3rd full season at AA Providence. So maybe he is a late bloomer or the Sailors are just taking their time with him but either way I highly doubt he will spend much, if any, time in the big leagues. Looking at that list of ten above Bates has plenty of company. Harry Humphrey and Bert Harrison have already been discussed and we will reacquaint ourselves with Roland Kumm very shortly. Ralph Jackson would be another Sailors pick - this one in the third round - who never made the majors. Brooklyn spent a 4th round pick on Loren Morgan but he also failed to make the big leagues. So Jim Watson and Rabbit Mudd, who will be discussed shortly, along with Brooks Meeks (round 3 Pittsburgh) and perhaps Calvin Brown (round 2 Gothams) are the only 4 players worth mentioning from that top ten list. It was great when our scouts knew more than BNN, oh I long for the pre-mock draft days. 12- JIM WATSON OF CHICAGO CHIEFS - The outfielder had a solid college career as an Ellery Bruin and was ranked #7 on the OSA top draft prospects email. He worked his way up the Chiefs system but, after hitting .323 with 23 homers at AAA Fort Wayne in 1931 he was lost to Montreal in which I believe was the first year of the minor league phase of the rule V draft (records are spotty so I am not certain that is the reason for the move). He made his big league debut for the Saints the following season and has been a solid big league outfielder ever since, leading the Continental Association in stolen bases one season and triples another year.  In all 8 Chiefs draft picks in 1927 would go on to play in FABL including those mentioned above and also another solid pick by their human GM in 5th rounder Ron Coles, a pitcher out of Knoxville High School who has a 48-34 record for his career including a 15-5 season a year ago to help the Chiefs to their World Championship victory. Only Baltimore with 11 and the New York Gothams with 10 had more players from this class make the big leagues, but the Chiefs on the strength of solid careers from Watson, Drake and Fritz in particular received the most production, at least if measured by career WAR, from their picks.  13- BILL ANDERSON P TORONTO - Anderson had less than impressive high school numbers and wasn't even on the radar of current Chiefs Scouting Director Rube Carter, who was with Brooklyn at the time. "Too be honest, he was not even the highest pitcher named Anderson I had on my board," said Carter recently. The pitchers Carter had above Bill Anderson included Woody Anderson out of Mississippi A&M, who the Kings took in the 6th round but never made the major leagues. It turns out Carter missed the mark on Bill Anderson as the Wolves selected the Elmira (NY) High Schooler 13th despite a 9-10 career record in his amateur career. Like many pitchers drafted out of high school, Anderson took a while to get to the big leagues but made his debut in 1932 and by the following season was a big league regular. He won 15 games for Toronto in 1935 and then was dealt to Washington where he had a breakout season last year going 22-14 and clearly has claimed the title of the best of the three pitchers selected in the first round of his draft class.  14- HARRY MEEK P DETROIT - The Dynamos have not had a lot of success with picking pitchers in the first round thru the years: Code:
YEAR NAME FABL W-L 1912 Gorge Davis 195-178 1914 Al Colby 60-70 1915 Whitey Hudson 0-0 1916 Mel Strom 189-189 1919 Billy Blank 0-0 1920 Paul Vandenberg 42-37 1924 Leo Hall 14-19 1926 Larry Brown 22-24 1927 Harry Meek 0-0 1930 Donnie Scheuermann 16-15 1934 Del Burns 0-0 Meek's story is by far the worst of the group. His best season at Pierpont (quite a run for the Purple with Cliff Moss and Dick Kennon also going in round one) was his sophomore campaign when he went 10-3 with a 1.22 era. His junior season wasn't bad at all, but it was the beginning of a downward trend. The crazy thing is Meek never pitched a game in the Detroit organization as for some strange reason the Dynamos released their first round pick in early May without pitching him anywhere in the minors. The decision to release him did not prove to be as boneheaded as one might think as Meek signed with Boston but never advanced past AA before retiring following the 1935 season. Often when a player, particularly a pitcher busts, it is because of injury. The one thing Meek had going for him was his health. He never spent a day with even a minor nagging injury in his entire baseball career. 15- RABBIT MUDD 2B BROOKLYN - Mudd is a guy from that previously discussed top ten email who actually panned out. He had a stellar feeder career at Milwaukee High School culminating in a .401 average his senior season but as good as his bat was it was Mudd's glove that got him noticed. He was a terrific defensive infielder but he still had trouble finding playing time behind Jake Shadoan, Harry Barrell and Walt Layton with Brooklyn. He was moved to the New York Gothams midway through the 1935 season and has really blossomed as a hitter. Mudd is now 28 and finally getting the chance to play every day with the Gothams, for whom he has hit .296 over the last season and a bit.  16- ROLAND KUMM OF PHILADELPHIA KEYSTONES - Kumm was #4 on a BNN top ten list dominated by center fielders including three who busted in himself, Bates and Humphrey. He started 150 games over 3 seasons at Maryland State, posting a .309 career average with 20 homers. He has been in the Keystones system the past decade but advanced as far as AAA for just 130 games over parts of 3 seasons, hitting .244. He is back in AA now and is much closer to being released and playing in the Lone Star League then his chances are of getting into a big league game. SUMMARY I have not taken the time to do a detailed assessment of each draft's lower round picks but I can't imagine there were many drafts with more quality talented that was overlooked in the first round then what we saw in 1927. Let's hope the GM's and their Scouting Director's have a little more success in the 1937 draft.
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports |
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06-07-2021, 01:53 PM
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#168 |
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All Star Reserve
Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 677
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THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL May 10, 1937 PIONEERS TRYING TO KEEP PACE WITH CHICAGO With 7 wins in their last 9 games the St Louis Pioneers have rebounded from a slow start and are the second hottest team in the Federal Association. The Pioneers opened the season in fine style, sweeping three games at home from the defending World Champion Chicago Chiefs but then went on the road and dropped 5 of 7 games including a pair to both Detroit and the New York Gothams, who were the bottom two teams in the Fed a year ago. However, when the calendar turned to May so did the Pioneers fortunes and they took off. The problem for the Pioneers is as they took off, so did the Chiefs. That opening series sweep at the hands of the Pioneers served as a wake-up call to the champs and Chicago has gone 15-2 since, including a 9 game winning streak that was halted yesterday when Rabbit Day (3-1) suffered a rare loss in a 4-0 Philadelphia Keystones victory at Whitney Park. The winning streak has allowed Chicago to open a 3 game lead atop the Federal Association as it included an impressive 3 game sweep of the Pittsburgh Miners, a club many believe will be the Chiefs top competition this year. The way things are going right now in Chicago, particularly with their pitching staff, is giving every indication they will run away with a pennant that many felt will go right down to the wire. The 3 game set in Chicago has to leave the Miners shaking their hands and wondering what else they can do, considering how the series went. Pittsburgh had the lead in each of the three games before Chicago made a comeback on each occasion. The series opener saw the Miners take a 2-0 lead into bottom of the 8th only to see the Chiefs plate four with the big blow being a 2-run single off of the bat of Pete Layton, who was so good down the stretch. The result was a 4-2 Chiefs win. A day later Chicago saved the heroics for the 9th inning as second baseman Mose Christopher, making his first start of the season giving Layton a day off, hit a 3-run walk-off homer to give the Chiefs a 4-1 win. The series finale also saw Pittsburgh score first but the Miners managed just one run off of Jack Beach, who improved to 4-0 after his side scored 3 times in the bottom of the 7th and added further insurance with an 8th inning run to take a second straight 4-1 victory. The big question in the Continental Association is what has happened to the vaunted Brooklyn offense. The Kings offense dominated the CA a year ago but has been merely average this time around. It is a pair of Barrell brothers who are struggling the most in Brooklyn as catcher Fred had an awful spring and it carried over to the regular season with him hitting just .161 so far. Shortstop Harry, a 4-time all-star, was batting just .179 and having some problems in the field as well with 8 errors - tied for second most in the league. To add to his woes, Harry Barrell has been placed on the injured list after hurting his elbow when Philadelphia Sailors catcher Alex Diaz took him out with a rolling slide breaking up a doubleplay in a game between the two sides last week. Fortunately for Brooklyn fans, the pitching has more than picked up the slack and the Kings are second in the loop, 2 games back of 14-6 Cleveland. Offense, at least batting average is down substantially in the CA in the early going. Last season the CA average was .290 and it is .270 so far this year. ERA is also way down - to the tune of 3/4 of a run from 4.55 a year ago to 3.78 this time around. Interestingly the Fed has an increase in both those categories, just a slight one but still an increase so I am not sure what to make of the CA numbers. Perhaps just an anomaly that will balance out over the course of the season.  PESTILLI FAMILY CELEBRATES It was quite a week for the Pestilli clan. First overall draft pick Sal earns Federal Association player of the week honours with a huge performance. Sal went 16-for-30 with 2 homers and 10 rbi's in leading his Detroit Dynamos to a winning week - their second in the 3 week old season for last year's cellar dwellers- and helped the Dynamos get to .500 on the season. Thru 20 games as a professional Sal is batting .341 with 4 homers and 16 rbi's. Pestilli is currently on pace to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases--and finish with a WAR > 11.0. Meanwhile Sal's older brother Alf was named player of the week in the Union League. The 25 year old Alf, who is in Brooklyn's system after originally being selected in the 4th round of the 1934 draft, hit .375 with 3 homers and 9 rbi's last week for the Rochester Rooks. He had a slow opening week but has raised his season average to .283 with 5 round-trippers and word is the Kings are considering calling him up to Brooklyn while Harry Barrell is sidelined. 18 year old Tony Pestilli is a senior at Westerly High School in Rhode Island and is a likely mid-round selection in the upcoming June draft. Meanwhile we also learned courtesy of the Ballad of the Barrell's story there are 2 other boys as well in addition to the 3 mentioned above. Paul, who we can assume never made it to pro ball as he is older than Sal and also Joe, who perhaps will be a freshman at Narragansett - the college in Rhode Island that Alf and Sal both played for - when the draft classes are revealed in a couple of sims GOINS NAMED CA PLAYER OF THE WEEK Cleveland Foresters catcher T.R. Goins was named the top performer in the Continental Association this week after picking up 10 hits, including 3 homers and 9 rbi's in 7 games. The 10 hits lift the 36 year old 2 time Whitney Award winner's career total to 2,455. On the season Goins is hitting .315 with 4 homers and 20 rbi's as the Foresters seem to be the one team in the Continental Association that is not suffering from a reduction in offense so far this season.
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This Week in Figment Baseball: May 17, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL May 17, 1937 THREE ARE PULLING AWAY IN THE FED The Federal Association is very quickly turning into a three team race as the Chicago Chiefs, Pittsburgh Miners and St Louis Pioneers all continue to roll. While the Chiefs 13 game winning streak streak came to an end a week ago against Philadelphia, the defending champions have started another one with 4 straight wins to finish off a 5-2 week. The St Louis Pioneers also won 5 of their 7 games last week and are 12-4 on the month but it is the Pittsburgh Miners who are suddenly the hottest club in the Fed. The Miners extended their winning streak to 9 games by taking a pair from their cross-state rivals from Philadelphia on the weekend. The wins were much needed for a Pittsburgh club that had started the month with 5 losses including 3 in Chicago and one at St Louis. Those three clubs are the only Federal Association teams with a winning record and it is the Chiefs who continue to hold the lead, 2 and a half games up on Pittsburgh and 3 ahead of St Louis. Chicago is just 2-3 against St Louis so far this season but are 3-0 vs Pittsburgh heading into a 2-game series between the clubs this weekend. Pittsburgh will be short-staffed for the contest as the Miners suffered a big loss this week with the news that George Cleaves will be out for close to a month with a muscle strain. The 23 year old catcher is a 3-time member of the Federal Association all-star team and was among the league leaders with a .379 batting average, 6 homers and 22 rbi's this season. Cleaves is the second key Miner hitter to be sidelined as often injured outfielder Mahlon Strong, who was acquired from the Gothams over the winter, still has a couple of weeks left before he will be healthy enough to return. Strong played just 5 games in a Pittsburgh uniform before the injury but homered twice and was batting .636. While second sacker Sandy Grebow (.304,1,7) is not on the Cleaves and Strong stratosphere, he too will be missed as he was sidelined last week with an elbow injury that will keep him out of action until early June. Speaking of often injured players the Pioneers were also dealt a blow last week when the incredibly talented but also incredibly injury prone Freddie Jones went down with a sore elbow. The prognosis is the 4 time all-star and 1935 Whitney Award winner will miss a month and a half. With Jones on the sidelines it will be even more important to the Pioneers that center fielder Gail Gifford (.415,7,29) continues his torrid start. The 25 year old fourth year Pioneer entered the season with a career .309 batting average and a penchant for striking out - he has been fanned more than any other Fed hitter in each of the past three seasons. He has not cut down on the k's much, and is still on a pace for 114 this season, but he is also leading the Fed in homers and rbi's and is second behind only Washington's Mel Carroll (.425,4,23) in batting average.  KINGS SPLIT WITH FORESTERS BUT GAIN GROUND IN THE CONTINENTAL RACE It is always a big series when the Brooklyn Kings and Cleveland Foresters square off. After decades of limited success the two clubs have combined to win the past 3 Continental Association pennants and have provided some great drama down the stretch. This year promises to be no different although the Philadelphia Sailors, who edged out the Foresters for second place behind Brooklyn last season, are looking to join the party. Counting last week the Kings and Foresters have played 68 times since the start of the 1934 season and each team has won 34 of them. Here is how the season series went each year: Code:
1934 Tied 11-11 1935 Cleveland 13-9 1936 Brooklyn 13-9 1937 Tied 1-1 As for last week's two game set in Brooklyn, the Kings entered the series on a 4-game winning streak but trailed the Foresters by 2 games in the standings. Cleveland was on a 5-game winning streak and extended it to 6 by taking the opener 4-0 behind a 3-hit shutout courtesy of Sergio Gonzales (2-1) who outdueled Brooklyn's Mike Murphy (2-3). Homers by Brooks Meeks, with his first of the season, and T.R. Goins, with his 5th, keyed the Cleveland offense. The Brooklyn bats, which had been in slumber mode much of the season, came alive the next day as the Kings pounded out 18 hits in 14-5 drubbing of former King Lyman Weigel, who won 15 games for Cleveland a year ago but has struggled this season. Art White went the distance to improve to 4-2 for Brooklyn while John Langille, with 4 hits, and Fred Barrell, with 2 hits and 4 rbi's, both showed signs of getting untracked after slow starts. The Kings would then go on to take two of three games in Baltimore while Cleveland would return home to drop a pair of games to Chicago and see their lead shrink to a half game. Charlie Barry, who had been so good to start the season, finally hit the inevitable rough patch and went just 4-for-22 during the week, but his .379 average on the season is still second best in the CA. The Philadelphia Sailors, meanwhile, have been mired in a real slump since starting the month with back to back wins in Cleveland. The Sailors dropped the finale of their 3 game set with the Foresters before losing two of three in Brooklyn. Since then they have gone 3-7 against the likes of New York, Baltimore, Montreal and Toronto and dropped 5.5 games back of Cleveland with a 12-15 record. WHAT IS WRONG WITH KELLOGG? Rankin Kellogg is off to another slow start for the Philadelphia Keystones. The 34 year old Kellogg, a 4-time All-Star and 3 time Whitney Award winner, was hitting just .265 in early June last season although he did have 7 homers at the time, but the lifetime .348 hitter's struggles at the plate a year ago coincided with Keystones struggling out of the gate. A year ago the Keystones were 18-36 in early June and ended up finishing a distant 7th in the Federal Association race. Even though his team didn't, Kellogg eventually got going and finished with a .311 average to go with 36 homers and 137 rbi's, numbers just slightly below his career average. Fast forward to this season and we are witnessing more early struggles from the Keystones star first baseman. Kellogg has not hit a homerun yet this year, and is batting just .247 with 6 rbi's after 25 games. Like every player, Kellogg has had slumps in the past but this power outage from the man with 443 career homers - second only to Hall of Famer Max Morris - is unheard of. There is no official data available but one has to feel pretty confident in assuming Kellogg has never had a homerless drought this long at any point in his 13 year career. The Keystones are trying to figure out what is wrong. Kellogg insists he is healthy and really has no answer for the slump. Meanwhile Philadelphia has fallen to 11-14 on the season and are already 8 games behind the Chicago Chiefs just 4 weeks into the campaign and seem to be preparing for another dismal season. Speaking of slumps the Washington Eagles are dealing with a very rough start from Bill Anderson (1-4, 9.00). The 28 year old joined Washington in a trade with Toronto prior to last season and responded with a career best 22 win season. Anderson did finally get a win after starting the season 0-4 but it was hardly comforting to the Eagles brass as the righthander surrendered 14 hits and 8 earned runs and did not survive the 6th inning of an 11-10 win over Boston. Washington has plenty of offense but in order to contend the Eagles need their pitching, especially Anderson, to get untracked soon. ZIEHL IS MISDIRECTED WITH FRUSTRATION New York Gothams manager Ed Ziehl blasted the Big Apple media for when he called "sensational" reporting and not in the good way. Ziehl felt news reports chastising pitcher Ernie Wise for being out carousing after yet another Gothams loss were uncalled for but the truth is the problem is much deeper and is really the Gothams own doing. Ziehl's frustrations with the media are misdirected as it should be his own management team his anger is aimed at. I am not sure if Ziehl, who was a legendary Gotham player in his day, was part of the decision making team a year ago when the club ripped a championship team to threads by selling off virtually every player of any sort of skill level. Perhaps he was a willing participant but my guess, knowing the type of player he was and the type of manager he has been in his decade in New York, there is no way Ziehl agreed, at least behind the closed doors of the Gothams office, with the moves. The Gothams are a dreadful 6-21 this season and since last July they are 38-69. It is clear from the local media there are troubles brewing in the clubhouse - how can there not be on a team playing .222 baseball this season - and it is likely only a matter of time before things erupt. Ziehl may well be the one who takes the fall but the ultimate responsibility falls much higher as I am shocked the Gothams General Manager still has his job or, knowing how the Bigsby clan is reputed to operate, all of his appendages intact, unless it was Bigsby himself who initialized the moves as a cost cutting measure but that seems highly unlikely as the Gothams are regularly among the most profitable franchises in baseball. New York did add a lot of minor league assets in tearing down the franchise, but the fan base only cares about the big league team and sooner or later they will revolt if this team does not turn it around fast. The Gothams have the benefit of a huge season-ticket subscriber base and it is one that has seen very quick turnarounds from the team in the past but something tells me this time will be different and there will be some lean years ahead. Ed Ziehl was a great player, is a very good manager and no one bleeds Gotham blue more than he does. He should not to be blamed for what is happening here but someone needs to be held accountable. I only hope Ziehl is not the one to take the fall. Here is the original story on Ziehl from the New York World-Telegram  PLAYERS OF THE WEEK Unlike a couple of his brothers on the Brooklyn Kings, Dan Barrell is off to a quick start this season. The 32 year old first baseman is batting .362 with 2 homers and 12 rbi's on the year after an award winning performance last week. Barrell went 12-for-19 in 5 games to capture his third career Continental Association Player of the Week award. While many of the Kings including Dan's brothers Fred (.198,0,9) and Harry (.179,0,5) have struggled in the early going this season Dan has performed at level slightly above his career averages. As good as Barrell was last week, the top player in the Federal Association had an even better 7 days. Pittsburgh outfielder Ray Cochran had 10 hits in 14 at bats including a pair of homers, while driving in 9 runs and scoring 7 times. Cochran's arrival in Pittsburgh corresponded with the Miners hot streak of late as he was claimed on waivers from Detroit on May 2nd. The 31 year old was originally a Cleveland Forester pick in 1927 but could never break in as a regular in the Cleveland outfield. He was dealt to Detroit last season and played in a career high 130 games for the Dynamos, hitting .280 with 9 homers and 52 rbi's but lost his job in Detroit when the Dynamos added fellow ex-Forester Leon Drake and rookie phenom Sal Pestilli to their outfield. This likely will be Cochran's one taste of fame in FABL as he is a lifetime .285 hitter but the Miners brass look like a genius for the decision to sign him so they will enjoy it while they can and maybe he can make them forget about the injured Mahlon Strong for a couple more weeks.  QUICK HITS - It is great to see Max Morris finally get his first homer as a Detroit Dynamo. The player manager hit a 2-run shot off of Washington's Bill Anderson in a 9-4 win over Washington 10 days ago to finally get his first extra-base hit in a Detroit uniform. Since then he has added 3 more homers and raised his batting average to .248. Morris, who was inducted into the Hall of Famer in December, now has 706 career homeruns. If you don't think luck plays a role in pitching success or failure take a look at Jack Beach. The 35 year old had a couple of great seasons in Detroit to start the decade and won an Allen Award after his 20-10 performance in 1932. He was moved to Brooklyn in 1935 and was run out of the borough, as the main scapegoat for why the Kings collapsed and blew a pennant that season. Now he is in his second season with the Chicago Chiefs and is 5-0 while leading the Fed in ERA by a wide margin with his 1.31 mark. So what has changed for Beach? Well, walks for one as he is back to averaging 2.8 free passes per 9 innings, a number right in line with the total he posted in his Allan Award winning season but by far the biggest difference is in his BABIP. He has to be one of the luckiest pitchers in baseball right now with a 2.08 BABIP, which is the lowest in either league. However he was also one of the unluckiest two years ago in Brooklyn when his BABIP was .373 for the Kings and nearly as bad when they farmed him out to Rochester. So the big question in Chicago is how long will his luck last?  Terrible news out of Milwaukee as Tommy Wilcox has suffered another devastating injury. This almost assuredly spells the end of the line as a big league pitcher for the 30 year old former first overall draft pick. Wilcox, who the Chicago Cougars acquired in the deal that sent Tom and Fred Barrell to Brooklyn, first hurt his arm in 1934 and has never been the same. Prior to the injury he made the Continental all-star team for the first two All-Star games and won the Allan Award in 1933 after a 21-11 season. He had been farmed out to Milwaukee this season after going just 3-13 for the Cougars a year ago. In all, Wilcox was 91-84 for his major league career. Brooklyn Kings farmhand Joey Binette accomplished something that has been done very few times in the minor leagues and never in FABL. The Class A Springfield outfielder had a 4 homerun game this. It is the 8th time that has been accomplished in the Heartland League and the first since 1932 when Clarence Sandifer, who had a brief stint with the Chicago Cougars, turned the trick. Binette's performance was the first 4 homer game ever hit by a Springfield player and just the 8th time it has been accomplished since they league began in 1904. All four of his homers came off of Peoria starter Stan Winstead, a 26 year old undrafted free agent in the Philadelphia Sailors organization. Binette was a second round pick of the Kings but the now 23 year old outfielder has yet to advance past Class A. Jim Noland, the first player to hit four homers in a Heartland League game and the only one to do it twice, played briefly for Brooklyn as did Jim Ramsdell, who also had a 4 homer game in the minors.  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[b] 4 HOMER GAMES IN THE HEARTLAND LEAGUE 1905 Jim Noland Cedar Rapids 1907 Jim Noland(2) Cedar Rapids 1907 Jim Ramsdell Gary 1907 Tom Walls Peoria 1908 Lou Cobb Cedar Rapids 1913 Roger Howard Cedar Rapids 1932 Clarence Sandifer Cedar Rapids 1937 Joey Binette Springfield PROSPECT TRACKING Let's check in with the top ten prospects according to OSA and see how they are faring a month into the 1937 season. 1- SAL PESTILLI - DETROIT DYNAMOS : Clearly Pestilli has proven he deserved to be just the third player to go straight from college ball to the big leagues. All he has done in his first 27 professional games is hit .308 with 5 homers and 19 rbi's and is one of the big reasons the Dynamos future looks so bright. Oh, and he also was recently named Federal Association player of the week. 2- AL TUCKER- ST LOUIS PIONEERS: The 24 year old outfielder was a third round pick of Montreal's out of Elmira High School in 1931 and has been considered a top ten prospect since before the Saints dealt him to St Louis in the deal that brought Tom Bird to Montreal. At 24 he likely should have been in the big leagues by now and St Louis gave him every opportunity to win a job in the spring, but Tucker hit just .169 in camp and found himself back at AAA Oakland for the third time. He is not tearing up the Great West League but is hitting .273 with 4 homers and 16 rbi's in 22 games for the Grays. The Pioneers outfield is crowded and Tucker's best chance of starting in St Louis likely involves showing enough to force Art Cascone (.267,2,17) out of the starting right field job. 3- RED JOHNSON- DETROIT DYNAMOS: The second overall pick of the 1935 draft is still just 19 years old and has loads of potential, but the Dynamos so far must be underwhelmed with Johnson's showing in Class B Chattanooga. He spent just 10 games in Class C last year and after hitting 5 homers was moved up to Chattanooga but he batted just .249 with 12 homers in 126 games so he is back at that level again to start this season. There has not been a lot of improvement as he is batting .253 with 3 homers in 12 games but the Dynamos can afford to be patient and wait for Johnson's game to evolve. 4- PETE PAPENFUS- CHICAGO COUGARS: Papenfus was the second pitcher selected last December, 6th overall and after 4 impressive starts in Class A he is now considered the best pitching prospect in the game. He will need to cut down on the walks (16 in 28 innings) but everything else looks very good from the 19 year old who is 2-0 with a 2.86 era on the season. 5- BILLY WOYTEK- PHILADELPHIA KEYSTONES: The 3rd pick of the 1936 draft was off to a nice start in Class A Allentown but he banged up his shoulder and has missed the last couple of weeks. It doesn't look like anything serious and the Keystones have to be satisfied with his .304 average thru 15 games of pro ball. 6- HEINIE ZIMMER- ST LOUIS PIONEERS: The 22 year old catcher, like #2 prospect Al Tucker, was given an opportunity to make the Pioneers club out of camp but he also struggled in the spring. Zimmer looked very good hitting .341 at AAA Oakland last season and is back with the Grays this year. His slash numbers are down a bit so far this season but likely no cause for concern. However, the defense might be a bit of a worry as after throwing out 50.5% of would be base stealers last season he is just 1-for-8 in the early go this year. But it is a small sample. 7- RUFUS BARRELL II- BALTIMORE CANNONS: He was one of the most highly touted pitchers in draft history when the Cannons selected him first overall in 1935. Off the chart numbers at Macon (GA) High School but his pro experience has been a bitter disappointment so far. Barrell missed nearly all of his freshman pro season with a shoulder injury and then sprained his elbow this season which, while minor, did cost him a start or two. He is averaging 12.0 strikeouts per 9 innings but beyond that his numbers are worrisome, 61 ERA+ this season with a 1-3 record and 5.82 era in 4 starts. No one is going to give up on him but he is dropping in the prospect list after spending so much time at #1 or 2 and the Cannons really need him to start showing something soon, just to give them peace of mind. 8- JOHN EDWARDS- BALTIMORE CANNONS: The 21 year old 1933 third overall pick made his Baltimore debut last season and looked very good. He has struggled a bit this year with a 4-3 record and a 5.20 era through 7 starts but it was expected there would be a learning curve for Edwards and fellow Baltimore pitching prospects Rusty Petrick (3-4, 4.07) and Gus Goulding (1-6, 4.42). 9- BILLY HUNTER- CHICAGO COUGARS: Many, including scouting guru Possum Daniels, feel the 22 year old shortstop should already be plying his trade on the North Side Grounds infield especially with Ollie Page struggling at the position for Chicago. Hunter had a marginally successful spring and with only 20 games of AAA ball under his belt the Cougars felt he would be better served with a little more apprentice time in Milwaukee. He has played 22 games for the Blues this season and is batting .301 so with Chicago clearly going nowhere this season it should be just a matter of time before the 1932 first round pick gets the call. 10- RIP LEE- PHILADELPHIA SAILORS: Like Hunter, Lee was a high school shortstop who has worked his way up the top prospect list and been in the top ten for a couple of years now. The 23 year old was taken two rounds after Hunter in the 1932 draft out of Houston High School. He spent last season in AAA and was made the Sailors starting shortstop this season. Batting .286 and playing exceptional defense, his future looks very bright.
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06-08-2021, 05:05 PM
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06-10-2021, 12:36 AM
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This Week in Figment Baseball: May 24, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL May 24, 1937 WHAT A DEBUT! Billy Hunter was deemed not quite ready for the major leagues when the Chicago Cougars dispatched him back to AAA after spring training but the 22 year old shortstop was called up last weekend and certainly showed the Cougars and their Continental Association foes he was more than ready. The 1932 first round pick went 0-for-3 in his debut, an 8-1 loss to Cleveland on Monday, but he got over the rookie jitters very quickly as he had 2 hits including his first career homerun in a 3-2 win over Brooklyn and, as reports out of Chicago had suggested was possible, his first career homerun came off 3-time Allan Award winner Tom Barrell. When the dust had settled on the week, Hunter had hit a total of 4 homers, drove in 10 runs and was batting .333. There is no data available but it is widely speculated that the 4 homer total is the most ever hit by a player in the first week of his big league career.  The Pittsburgh Miners proved they can withstand the injury to all-star catcher George Cleaves as the Miners avenged a sweep in Chicago earlier in the month by returning the favour and taking both ends of their short two game series at Fitzpatrick Park this past week. The series opener was a 3-1 Miners win as Charlie Stedman (5-2, 2.94) outdueled Chiefs ace Rabbit Day (4-2, 3.20) with Ed Stewart's (.319,4,33) two run homer in the 8th inning proving the difference. Stewart was responsible for bringing home the winning run the next day as well as he drew a bases-loaded walk from Chiefs hurler Ron Coles in the bottom of the 10th to give Pittsburgh a 6-5 victory and pulling the Miners into a first place tie with Chicago.  PESTILLI STARS Sal Pestilli had another big week for the Detroit Dynamos, delivering 11 hits including another home run to raise his season numbers to .333,6,24 but we are not referring to Sal this time. Instead it was his older brother Alf who gets some credit this week. Alf made his FABL debut in the Brooklyn outfield a couple of weeks ago and after a slow couple of games to begin his career is batting .273 and hit his first two big league homeruns last week. However, with Brooklyn shortstop Harry Barrell coming off the injured list this week it likely means Alf Pestilli will be sent back down to AAA Rochester. Staying with the Rhode Island family, there will be two more Pestilli's on the way soon with the draft just a month away. As was speculated in this column last week, Joe Pestilli - a second baseman - will be in the draft pool along with high school outfielder Tony. Joe did not attend Narragansett College like his brothers Sal and Alf, instead he hit .292 as a junior at New York Maritime. Tony, an 18 year old outfielder hit .456 over 4 seasons as a starter at Westerly High School. Both are listed as first round candidates in the initial OSA Mock Draft. KELLOGG GETS 2500TH CAREER HIT Rankin Kellogg became the 20th player in FABL history to reach the 2,500 hit plateau with a pair of hits in a Philadelphia Keystone win over St Louis on Saturday. Kellogg's milestone marker was a big hit, an rbi single off Pioneers starter David Abalo in the bottom of the 8th inning that helped key a 5-run inning and lead the hometown Keystones to a 5-4 come from behind win over the Pioneers. Perhaps more important to the Keystones was Kellogg finally ended his season long homerless drought the next afternoon with an 8th inning blast off of Detroit reliever Jim Spencer. It was the 444th homer of Kellogg's career but his first in 32 games this season as he battles through the worst power outage of his 13 year career. Only Detroit player-manager Max Morris, with 707, has hit more homers in his career than Kellogg. Saturday was special for another Keystone as rookie Jim Whiteley picked up his first major league win. The 21 year old, who was selected 16th overall by the Keystones out of Mobile High School in 1933, had lost his first four major league decisions before notching the win over the Pioneers. AROUND THE LEAGUE With little to look forward to with the big club right now the New York World Telegram provides an update on some of the minor league prospects in the New York Gothams system. Other than two young outfielders getting their first full seasons and performing well - Howard Brown, Jr(.346-1-15) and Charlie DeMars (.292-5-20), the World-Telegraph rightly points out things have been fairly dismal at the Bigsby Oval, with pitchers Ernie Wise and Mule Earl already sent back to AAA Toledo for more seasoning. But what of the youngsters further down the line? A couple of promising pitchers have recently received promotions. Bunny Edwards, the #7 pick in the 1936 draft was 3-1 2.63 at B level when moved to A level. Edwards was 1-1 2.65 in his first week at Albany. Charlie Wheeler, a former 1st round pick obtained for Hardin Bates, has been bumped to AAA Toledo after going 1-2 1.91 at Jersey City. The Gothams top pick in their busy 1936 draft, Walt Messer (.245-11-20) has shown power in the rookie league but needs to work on making contact before moving up. 23 year old 3B Billy Dalton (not Bill) is crushing the ball at AA (.330-11-23) and appears ready for the next level. Expect a move in the near future. Second round pick Ed Stoddard was moved back to the Rookie league after struggling at B level. There he joins 1st rounder Fred Vargas who had gotten off to a slow start. 1B Chuck Johnson has turned some heads. Originally drafted in the 7th round by Brooklyn, Johnson was acquired in the Curly Jones deal. He had hit well at every level and is currently at (.328-2-16) with an .864 OPS at AA Jersey City. The main concern with Johnson is that he has not shown any power to go with his annual high average. The hope is that the 22 year old, 6-4 200 lb first sacker will grow into more of a slugger. The St Louis Globe reports of more success from Gail Gifford as the 25 year old Pioneers center fielder continues to enjoy a breakout season. Yesterday Gifford had four hits including two doubles, a triple, and a homer to raise his batting average to .403. The fourth year outfielder is on pace for a cool 13.8 WAR season. Meanwhile, Pioneers catcher Jack Flint has a 17 game hitting streak going, during which the 28 year old is hitting an even .500. The streak even survived the dreaded pinch hit appearance in his last game going 1-for-1. It is not the only active streak right now as Chicago Chiefs outfielder Jim Hampton has a 20 gamer on the go while third baseman John Lawson of the Chicago Cougars singled in the bottom of the ninth against Baltimore yesterday to extend his streak to 23 games. The offense in Brooklyn is still not where it should be but the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports the Kings are very happy with their pitching, especially Joe Shaffner. The 33 year old improved to 5-0 on the season with a 3-2 win over Toronto last week. Shaffner was 24-13 for the Kings in 1935 and finished second to teammate Tom Barrell in Allen Award voting that year but struggled much of last season and saw his victory total cut in half from the previous year. The Pittsburgh Press reports the Miners brought a familiar face back as the club inked former catcher Jim Pool to a minor league contract after he was released by the Philadelphia Sailors. The 32 year old spent 9 seasons in Pittsburgh but was lost to the Sailors on waivers after running out of minor league options. Pool may end up at AAA St Paul where the Disciples are struggling with the bats, especially veteran catcher Tex Miller, who is batting just .136. The club as a whole is hitting just .182 but despite that they are a game over .500 and just two games out of the lead in a tight Century League race. Back to the news about the big league club, Pittsburgh expects Mahlon Strong to return to the lineup sometime this week. The often injured 28 year old 3-time all-star, who was acquired from the Gothams over the winter, homered twice and was batting .636 in the 5 games he played in the Pittsburgh outfield before his injury. Seems many in Pittsburgh doubt he will stay healthy the entire season and there are reports of local numbers runners willing to take wagers on just how long Strong will stay healthy. 20 games seems to be the consensus for over/under bets. Big things were expected from the Washington Eagles this season but the club is off to a disappointing start which began right from opening day when second baseman Andy Carter suffered an injury that likely will prevent him from playing at all this season. The 31 year old second baseman was coming off a career best season in which he hit .359. The Eagles suffered another blow this week with news that centerfielder Wally Flowers (.300,3,16) is likely also done for the year. Injuries are nothing new for Flowers, who has missed substantial time each of the past two seasons as well. There was some good news last week as struggling pitcher Bill Anderson (4-2, 7.60) had his best outing of the season in a complete game 7-2 win over Detroit. The other bright spot remains third baseman Mel Carroll (.432,4,24), who continues to lead the Fed in hitting. The Eagles have to hope some one can step up and replace Flowers just as the duo of Johnnie Sundberg (.287,1,17) and Jack Ray (.344,1,10) have filled in admirably for Carter. Perhaps top prospect Don Miller will get a chance in Washington but the 22 year old has been less than impressive in AAA, batting just .189 in 30 games for Kansas City. Another option might by 1935 second round pick Jim Hanshaw, who his doing well in AA Atlanta in just his second pro season. ALL-STAR GAME LOCATIONS UNVEILED FABL announced the All-Star Game host cities for the next decade and a half in a press release today. The Toronto Wolves will host this year's game- the fifth such contest- which will be held at Dominion Stadium on July 7th and will be the first all-star game played in Canada. Here is the list of host teams for future all-star games: Code:
1937: Toronto Wolves 1938: New York Gothams 1939: Cleveland Foresters 1940: Detroit Dynamos 1941: Brooklyn Kings 1942: Pittsburgh Miners 1943: Montreal Saints 1944: Washington Eagles 1945: Chicago Cougars 1946: Boston Minutemen 1947: Philadelphia Sailors 1948: Chicago Chiefs 1949: Baltimore Cannons 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 DRAFT WATCH The draft class was officially revealed today so expect plenty of coverage over the next couple of weeks in preparation for the June 22nd draft. The AIAA College All-American teams will be revealed tomorrow along with the Frank Christian Trophy winner and the High School accolades will be handed out the following week. Spud Bent of Maryland State leaves an impressive legacy. The 20 year old New York City native is pegged as a potential first round pick after a record-setting four years with the Bengals. Bent finished his AIAA career with 275 hits, which is the third most all-time trailing only Walt Mullen's 281 (1930-33 Sadler College) and Doc Leach 's 277 (1930-33 Ellery). Bent is the now the new all-time career AIAA rbi leader with 189, one more than Bill Moore had at Lubbock State during his exceptional college career and 2 above Vic Crawford's total with Commonwealth Catholic. Finally, Bent is also the all-time SB king, smashing the old mark of 113 with 151 for his career. Bent played 213 career games for Maryland State which ties him with Terry Miller (1920-25) for second, trailing only Frank Beard's (1919-23) 250 games. Both Miller and Beard played for multiple colleges in the early years of the feeder leagues.
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06-10-2021, 02:47 PM
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#173 |
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All Star Reserve
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This Week in Figment Baseball: May 31, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL May 31, 1937 MYERS SPINS NO-HITTER Philadelphia Keystones veteran lefthander Art Myers tossed the first no-hitter in nearly two years as he and his teammates dumped Pittsburgh 6-0 on Friday. It was the first no-hitter by a Keystones pitcher since George P Williams threw one in 1923 and just the 5th in franchise history dating back to 1876 and the Century League. Prior to this week the last two no hitters had both been thrown by Doc Newell of the Philadelphia Sailors, who threw his first in May of 1934 and then had a perfect game in August a year later.  Code:
KEYSTONES NO-HITTERS YEAR PITCHER OPPONENT 1887 Ira Williams Buffalo* 1898 Henry Burton Detroit 1914 Ken Gray Detroit 1923 George P Williams Chicago 1937 Art Myers Pittsburgh *Williams no-hitter can before FABL in the Century League BROOKLYN BATS BURNING UP CA After a slow start the Brooklyn Kings offense is on fire of late. The Kings went 5-1 last week scoring 54 runs in the process and going back to May 13th, when they salvaged a split of a two game series with Cleveland the Kings are 12-4 while averaging nearly 7.5 runs per game. Prior to that they were 13-10 with an average of 4.5 runs per game. Al Wheeler has led the offense as usual, with the four time Whitney Award winner claiming his second Continental Association player of the week award this month. Wheeler hit 8 homers in 28 May games while driving in 27 runs - the most in either league in both of those categories. On the season Wheeler is hitting .336 with a CA leading 10 homers and 37 rbi's, two categories that he has led the Continental Association in each of the past two seasons. Meanwhile second place Cleveland had a losing week as after the Monday loss at home to Brooklyn the Foresters ended up going 3-3 against Montreal and Chicago.  AROUND THE LEAGUE The Pittsburgh Miners have two guys in negative WAR (Les Tucker and Joe Owens), they’ve had Mahlon Strong for less than 10 games this season and George Cleaves, the best defensive catcher in baseball, and one of the better hitters hasn’t played in 3 weeks. Still the Miners are 12 games over .500 and just two games back of the defending champs. If Pittsburgh can get healthy and get guys producing like they have proven they can, their offense is going to be something else. Will the 4 man rotation hold is the question, and is Bill Ketterman’s bad start for real? Ketterman is just 3-6 with a 6.27 era after winning 19 games a year ago with a 4.75 era. He has been a >100 ERA+ guy for the past 5 seasons but since at 71 this year. On the flip side, Charlie Stedman has been amazing for the Miners. The 35 year old was acquired from Boston last summer and is enjoying a 6-2, 2.55 start which, if he keeps it up, will be his best season since 1929 when he won 21 games for Montreal. Gothams execs are privately worried about 2nd overall pick Walt Messer. The 18 year old was ranked he 5th best prospect on Opening Day but in just over a month he has dropped to #21 on OSA's list. Messer, who was a 2-time Adwell Award winner as the National High School player of the year at D.C.'s McKinley Tech, is showing plenty of power after 36 Class C games so I think the Gothams cause for concern is unfounded. Messer is batting .264 with 11 homers which puts him on pace for over 40 homers this season if he spends the entire year in Class C. This reporter feels some GM's put a little too much stock in how OSA ranks players so New York should just stay the course with Messer. New York would also do well to look closer at the early days of Rankin Kellogg's career. Kellogg, who Messer has been compared to, spent 2 and a half years in Class A before making his big league debut and Kellogg hit just .227 with 15 homers his first pro season. Before you go and say yes, but that was Class A remember that in those days there were no B and C so Class A was the lowest minor league level. Another team that seems to be on the verge of panic mode, and without reason in my opinion, is the Detroit Dynamos. Yes, Detroit had a solid start and was at .500 just 3 weeks ago before a dreadful 2-18 run since. Reports out of Mo-Town (named after manager Max Morris) have the Dynamos GM worrying about his job but in this writer's opinion his rebuild is ahead of pace. The Dynamos were far and away the worst team in the league when GM Martin left Cleveland to assume the reigns and their farm system had nothing, not even managers at most levels. In the two drafts since then the Dynamos have loaded up on talent and have one of the best systems in either association. Sal Pestilli (.318,6,26) is already showing signs of the stardom predicted for him when he was a freshman at Narragansett and Red Johnson, the 1935 second overall pick is also highly touted. Add in the veteran leadership of Leon Drake, Henry Jones and Hardin Bates along with fan favorite Morris as player-manager and Detroit is building things the right way. It will take a couple of more seasons but Eddie Thompson's ballclub is so much better prepared going forward than it was just 2 short years ago there is no way I can see 'Big Money' cutting ties with him GM, especially with how much revenues are forecast to jump this year as attendance currently more than double last season's average. Bad news out of Philadelphia. #54 prospect SP Dick Bell of the Keystones has suffered a career ending injury. He was 5-0 this season at Class A with a 2.28 ERA. Drafted in the 2nd round in 1934 out of high school, Bell had a great '36 season going 15-6 with a solid 3.67 ERA at class B Bakersfield. Bell wasn't a bad hitter either hitting .350 at Bakersfield last year and .306 in class A Allentown. DRAFT NEWS LACOMB WINS CHRISTIAN TROPHY AS TOP COLLEGE PLAYER Outfielder Alex LaComb of Cuyahoga University was named the winner of the Frank Christian Trophy as the top college baseball player in the nation. LaComb, who hails from Cleveland, Ohio and played his college ball for his hometown university just as last year's winner Sal Pestilli did in his native Rhode Island. There are other comparison's between LaComb and Pestilli as each led the AIAA in hitting twice in their careers. In fact it was LaComb's .357 average as a freshman that prevented Pestilli from leading the nation all 3 of his seasons at Narragansett. LaComb was also the top hitter this year with a .374 average, narrowly outdistancing Hempstead freshman Danny Goff Jr. The comparison's between LaComb and Pestilli likely end at their college careers. While Pestilli was the clear number one choice in the draft last December and is now hitting very well in the big leagues with the Detroit Dynamos, there are plenty of questions as to whether LaComb's game can translate to the pro level. OSA feels he has dangerous speed, is a plus contact hitter but just an adequate defensive corner outfielder and may lack the power to contribute at the major league level. LaComb narrowly outpointed Gates University sophomore Pete Frisbie and Poweshiek third baseman Ockie Holliday for the award. Holliday is also draft eligible and ranked 3rd in the initial OSA mock draft after coming out of nowhere to hit a non-feeder league record 18 homeruns while batting .310 for the tiny Iowa school. OSA clearly likes him but the low level of competition he played, plus having just one season of college ball raises red flags in some circles. Code:
NATIONAL COLLEGE PLAYERS OF THE YEAR YEAR NAME POS SCHOOL 1927 Sam Orr 2B Henry Hudson 1928 Tommy Wilcox P Liberty College 1929 Vic Crawford OF Commonwealth Catholic 1930 Freddie Jones 2B Central Ohio 1931 Bill Moore 1B Lubbock State 1932 Bill Moore 1B Lubbock State 1933 Joe Hancock P Henry Hudson 1934 Sal Pestilli OF Narragansett 1935 Al Jones P Central Ohio 1936 Sal Pestilli OF Narragansett 1937 Alex LaComb OF Cuyahoga University This season did see the name Pestilli on the first team All-American list for the fourth consecutive season. Second baseman Joe, a junior who played just one season at New York Maritime, makes the first team, taking over for outfielder Sal who made three straight appearances and won a pair of Christian Trophy's in the process. Code:
AIAA ALL- AMERICAN SELECTIONS 1937 FIRST TEAM C Joe Henry JR Lane State 1B Pete Frisbie SO Gates University 2B Joe Pestilli JR New York Maritime SS Alex Turner JR Lincoln College 3B Spud Bent JR Maryland State OF Alex Lacomb JR Cuyahoga Univ(2) OF Danny Goff Jr FR Hempstead OF Joe Herman JR Grange College P Vic Carroll FR Richmond State 1937 SECOND TEAM C Chet McCormick FR Central Kentucky 1B Henry Wright JR Wisconsin State 2B Henry Sheridan JR Empire State SS Frank Hill SO Tallmadge State 3B Ockie Holliday JR Poweshiek OF Sammy Dillon SO Mississippi A&M OF Bill Greene FR Brooklyn Catholic OF Lou Clark SO Coastal California P Duke Hendricks JR Baton Rogue State
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 06-10-2021 at 02:53 PM. |
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06-11-2021, 03:23 PM
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#174 |
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All Star Reserve
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This Week in Figment Baseball: June 7, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL June 7, 1937 KINGS EXTEND CONTINENTAL LEAD WITH 2 WINS OVER CLEVELAND The Brooklyn Kings are riding a 5 game winning streak after beating the second place Cleveland Foresters twice over the weekend. The victories improved the Kings Continental Association leading record to 30-17 and put them 2 games up on Cleveland, which had pulled even earlier in the week after Brooklyn was swept in a 3-game set by Montreal. While still not quite on the level it was a year ago, the Brooklyn offense is starting to hit on all cylinders with Al Wheeler, who was named Player of the Month for May, leading the way with a .347 batting average and a league leading 11 homers and 44 rbi's. The Kings pitching has also been surprisingly stable this season with Joe Shaffner (7-1, 2.42) and Art White (7-3, 4.76) looking solid.  BOSTON IS TRYING TO CRASH THE FED PARTY While everyone was focused on the big three in the Federal Association all playing head to head last week the Boston Minutemen quietly snuck in and stole their thunder. First place Chicago did have a big week, taking two of three from St Louis to start and finishing the week with 2 wins over 2nd place Pittsburgh to extend their lead on the Miners to 4 and a half games. However, in between those two series the Boston Minutemen waltzed into Whitney Park and took two of three games from the defending champs. The Minutemen then continued on to St Louis and completed a 5-2 week with a pair of victories over the Pioneers, allowing them to leapfrog St Louis and climb in to third place. It is perhaps interesting that at this point last season the Minutemen were in almost the same position. They were just coming off a big series with the Chicago Chiefs, in this case a 3-game sweep rather than the 2 of 3 that Boston claimed vs Chicago last week. The Minutemen looked like they were on the rise in early June of '36 but then disaster struck as on June 11th their ace Dick Higgins blew out his elbow and Boston finished a distant 19 games back.  CHIEFS HAPPY WITH WEEK For their part the Chicago Chiefs had no complaints after dropping 2 games to Boston. The Chiefs had an 8 game week with the Monday doubleheader, all against first division clubs, and came away with a 5-3 record. Even with the Association lead some changes are being contemplated by the defending champs. Second sacker Pete Layton has not regularly played shortstop since 1930, but the Chiefs are toying with the idea of sliding him over so that Len Jones can play regularly. Jones seems to have recovered from whatever batting funk he was in last season, and while Chicago loves Bob Barringer's glove at SS, it is a big offensive black hole. Rabbit Day started June off nicely with 8 strong innings in a 5-3 win over Pittsburgh on Saturday. The reigning Federal Association Allen Award winner was happy to turn the page on May after going 3-4 with a 4.59 ERA. Overall he's 5-4, 4.38 ERA. But he has a FIP of 3.78 and a FIP- of 88, so I suspect he'll be just fine. GOTHAMS ENJOY SOME RARE WINS The New York Gothams went 5-3 last week for their first winning week of the season. Rookie centerfielder Howard Brown Jr continues to impress with another strong week and Brown, one of the players who came over from Boston last season in the John Wicklund trade, is hitting .364 on the season, an average good enough to place him 6th in the Fed batting race. 23 year old 3B Billy Dalton had himself quite a first week at AAA. The 25th ranked prospect went 8-21 with a double, homer and 8 RBI. Coming off a .336/.466/.634/1.100 line in 35 AA games this season, Dalton may be headed for a cup of coffee in NY later this season. HIGH SCHOOL ALL-AMERICAN TEAM ANNOUNCED AS CASSTEVENS WINS ADWELL AWARD The FABL draft is less than a month away and one of the players vying to be selected first overall is a high school catcher with a famous father by the name of Pete Casstevens. The son of former big leaguer Clint Casstevens, who spent over a decade in the FABL with Montreal and Pittsburgh, added to his list of accomplishments by being named the winner of the 1937 Adwell Award as the best high school baseball player in the nation. The 18 year old Pete is a power hitting catcher who played three seasons at Syracuse (NY) High School. He slashed .491/.540/.938 as a senior and led the nation with 10 homers. He also socked 10 homers last year as a junior, which was second behind only Walt Messer, who was a two time Adwell Award winner before being selected second overall by the New York Gothams in last year's draft. Casstevens was named a High School All-American all three of his seasons at Syracuse High. Nicknamed 'Peanut', he was born in Canada while his father was with the Montreal Saints organization and has committed to Grafton University but all indications are he will turn pro. His father Clint did attend an Academia Conference school as well, playing his college ball at Dickson College, winning a National Championship at the school in 1915 and still holds several school records for the Maroons. Clint, an outfielder, was selected by Montreal 13th overall in the 1917 draft and won a World Championship Series with the Saints in 1921 before being dealt to Pittsburgh that off-season. He would win the Federal Association Whitney Award in 1924 with the Miners, interrupting a string of 5 Whitney's in 6 years for the legendary Max Morris. In all, the elder Casstevens played 1,259 big league games, batting .309 with 1,385 career hits. He retired as a player following the 1933 season, spending his final four years in AAA with the Syracuse Excelsiors, an independent club in the Union League.  The Adwell Award was established in 1934 is named after Red Adwell. Adwell was the winningest pitcher in high school history under the old feeder league system, pitching for Birmingham High School from 1910 thru 1913 before going on to spend a decade in FABL with the Pittsburgh Miners, Chicago Chiefs and Philadelphia Keystones. Here is the complete list of ADWELL AWARD WINNERS Code:
ADWELL AWARD WINNERS NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL PLAYER OF THE YEAR YEAR NAME POS CL SCHOOL 1934 Walt Messer 1B SO McKinley Tech - Washington DC 1935 Rufus Barrell II P SR Macon (GA) HS 1936 Walt Messer 1B SR McKinley Tech - Washington DC 1937 Pete Casstevens C SR Syracuse (NY) HS For the first time in the 4 year history of the All-American list there were a pair of high school teammates both named to the team. They are both outfielders from Hillsdale High School in Michigan as senior Cotton Dillon and his Hillsdale Cougars teammate John Smith, a sophomore, both made the cut. Here are the 1937 High School All-Americans. Code:
1937 HIGH SCOOL ALL-AMERICAN SELECTIONS NAME/CLASS SCHOOL C Pete Casstevens – SR (3) Syracuse (NY) C Cal Morgan – SO (2) Alexandria (IN) HS 1b-3b Maury Campbell – JR Decatur (IL) HS 1b-3b Wally Fuller – SO (2) Collegiate HS (New York City) 1b-3b Pete Giamo – FR Bristol (PA) HS 2b-SS Roosevelt Brewer – SR (2) Washington HS (Chicago, IL) 2b-SS Howard Rivers – JR Brandeis HS (New York City) 2b-SS Verlin Alexander – JR Lexington (MO) HS OF Happy Ellison – JR Sycamore HS (Cincinnati , OH) OF John Smith – SO Hillsdale (MI) HS OF Gus Byrd- SO Plymouth (PA) HS OF Roy Harris – SR (2) Fairfax HS (Los Angeles, CA) OF Cotton Dillon – SR Hillsdale (MI) HS P Donnie Jones – JR (2) Minneapolis (MN) HS P Al Duster – SR (2) Council Bluffs (IA) HS P Cliff Atkinson – SR (2) Beaver (PA) HS P David Molina – SR Florissant (MO) HS P Joe Standish Jr – SR Brooklyn Tech, Brooklyn, NY HONOURABLE MENTION P Slim Cook – SR Haddonfield (NJ) HS P Ed Funkhouser – SR St Albans HS (Washington, DC) P Red Hampton – FR Corning (NY) HS C Rick York – JR Terre Haute (IN) HS INF Eric Fiore- SR East HS (Cleveland, OH) INF Luke Micheals- SR Santa Barbara (CA) HS INF Herb Carey – JR West Point (VA) HS OF Del Boggs – SO Nashua (NH) HS OF Bill Murname – SR Stone Mountain (GA) HS THIS WEEK AROUND THE WORLD Baseball and all others sports in the Figment universe are, while based on real life, completely fictional in terms of both the participants and the teams. Our game does not exist in a vacuum however, as real world events of the era do have an impact on our league. One example of this is the impact the Great Depression had on the sport with one owner, Toronto's Bert Thomas, losing both his fortune and his club due to the financial crisis. Going forward all Figment GM's are bracing for the impact the second World War will have on their rosters as players rush to enlist after the US enters the war. A new feature that is planned to become a regular part of TWIFB is a look at what is going on in the world outside of baseball. Courtesy of our Chicago bureau here are some of the key news events that are shaping our world this week: History highlights for the week of 5/31/1937: * In response to Spanish Loyalists bombing a Reich ship, German warships fire 300 shells onto the city of Almeria. London diplomats are racing to calm tensions, afraid that the Spanish conflict could escalate into an international war. * Striking steelworkers and police clash in Chicago, leaving scores of striking workers dead. * Edward, Duke of Windsor, marries Mrs. Wallis Warfield in France. In marrying Warfield, a divorced American, Edward abdicated his claim on the English crown. * Amelia Earhart landed in Venezuela on the first leg of her flight around the world.
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06-12-2021, 01:01 PM
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#175 |
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Hall Of Famer
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1937 Draft Preview
I thought I would give Jiggs McGee the weekend off and weigh in with some pre draft thoughts for The Figment Sporting Journal.
1937 - A DRAFT LIKE NO OTHER We just a couple of weeks away from the 27th annual FABL draft. This one will be the first draft ever held during the regular season as a couple of changes were made over the winter. Seeing the Figment Draft moved to June for the first time seems like a big enough change to warrant plenty of attention but in reality that move caused barely a ripple when compared to the other new wrinkle that has been added to this year's draft format. Due to the negative effect a visible mock draft has on our stats only environment the league commissioner has decided that the first two rounds of players listed in the final mock will be removed from the general draft and instead be selected in a lottery format. For those who might be following along that are not part of the league here is a quick outline of the new format: - The 32 players that the AI deems to be the 32 best in the draft pool will be split into eight groups of four players each. - GMs will pick a group, starting with the team with the #1 pick. So the worst teams will pick their group first. Then we'll go through and each of the 16 GMs will pick their first group and then we'll repeat the process and everyone picks their second group. Each group is restricted to 4 teams selecting it. - Once the groups are determined a random draw will decide which player in each group goes to which team. - The third thru 12th rounds will be drafted in the standard format before the AI takes over for the remaining rounds. There was some controversy in the league and endorsement of the new format was not 100% but the bottom line is ever since the mock draft was added to OOTP our drafts have been getting far too predictable. Even with recent changes to minimize the accuracy of the mock draft, it is felt by many in the league that the Mock reveals far too much in a league that plays in a 'stats-only' format. Ideally one day the developers will give online leagues the ability to simply hide the mock draft from view just as player ratings can be hidden in our league, but until that day comes FABL is forced to look for workaround solutions. The 'storyline' we will use going forward is this 2 round portion at the top is part of a return to a focus on scouting. Perhaps the OSA has been relied on too heavily because Rufus Barrell, Possum Daniels and their staff have simply done too good a job identifying talent. Now it will force FABL clubs to go out and beat the bushes looking for top talent to sign. There could be some strategy involved in this as well that will make it unique. Do you as a GM look at the group with the best player, knowing there is a 50% chance you get one of the bottom two guys of the 32 in the lottery? Or do you look for a balanced group with 4 guys you might be very happy with any of? These picks can still be traded so how valuable will they be perceived to be? Will third rounders start to take on much greater value in the future? Some have said there is far too much randomness in this new format and while I don't disagree with that statement, I do feel the previous standard draft system has been robbed of much of it's fun as we came to realize just how much the mock draft takes away from our league by what it reveals. Personally I would love for us to try a system that eliminated the draft and was based entirely on scouting players and bidding bonus offers to try and land them, but there is probably no easy way to do this in game and it would likely be too cumbersome for the commissioner to administer outside of the game. The new system we will use this year seems like it's worth a shot and will not be too much work for the commissioner. Will it have flaws? Quite possibly but I am more than willing to embrace the new system and see what happens as I am sure if it turns out to not be something liked by the vast majority that other compromise solutions will be explored. OCKIE HOLLIDAY IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE WHY THE MOCK DRAFT IS BAD FOR STATS ONLY LEAGUES This draft could be the first one that has a second baseman go number one since 1921 when the Keystones selected Howie Shifflett out of Houston High School. Roosevelt Brewer from Washington High School in Chicago is listed as the number one prospect on the current mock, followed by Syracuse High School catcher Pete Casstevens and then Ockie Holliday, a third baseman from tiny Poweshiek College in Grinnell, Iowa. I am not certain who actually will be recorded as the first overall selection under this new format but it is quite possible the top two rounds of guys will be not considered part of the draft at all so whoever is taken with the first pick of the third round will be considered the number one pick. Either way, both Brewer and Casstevens look to have the potential for outstanding big league careers. The third ranked player is perhaps the best illustrations for why many in the league feels the inclusion of the game generated Mock Draft effects us so negatively. If the in-game Mock was not visible there would be great debate about the merits of Ockie Holliday, who is ranked #3. Holliday put up huge power numbers so he would certainly have drawn some attention: Code:
MOST HR BY A COLLEGE PLAYER IN NON FEEDER ERA YEAR NAME HR SCHOOL COMP 1937 Ockie Holliday 18 Poweshiek College Poor 1934 Sal Pestilli 16 Narragansett Avg 1934 Bob Donoghue 15 Iowa A&M Good 1935 Billy Dalton 14 Perry State College Poor 1934 Alf Pestilli 13 Narragansett Avg 1936 Sal Pestilli 13 Narragansett Avg 1937 Sherry Lewis 13 Daniel Boone Coll Great 1937 Alex Turner 13 Lincoln College Great Holliday played just one season of college ball, so that would seem to be a little bit of a red flag. Why did he not exist prior to his junior year at Poweshiek? And Poweshiek itself is an ever bigger red flag. It has a competition quality of 'Poor' so scouting directors might be concerned those power numbers are greatly inflated compared to what he might have done at a larger school. A savvy GM might have his staff compare Holliday to Billy Dalton, who was picked 10th overall in 1936 and feel he is worth the chance, but then again would Dalton have gone 10th had he not been listed in the first round of the mock draft in his selection year? The bottom line as to why our league is forced to drastically change the draft format is because of the mock and what it gives away about players like Ockie Holliday and Billy Dalton. Enough on the problems the Mock Draft causes our league and on to some fun draft facts: There are plenty of recognizable names in this draft class. We have a pair of Pestilli brothers this time around. Sal was selected first overall last season and eldest brother Alf was a fourth round pick in 1934. Both are out of Narragansett College in Rhode Island while Joe Pestilli bucked the family tradition and played second base for New York Maritime College last season. Joe is ranked #4 in the Mock so he will be part of the "Lottery" portion of this year's draft. Finally we have Tony, an outfielder like Sal and Alf, who is an 18 year old senior at Westerly High School. Tony has committed to Narragansett but will also be part of the lottery portion of the draft. Sons of former big leaguers in this pool include catcher Pete Casstevens, the Adwell Award winner who's father Clint is a former Whitney Award winning outfielder, and Joe York, who's dad Dick is a former first round pick who won 2 World Championships and enjoyed a long career in Detroit before moving to a managerial role in the Dynamos system. Finally, we have Buck Swan Jr, who was born in Pittsburgh but played his high school ball in Portland where dad Buck Sr. finished out his pro career in the Great Western League. Buck Sr, a first baseman played 59 games over three seasons with the Pittsburgh Miners after being a 1921 3rd round pick of Cleveland. Buck Sr is perhaps best known for playing on two AIAA championship teams at Liberty College. The commissioner always provides us with some great nicknames among the draftees and this time around is no different. The two best in my opinion are Bob Moran, a high school centerfielder known as 'The Kenosha Kid" while far and away the top one is "The Woonsocket Rocket", as 17 year old Buck Pusey is known. Pusey, who played at Woonsocket (RI) HS likely had a good rivalry going with fellow centerfielder Tony Pestilli, from Westely (RI) High. There are 16 players born in New York City eligible for this draft and another 7 from Brooklyn so it is the area that provides the most players but Chicago is also right there. Just from Chicago itself are 14 players as well as several others from the surrounding areas. Headlining the list of Chicago players is Washington High School star Roosevelt Brewer, who is ranked #1 in the mock draft. Brewer is one of several very good second base prospects that headline this class with another one being fellow Chicago native Harry Sheridan, who went east to Empire State University for his college ball and is pegged as a second rounder. Here are the current mock rankings. There may some final juggling as draft day approaches but the vast majority of these players will compromise the new 'lottery slot' section of the draft. Code:
TOP PLAYERS IN THE MOCK DRAFT # NAME POS AGE SCHOOL BIRTHPLACE COLLEGE COMMITTMENT 1 Roosevelt Brewer 2B 17 Washington HS, Chicago, Il Chicago, IL Whitney College 2 Pete Casstevens C 18 Syracuse (NY) HS Montreal, QC Grafton 3 Okie Holliday 3B 21 Poweshiek College Sheldon, Iowa - 4 Joe Pestilli 2B 20 New York Maritime College Westerly, RI - 5 Juan Pomales CF 22 St. Francis(OH) Univ. Havana, Cuba - 6 Wes Parks 2B 18 Bryan (TX) HS Bryan, TX Coastal State 7 Luke Micheals SS 18 Santa Barbara (CA) HS Los Angeles, CA Bluegrass State 8 Tom Frederick CF 21 Hammond College Quanah, TX - 9 Eddie Haley CF 20 Portland Tech Harvey, IL - 10 Bill Carr SS 20 Columbia Military Academy Pasadena, CA - 11 Marv Smith RF 22 Portland Tech Butte, MT - 12 Spud Bent 3B 20 Maryland State New York, NY - 13 Dick Hall RF 21 Laclede University Cincinnati, OH - 14 Paul Hall CF 22 President's College Sioux City, IA - 15 Tony Pestilli CF 18 Westerly (RI) HS Westerly, RI Narragansett 16 Ed Greenwood CF 21 Mississippi Tech Kansas City, KS - ROUND TWO # NAME POS AGE SCHOOL BIRTHPLACE COLLEGE COMMITTMENT 17 Constantine Peters CF 21 Springfield State Shelbyville, TN - 18 Cotton Dillon CF 18 Hillsdale (MI) HS Detroit, MI Indiana A&M 19 Paul Wilkerson C 21 Oklahoma City State Cleveland, OH - 20 Joe Herman CF 21 Grange College Detroit, MI - 21 Duke Hendricks P 21 Baton Rogue State Clementon, NJ - 22 Bob Pettaway CF 20 Baton Rogue State Dora, AL - 23 Willie Hall SS 18 Athol (MA) HS Woonsocket, RI College of Waco 24 Eric Fiore 2B 18 East HS, Cleveland, OH Toledo, OH Bluegrass State 25 Phil Squires C 21 Grange College Homestead, PA - 26 Jim Hammond 1B 20 Redwood University Salt Lake City, UT - 27 Ira Armstrong 2B 18 Boonton (NJ) HS Boonton, NJ Chesapeake State 28 Ray Powell RF 18 Little Rock (AR) HS Searcy, AR Spokane State 29 Henry Sheridan 2B 21 Empire State University Chicago, IL - 30 Charlie Nathan RF 21 South Valley State Broomwood, TX - 31 Alex Turner SS 21 Lincoln College Portland, OR - 32 Bud Mullen CF 17 Rain HS, Mobile, AL Mobile, AL Bayou State RANDOM NOTES ON PLAYERS LISTED IN THE MOCK I was surprised to see more than half of the list is comprised of college players although 4 of the first seven on the mock, including the top two, are high schoolers. The Pestilli family is not the only one's making the tiny state of Rhode Island proud as Woonsocket native Willie Hall joins the two Pestilli boys on the mock list. This year's draft class has two Cuban born players in 18 year old high school SS Rafael Mendoza and 22 year old outfielder Juan Pomales, who shows up at #5 in the mock draft. There have been very few Cuban players in FABL but the ones who have succeed have exclusively been outfielders with Pomales looking to become the fifth Cuban born outfielder to be drafted in the first round. Code:
CUBAN BORN FIRST ROUND PICKS NAME PK# YEAR TEAM Pablo Reyes 3 1932 Montreal Carlos Cano 4 1919 NY Gothams Sandy Lovelle 8 1919 Baltimore Carlos Montes 12 1934 Cougars We don't have feeder leagues any more and there are no college standings but if there were I would bet Bluegrass State has developed in to a college powerhouse. The Louisville school has already given us one player who is having a pretty good start in FABL. That is outfielder Lew Seals of Pittsburgh and there are a pair of minor league shortstops with some promise in Tip Harrison (RD 2, 1934) and Ron Ford (Rd 6, 1936). Despite only being in existence since 1934 when the feeders were eliminated, the Mustangs have had 8 players drafted as well as 17 high school seniors that had committed to Bluegrass State but turned pro instead. This year's graduating class at Bluegrass State is a little thin with only 3B Charlie Shoemaker available but the school has landed an outstanding recruiting class of high school players highlighted by Luke Michaels, a shortstop from California who will be part of the lottery. For the first time in it's brief history we nearly had two High School All-Americans selected from the same school. Cotton Dillon and John Smith are both outfielders from Hillsdale High in Michigan. Smith, a sophomore, slashed .547/.571/.849 and narrowly missed inclusion on the team. Dillon, a senior who has committed to Indiana A&M but will be part of the lottery as a mock second round pick, did make the All-American team. Another Hillsdale player, third baseman Andy Beasley, is expected to be a later round pick. Dillon and Beasley will be the first Hillsdale player's drafted. Food for thought. Knowing what we know about the future, I wonder if players who attended military or maritime schools would be any more likely to be among the first to enlist when the US eventually enters WWII. If so, does that diminish the value of a player like Joe Pestilli or Bill Carr? Salt Lake City High School must have struck fear into opposing pitchers back in the day as Jim Hammond, a second round mock pick, and 1935 second rounder Tiny Tim Hopkins would likely have been teammates in 1934 before Hammond went off to Redwood University. Both look to have plenty of power with Hopkins coming into his own as a second year prospect and is hitting .362 with 11 homers in 44 games at Class C while Hammond stroked 23 homers at California's Redwood University over 150 career games. Likewise, I wonder if current second round mock SS Alex Turner was ever a teammate at Portland's Central Catholic High School of 1935 second overall pick Red Johnson before Turner went off to Lincoln College. I am not sure we will ever see college teammates go 1-2 in the draft again, like we did in 1934 when St Blane pitchers Bobo White and Gus Goulding were the top two selections to Washington and Baltimore respectively. However, Oregon's Portland Tech does have a pair of outfielders ranked in the top 11 in Eddie Haley and Marv Smith while both Baton Rogue State and Grange College have 2 players listed as second rounders. The draft is two weeks away in game time meaning teams are likely hard at work planning their strategy and it will be interesting to see how the new system works. If nothing else there will be a lot of nervous tension waiting to see how the balls drop with those first two rounds of players.
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Cliff Markle HOB1 greatest pitcher 360-160, 9 Welch Awards, 11 WS titles |
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06-14-2021, 01:05 PM
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#176 |
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All Star Reserve
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Posts: 677
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This Week in Figment Baseball: June 14, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL June 14, 1937 A BARRELL OF TROUBLE FOR BROOKLYN? The Brooklyn Kings chances of repeating as Continental Association champs were dealt a serious blow last week as it was learned that ace pitcher Tom Barrell will miss two months with a hamstring injury. The 29 year old Brooklyn native, who has claimed 3 straight Allen Awards, recently won his 100th game as a King since joining the club midway through the 1932 season. Barrell was 7-3 with a team best 2.66 era at the time of his injury. The Kings dropped 2 out of 3 games over the weekend to the third place Philadelphia Sailors, allowing Cleveland - which has won 4 straight and 6 of their last 7 - to pull into a first place tie atop the Continental Association.  GONZALEZ HAS FORESTERS ON FIRE 25 year old Sergio Gonzalez has come a long ways from the Dominican Republic to the major leagues but the Cleveland Foresters righthander is presently one of the hottest pitchers in baseball. Gonzalez has followed up a breakout 15-7 season a year ago with an 8-1 start for the Foresters including back to back victories over their arch rivals from Brooklyn. Gonzalez has started 12 games for Cleveland this season and the only one of those starts they lost was a to Toronto on April 30th, a game in which Gonzalez went 8 innings but came up on the short-end of a 2-1 score. It has been quite a ride for Gonzalez, who is one of only 6 Dominican born players to appear in a FABL game and one of just two pitchers. He and Angel Padilla, who made his FABL debut this season with St Louis, both took the same very unlikely route to the majors. Each left their home at the tender age of 17 to go to Texas for an open tryout for the new Lone Star League. Both caught on with clubs, Austin for Padilla and Oklahoma City for Gonzalez. He did not pitch in the Line Star league as his contracted was purchased by AAA Portland of the Great Western League almost immediately. He did get into a few games with a championship Green Sox team as a 19 year old but struggled and was waived at the end of the 1931 season. Hollywood of the same league signed him but he struggled with the Heroes in 1932 and was back with Portland for the 1933 season. That was the year that changed his life as, after going 14-9 for the Green Sox, he was acquired by the New York Gothams organization in 1934. He made his Gothams debut that season at the age of 22 and was subsequently traded to Cleveland in the deal that brought Moxie Pidgeon to New York. The rest is, as they say, history. An all-star in both 1935 and 1936 it seems a lock that Gonzalez will make his third all-star team and might even get the start this year. Who knows, if he keeps it up the undrafted walk-on at a Class A open tryout might just win the Allen Award this season.  Another player who seems to be on the same path as Gonzalez is 24 year Juan Salinas. The native of Curacao was another of the Caribbean born players who attended the open tryout for the Lone Star Association when it began in 1929 and has bounced around with a number of minor league organizations, overcoming a serious arm injury in the process. Healthy once again and now with Dallas of the same league, Salinas has been dominant in 8 Lone Star starts for the Centurions. He is 6-0 with a 2.92 era and looks to be a prime candidate for a big league team to acquire his rights over the winter. [img]https://i.imgur.com/uScAUug.jpg[/img ]CHIEFS WINNING WITHOUT THEIR BEST DAY If the rest of the Federal Association is having trouble catching the Chicago Chiefs right now, just wait until Rabbit Day gets going. If you told me at the beginning of the season that Day's era would be the highest among Chicago starters I would have said you were nuts but that is exactly what is happening in the Windy City. Day has a rather pedestrian 4.35 era to go with a 5-4 record and has just 1 win in his last 6 starts but that has not stopped the Chiefs from once again being the best pitching staff in the Fed. Day, a 3 time Allen Award winner with 196 career wins including a 25-3 campaign a year ago, will certainly get untracked and when he does just how dangerous will the Chiefs staff be? 21 year old righthander Al Miller has had a couple of wonky outings but has put aside any worries of a sophomore jinx with an 8-2 record to go with a 3.10 era. But that is nothing compared to what veteran Jack Beach (7-3, 2.71) and knuckleballer Charlie Bingham (9-1, 2.89) have brought to the table in Chicago so far this season. Even Ron Coles (6-4, 3.93) is proving his 15 win season last year was not a fluke. Bingham may come back to earth a bit in the second half as he presently has the highest run support per game of any pitcher with at least 5 starts in the Federal Association and it is nearly double the 3.4 runs Day has received per start from his Chicago teammates. If there is a pitcher to fear in the Fed right now it should be St Louis Pioneers ace Sam Sheppard, who is 12-1 with a 2.90 era in 14 starts. Some local news scribes held Sheppard responsible last season for what they called a disappointing year as a follow up to his Allan Award winning 28-7 1934 season. If a 20 win season is a disappointment - as Sheppard went 20-13 a year ago - I would love to be that disappointed like that every year. A special accomplishment this week as we see our first 6-hit game in nearly two years.  GOINS INCHES CLOSER TO 2500 CAREER HITS Rankin Kellogg reached the milestone of 2500 hits a couple of weeks ago and now veteran Cleveland catcher T.R. Goins is closing in on becoming just the 21st player in Figment history to reach that lofty number. It used to be a regular occurrence for a player to get to that milestone- in fact from 1904 thru 1909 at least one player got his 2500th each season. Lately though it has been a much more rare event as before Kellogg got there last month the most recent player to reach the 2500 hit plateau was Max Morris who did it back in 1930 - and has added nearly 1100 more hits since that date. Before Morris you also have a bit of a drought as we need to look at 1924 when Bill McMurtrie was finishing out his career by suiting up for the Chicago Chiefs after years in Boston. McMurtrie would end with 2549 career hits and, at 18th overall, the next name on Kellogg's radar. Two players reaching 2500 in the same season is something that has happened 4 times before. The most recent occurrence was 1920 when Joe Ward and Ed Ziehl- two players who both eventually surpassed the 3,000 mark - both did it. Interestingly enough both Ward (with the Chiefs) and Ziehl (with the Gothams) are current big league managers. The 3 other times 2 players each reached the 2500 hit mark in the same season were in 1919 (John Dibblee and John Cook), 1909 (George Pruitt and John Waggoner) and 1907 (Fred Roby and George Melvin).  TALKING STATS (from the Chicago Herald-Examiner) I don't like to talk advanced stats much here as it does not fit the timeline but our slack channel (something else that clearly does not fit the timeline) had some great comments coming out of Chicago regarding wRC+. The first thing noted was FanGraphs deems a wRC+ of over 160 as excellent. As of last week there were just 7 players in FABL at or above that mark and 3 of them were members of the St Louis Pioneers.  To go one step further I decided to take a look at the career leaders in wRC+. They likely won't end up that way as I expect Morris to drop a bit here in the tail end of his career but it is very fitting that Morris and Powell Slocum - my two choices for the greatest hitters of all-time, are tied for top spot.  THIS AND THAT Brooklyn's Al Wheeler's 2 homer 7 rbi game against Chicago last week was the second best hitter performance of the season, trailing only Al Wheeler's 2 homer, 6 rbi game vs Montreal in late April. Wheeler has been on fire of late, raising his average to .354 with a FABL leading 15 homers and 55 rbi's. Pittsburgh's George Cleaves and Gail Gifford of St Louis also each have 2 of the top 10 hitting performances of the season. For the second time this season Washington third baseman Mel Carroll was named player of the week in the Federal Association. Carroll is hitting .409 on the season with 8 homers and 37 rbi's. The CA award went to the previously mentioned Wheeler, who is a 3-time winner this season. Bob Worley is making the Montreal Saints feel they gave up on him far too early. The 28 year old outfielder won another player of the week award in the Lone Star league - his third in the past month. Worley now has 32 home runs in 48 games. He is on pace for 91 home runs and 249 rbi. Now Lone Star Association pitching is a long ways from the big leagues but Worley did hit 17 homers playing for Montreal three years ago so one has to think he certainly still has the ability to play in the majors. Rumour is Worley may have to settle for AAA as several indy Great Western League teams are reportedly courting him. FABL rules prevent a major league team from trading for him until the off-season. Do you think Larry Jones feels he deserves another shot at the big leagues? The 28 year old outfielder/first baseman, who Detroit picked up on waivers from Pittsburgh during the off-season, has 23 homers in 45 games at AA Akron including 6 last week to earn him player of the week accolades in the Eastern Association. A 1926 second round pick out of high school by the Miners, Jones had some pretty good seasons in the Pittsburgh system but his FABL career so far has consisted of 2 big league appearances, one as a pinch-runner and the other as a pinch-hitter after being a September callup in 1935. His lone plate appearance was a fly out in a blowout loss to Boston. Included in his exploits last week was a 4-homer game in a 12-10 win at Harrisburg. It was the fourth time an Eastern Association player hit 4 longballs in a single game. 24 year old Al Tucker, the 3rd ranked prospect according to OSA, made his big league debut last week and it was quite a start for the 1931 third round draft pick. The outfielder appeared in all 7 games last week for the St Louis Pioneers, starting 5 and going 10-for-23. He drew a walk against Boston as a pinch-hitter in a 5-3 win on Monday and got his first hit, a single, two days later off of Washington's Eddie Quinn. That is more like it! Deuce Barrell, the Baltimore Cannons first overall selection in 1935 has had his struggles in the minors but last week was just the type of thing the Cannons were hoping for from the 20 year old prodigy. Barrell made two starts and allowed 0 earned runs and just 6 hits over 17 innings of work for Charleston of the Class B Southeastern League. Because of 3 unearned runs and a lack of offensive support he split the two decisions but improved to 3-6 and lowered his era to 3.76 on the year. Staying in the Southeastern League, the second overall pick right after Barrell also had a solid week. Detroit first base prospect Red Johnson hit 2 more homers for Chattanooga last week and is second in the SEL with 9 on the year. Another pair of power hitting young first baseman are having strong seasons in Class C. Walt Messer, who was taken 2nd overall by the Gothams after Detroit drafted Sal Pestilli last December, has 12 homers in 49 games for Rock Island. Messer is tied with Marshalltown (BKN) youngster Tim Hopkins for the Upper Mississippi Valley Association lead. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 6/13/1937
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports Last edited by Jiggs McGee; 06-14-2021 at 01:19 PM. |
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06-15-2021, 02:47 PM
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#177 |
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All Star Reserve
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This Week in Figment Baseball: June 21, 1937
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL June 21, 1937 FIRST TEST FOR NEW DRAFT SYSTEM This is a historic time in Figment Baseball as the two major changes to the draft system will come into effect tomorrow as the 1937 draft begins. The changes are well documented as they 1)- see the draft date moved from the off-season to late June in an effort to align with college and high school ball schedules. and 2) have a special phase involving the top 32 players as they are no longer part of the draft but instead free to negotiate and sign with a team of their choice. I have discussed the real life reasoning behind those changes because of our issues with the mock draft but here is the 1930's era storyline that will mark the official record of what happened to implement the change. If they had their druthers the league owners would continue to use the same system that has been in force since the draft began in 1911. However, a combination of events caused them to agree to modify things. Those events included several college players over the years attempting to challenge the draft as an unfair business practice preventing the players from seeking employment where they choose. One player, Curly Jones, even briefly quit the game after being selected first overall by the New York Gothams in 1932. He eventually reversed his decision and agreed to play but he was the catalyst prompting other players to begin to band together. Jones remained involved and along with several other well educated and talented former college ballplayers they began to mount a case to challenge the legality of the draft. The group, which received the support of 1937 draftees including Joe Pestilli, Tom Frederick and Spud Bent was close to initiating efforts designed to unionize the players and challenge baseball's anti-trust exemption in court. That in itself might not have been enough to sway the owners to any sort of compromise but when combined with the deadly protests going on with the Steelworkers Union in Chicago, FABL decided to open a dialog with the lawyers representing the players. There was some give from owners initially when talks began last summer but the tipping point actually happened because of the actions of one of the league owners. Perhaps sensing a change was on the way and not wanting to lose the ability to secure top players via the draft, the New York Gothams decided to trade off most of their premier talent and gut a championship team in an effort to stock up on young talent before any changes might occur. The irony is that decision by the Gothams was what ultimately convinced owners a change would be in their interests also. To help prevent blatant attempts by a franchise to 'tank' in the future and appease the players somewhat at the same time, FABL presented a solution where each year a small number of elite amateur players could be exempt from the draft process and free to negotiate with any club of their choosing. They eventually compromised at 32 players with the rule that each player would narrow his choices down to 4 clubs and every club must be allowed to sign two players. This gave the players some choice in the matter while also keeping the ultimate control in the hands of the league. In return the players agreed to drop their pursuit of antitrust rules and abandon any plans to unionize. MILESTONE HITS FOR GOINS AND LAWSON Cleveland's T.R. Goins became the 21st player in FABL history to reach the 2,500 hit mark for his career while John Lawson became the 59th player to have 2,000 hits as both reached those lofty heights this week. Goins, who spent most of his career in Washington before a 1933 trade to the Foresters, is one of the few players to win a Whitney Award in each league, turning the trick with Washington in 1926 and Cleveland in 1934. He also won a World Championship Series with each organization and is a 3-time all-star. Max Morris, with 3,598 hits and Rankin Kellogg, at 2,526, are the only active players with more hits than Goins. His 2,5000 came Friday at home against Montreal. It was actually part of a 4-hit game and was his second double of the contest, a 3rd inning hit off of Montreal starter Jake DeYoung. A day later John Lawson of the Chicago Cougars would get his 2,000, lacing a single off Les Zoller of the New York Stars in the 6th inning of a 4-3 Cougars loss at home to New York.  KEYSTONES MAKE A CHARGE Thanks to a 13-5 record in June and a suddenly dominant pitching staff the Philadelphia Keystones are making some noise in the Federal Association. The Keystones have looked very good against the first place Chicago Chiefs of late, taking 4 of 6 games from the defending champions with second year starter George M Brooks (6-4, 2.34) leading the way. Brooks, who leads the Fed in ERA beat the Chiefs twice in his last three starts with a win over St Louis sandwiched in between. The former Georgia Baptist Gator, who was selected 9th overall in 1934, allowed just 2 earned runs in each of those 3 starts and has been named player of the game in 6 of his last seven starts. The Chicago Chiefs still lead the way, by 4 games on second place Pittsburgh and 6 and a half on both Philadelphia and St Louis but with an injury to infielder Pete Layton and the continued struggles of Rabbit Day it might be white knuckle time at Whitney Park. Layton (.327,5,40), who recently switched from second to shortstop, will be out at least a month with muscle strain. Meanwhile Day, who was so good in winning the Allan Award and leading the Chiefs to the title a year ago, continues to struggle and it is not getting any better. Rather than just turning the page on May, perhaps Day would like to go back to April and just hit the reset button on the whole season. After a 7.71 (!!) ERA in 2 starts last week, Day's June ERA is now 5.45. April = 4.29, May = 4.59, June = 5.45. Not a good trend. Chicago is not the only pennant contender to be bit by the injury bug last week as the Pittsburgh Miners learned they will be missing catcher George Cleaves (.344,7,25) for at least three weeks. Mahlon Strong (.310,5,13) is also hurt again - what else is new - but word is he is not expected to be seriously hobbled by his knee acting up again. Cleaves is a big loss and it costs the 23 year old a chance to appear in his 4th straight all-star game. In the Continental the Brooklyn Kings limped through a 3-3 week as the club still appears shell-shocked by the loss of ace Tom Barrell, who will miss the next two months. Brooklyn has been working the phones frantically trying to find a pitcher to fill in for Barrell. They were rumoured to make a serious offer to a Continental Association rival for an elite young arm but talks never amounted to much so the Kings put a claim in on former Brooklyn pitcher Roy Pierce, who had been waived by Baltimore. Whether Pierce, who was 10-10 for Brooklyn in 1933, actually joins the team is up in the air as several staff members, most notably bench coach Danny Goff, are campaigning for Danny's son - 20 year old Jack Goff - to get the call to the big leagues. Goff was recently promoted to AAA Rochester and is 3-0 with a 3.65 era in 4 starts for the Rooks. Second place Cleveland took two of 3 from Brooklyn at home and we are back to a tie for first place in the CA. Perhaps the Foresters should offer to play the rest of their games on the road as, while they are just 12-13 at Forester Stadium, they have the best road record in either association at 24-9.  SWING AND A MISS FOR FARHAT In a recent edition of The Detroit World newspaper, esteemed sportswriter Fast Freddie Farhat handed out grades on the efforts of Dynamos players and staff so far this season. Most of what Farhat reported was right on point but as I mentioned in an open letter to the paper Fast Freddie whiffed big time on his grade for Detroit's General Manager Martin. Now in Freddie's defense the mark of D assigned to Martin was the same mark Martin gave himself in an interview a week earlier but Farhat is, and should have been in this case, much better than that. I won't go into all of the details in my response but I will say two years ago when Martin left Cleveland for the Detroit job it came as a huge surprise and was a huge step backwards as the Dynamos were arguably in state so poor that it has to be considered the worst hole a GM has ever had to dig out of, at least in the modern post 1925 era when human GM's assumed the reigns. Two years later Detroit is a team on the rise, loaded with young talent that is the envy of much of the league. The job is certainly not done but Martin has acquired some impressive building blocks, with 8 prospects ranked in the top 100 including Sal Pestilli and Red Johnson, who are 1 and 2 overall. The 21 year old Pestilli is already proving his worth on the big league stage and looks like he could be the heart of the Dynamos franchise for the next 15 years. Johnson is just 19 but the 1936 second overall pick is performing very well in Class B and will likely be moved up a level next season so Detroit has it's centerfielder and first baseman to build around. You can also add in third baseman Hank Koblenz, who just turned 20 and was taken 5th overall two years ago. Kolbenz has had a little tougher time adjusting to pro ball than his Chattanooga teammate Johnson but it is far too early to give up on him. There is plenty more in the pipeline. December's third round pick, catcher Glen Sexton, has struggled early but I see big things for him and scouts absolutely love 20 year old shortstop Frank Davis, who was acquired from Pittsburgh for aging pitcher Roy Calfee (now retired) and is already at AAA. Detroit has a great young core of young offensive talent and several pitchers with potential as well. This is from a team that had absolutely nothing - not even managers at most levels in it's minor league system when Martin arrived. BREAKING DOWN THE GOTHAMS The New York World-Telegram, which is owned by the Bigsby family so often has a pro-Gothams slant to it's reporting, offered this comparison of the New York Feds club a year ago compared to today after the team was gutted right about this time last season, just months after winning a World Championship. The World-Telegram writes "The Gothams have taken a lot of heat for breaking up a championship team. Well what if they'd kept the old gang together? Does this look like a contender?:" Code:
C Wicklund .246 - 4 - 25 Traded replaced with - Lake .305 - 1 25 1B Jameson .258 - 4 - 19 2B Mudd .272 - 4 - 21 3B McDowell .248 - 0 - 11 SS Smith .236 - 0 - 18 LF Pidgeon .321 - 6 - 32 Traded replaced with - DeMars .288 - 6 - 32 CF Taylor .262 - 1 - 12 Cut replaced with - Brown, Jr. .348 - 1 - 22 RF Strong .329 - 5 - 12 Traded replaced with - Adams .307 - 1 - 22 SP Lonardo 2-6 3.63 SP Day 5-4 4.35 Traded replaced with Snyder 4-2 3.08 SP Bates 4-5 5.09 Traded replaced with Baker 2-2 4.35 SP Elder 1-5 5.49 Traded replaced with Adams 2-3 4.84 SP Jones 2-2 3.08 Traded replaced with Ratcliffe (will make his ML debut this sim) CL Ellertson 4-1 3.96 Traded replaced with Watters 2-0 1.78 Others had similar arguments suggesting that "things might have been different if they stayed together, but more likely a battle for 3rd/4th/5th like (The World-Telegraph) said. The only caveat is if you hadn’t broken up the team what would you have added to improve them and would the pitchers be doing better at the oval than they are scattered around the league?" Of that we will never know but the Gothams brass continues to feed it's fans the story that the Gothams players were for the most part ready for retirement and they now have loads of young talent coming in. The Gothams management and their lackeys at the World-Telegraph can spin it any way they like but there is no way anyone can convince me that the team, or the great Gothams baseball fans in New York, are in any way better off with Rabbit Day, Mahlon Strong and Moxie Pidgeon all suiting up for Federal Association rivals instead of trying to win another pennant together in New York. Yes Day is struggling right now but he will come out of it and I am sorry but you just do not tear apart a team six months after their second straight 90+ win season and back to back Federal Association pennants. A Gothams executive responded to the verbal attacks by pointing out correctly that New York had no farm system to speak of. "It was ranked 15-16th in the league. So we had no capital to try improving that team. We had spent it to win and all I could do was trade away another draft to try plugging holes." It will be fun to see what happens going forward with this new group of Gothams and might be interesting to compare the New York plan to that of the Brooklyn Kings. The Kings are in a very similar position to what the Gothams found themselves in a year ago. Brooklyn, like New York a year ago, has very little in the way of prospects at the minor league level and the Kings have a lot of key players on the wrong side of thirty including Frank Vance, Dan Barrell, Fred Barrell, Doug Lightbody, Joe Shaffner with Tom Barrell, Mike Murphy and Al Wheeler right there at age 29 as well. Brooklyn assistant General Manager Jim Golden is adamant the idea of tearing apart the team has never crossed their minds. "Never would the Kings consider a complete sell-off to tear the team apart," explained Golden. "We just won't do that to our fans. Pieces might get moved as we progress but I think, and it is just my opinion so in the big picture not worth anything at all, they would have been far better served keeping the key guys - biting the bullet on perhaps one bad year - and quite possibly being back in contention again this season." While Golden would not say any more on the subject it was quite obvious there is no love lost in Brooklyn towards the Gothams organization, a team with a rich history that has often overshadowed the Kings. As for what The Figment Sporting Journal's thoughts on the subject are: Well, I just want to say I take great exception to the Gothams statement that they would no longer have contended with the group they had a year ago. I disagree. Remember if the Gothams had hung on to their core the Chiefs would not have Rabbit Day so they would be weaker and who knows, if Day was getting better run support in New York this season than he has received from the Chiefs he might be in the middle of another dominant campaign, one in which the right move or two at the deadline to add veteran pieces and a couple of breaks, might have had New York contending for a chance to play October baseball. A guarantee of a title? No, absolutely not but that is the same challenge every team faces every year. However, with their current make-up one thing is certain - it is clear October baseball is a few years away for the Gothams. QUICK HITS Pittsburgh's Joe Owens had 15 triples last year, 13 triples the year before and has yet to hit one this year. It's a small sample size but Lew Seals has 7 outfield assists in just 208 innings playing in right field for the Miners. There are 4 other players with more than that in RF, and they've all played upwards of 450 innings out there. Seals had 21 assists playing the outfield in the minors last season. We had another no-hitter last week. This one was in the AAA Century League as Minneapolis pitcher Bill Brown blanked the Indianapolis Hoosiers 1-0 in a dramatic game that was scoreless until the top of the ninth when Lumberjacks pinch-hitter Dilly Ward delivered an rbi single for the only run. Brown, who also threw a no-hitter in AA six years ago, did not allow a walk but did hit 3 Hoosiers batters. The 29 year old has been in the Montreal Saints system since signing as an undrafted free agent out of Spartanburg High School in 1925. The Week That Was Current events for the week ending 6/20/1937
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06-15-2021, 11:13 PM
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June 22, 1927: Amateur Player Signing Day Recap
A NEW ERA IN FIGMENT BASEBALL IS UNDERWAY While reactions were mixed among team executives prior to the event, the new process allowing top amateur players some say in where they end up plying their trade was on the whole a rousing success. There were, as is the case in every draft, winners and losers but there was also a lot more excitement waiting for players to decide which offer they will accept. In the end the 32 players involved were the big winners and Brooklyn King Curly Jones, who was a real catalyst for the change, was all smiles at the end of the proceedings. "I wish I had the right to have some say when it was my draft," stated Jones by telephone from Toronto where his club was slated to play later in the day. "I am not saying I would not have chose the Gothams but it would have been nice to have it be my decision and not be handed out like cattle at auction. Obviously we didn't get everything we wanted but this is a start." Jones was referring to attempts to organize a union of players, which was something that did not occur but he did earn a small victory for newcomers to the league with the concession from the owners to allow what OSA deems to be the top 32 players the opportunity to pick their destination, when since 1911 when the FABL draft began it has been entirely the owners say. Some teams will love the system after today while others will hate it simply based on who they did - or didn't - manage to land. Like the new format or hate it, it was hard to argue against the drama as the top 32 players and representatives from each of the 16 FABL clubs gathered on the floor of the Potomac Arena in Washington D.C., not far from the league offices, for the ceremony. While no fans were in attendance there was plenty of cheering (and groaning) as each player stepped up to the podium and announced his choice of employer. Perhaps the highlight was seeing Detroit Dynamos General Manager DD Martin dancing a jig after hearing that catcher Pete Casstevens had picked the Dynamos. "What can I say," gushed the Dynamos GM shortly afterwards. "Pete is the player we wanted and we made sure he knew just how much he would mean to this organization." Casstevens, who's father Clint was a Whitney Award winning outfielder with Pittsburgh, said he just liked the direction the Dynamos were heading. "I have been following the exploits of Sal (rookie outfielder Sal Pestilli) and my dad knows Mr. Morris fairly well so it just felt right. Plus Mr. Morris (Detroit player-manager Max Morris) said my dad owed him for stealing a Whitney Award away from him a while back." Remember there are still 23 rounds of a conventional draft ahead and some real talent still available but here is a look at the winners and losers from the first ever Players Phase of the FABL draft. WINNERS DETROIT DYNAMOS: The Dynamos landed Casstevens, the latest and maybe best of a growing crop of talented young receivers. He was ranked #2 by OSA after the Syracuse High School star was named the winner of the Adwell Award as High School Player of the Year. Lost in the excitement about Casstevens was the fact the Dynamos also signed Cuban born outfielder Juan Pomales out of St Francis University of Ohio. Pomales was ranked the #5 prospect but Detroit immediately after signing him announced a trade with the Chicago Cougars that would return a pair of pitching prospects to the Dynamos. So much for players controlling their own destiny I suppose but it made an excellent day even better for Detroit fans. NEW YORK GOTHAMS: The Gothams got their new Ed Ziehl in second baseman Roosevelt Brewer. The two-time High School All-American second baseman out of Chicago has the potential to be a franchise cornerstone and the centerpiece of what might someday be known as a Hundred Thousand Dollar infield with last year's number two pick Walt Messer at first base, Mule Monier, a 1934 fifth rounder at shortstop and Billy Dalton, the 10th overall pick of the 1934 draft at the hot corner. The Gothams second player was Constantine Peters, a 21 year old fleet-footed center fielder from Springfield State. Peters was listed as #17 on the OSA list. ST LOUIS PIONEERS: The Pioneers picked up a pair of highly touted infielders in Joe Pestilli and Luke Michaels. Yes, Joe is one of Sal Pestilli's brothers and the only infielder in the family. He was an All-American second baseman at New York Maritime College but his future likely belongs at third base as the Pioneers have all-star Freddie Jones penciled in as their second baseman for the next decade. 18 year old shortstop Luke Micheals was honorable mention for the High School All-American team twice during his prep days at Santa Barbara High School in California. Pestilli was ranked #4 on the OSA list with Micheals 7th making them the second highest duo to go to one team behind only the Dynamos. Afterwards Pioneers assistant General Manager Charlie Kane had some thoughts on the entire event: "I was not a fan of this process when it was introduced but the actual experience was very fun. We ended up with two top seven guys when we (would have been) drafting 10th so we feel pretty good about it overall. Pestilli could see a future move to 3B and while I'm not totally sold on Michaels it's always good to have top shelf short stops in the system." PHILADELPHIA SAILORS: The Sailors may end up being very big winners here if all goes according to OSA's script. Both outfielder Cotton Dillon, ranked 18th and shortstop Willie Hall, ranked 23rd are high school players labelled projects, but each has a terrific upside. Dillon was an All-American at Hillsdale High in Michigan while Hall played his high school ball in Massachusetts but was born in Rhode Island, so he combines with the Pestilli's to give tiny Rhode Island 3 of the top 32 players. PITTSBURGH MINERS: Spud Bent is the big pickup for the Miners as the Maryland State All-American third baseman established a number of AIAA record breaking totals including most career RBI's and stolen bases while also finishing third all-time in hits. Add in shortstop Bill Carr, who is celebrating his 21st birthday today, and the Miners get two players rated in the top 12 by OSA. LOSERS CHICAGO COUGARS: A few teams might lay claim to having the worst day but hard to argue with the Chicago Cougars when their Scouting Director Marv Branson summed the day up this way: "I don't think anyone was worse off then us, but I guess Baltimore is a close second." Like most teams the Cougars had little interest in outfielders, particularly corner outfielders due to the glut of them in the sport. Two players had to sign with every team and it just so happened the Cougars got two of the players they liked the least in Marv Smith and Ray Powell. Smith, a 22 year old from Portland Tech, was actually ranked 11th by OSA but the Cougars admitted they would not have considered him before the fifth round. He is from Montana so he has that in common with Chicago infielder Ollie Page. Powell is an 18 year old from Little Rock (AK) High School but also a player who was not on the Cougars radar. The only saving grace for Chicago was the deal announced immediately after the draft with Detroit for Juan Pomales. BROOKLYN KINGS: Like the Cougars the Kings wanted nothing to do with outfielders as they are loaded at the position but just as Chicago did, Brooklyn ended up with a pair of them. Joe Herman was #20 on the OSA list and is a centerfielder out of Grange College in Kentucky, for whom he was an All-American this season. He has some skills and with current Brooklyn centerfielder Bill May struggling at the moment, who knows maybe Herman will have a future with the Kings. Bob Pettaway, another college center fielder, was the other player to choose Brooklyn. He is a 20 year old from Baton Rogue State with tremendous work ethic and versatility as he can likely play anywhere but catcher. He was originally a 10th round pick of Baltimore out of high school in 1934 but decided to go the college route instead. The Kings love his attitude but question his skillset and durability. BALTMORE CANNONS: The Cannons are loaded with young pitching talent and are a team on the rise but they desperately need some young offensive talent. Their resurgence would have been greatly aided by the ability to land either Casstevens or Brewer but instead they had to settle for SS Alex Turner. The 31st ranked prospect out of Lincoln College is said to have limited upside. Their second player was 16th ranked Ed Greenwood, a pretty good centerfielder out of Mississippi Tech but they missed out on the prize of that group as well in Tony Pestilli, who chose the Keystones. CLEVELAND FORESTERS: Cleveland had traded away the rights to landing one of the players to Washington prior to the draft so the Foresters had to settle for just one signing and that was outfielder Charlie Nathan, a 21 year old from South Valley State who was ranked 30th. Foresters scouting director Ollie Moses summed it up this way: "Cleveland gambled and lost hard. The scouting staff consensus on Nathan was he was the 53rd best player available. THE REST BOSTON MINUTEMEN: The Minutemen can be considered winners for landing the only pitcher in the group of 32 as Duke Hendricks, who was a second team All-American at Baton Rogue State and a teammate of Brooklyn's Bob Pettaway. While not expected to be an ace, the 21 year old is projected as a solid #3 starter. 9th ranked Eddie Haley, a centerfielder from Portland Tech (where he was a teammate in the outfield with Marv Smith, was the other Boston signing. CHICAGO CHIEFS: It was a moderate win for the Chiefs in second baseman Wes Parks and outfielder Dick Hall. Parks is an 18 year old high school player out of Bryan, Texas who was ranked 6th by OSA while Hall, who played his college ball at Laclede, and was ranked 13th. Both project to be average big leaguers. MONTREAL SAINTS: The Saints add catcher Phil Squires and second baseman Eric Fiore. Fiore was ranked 24th and Squires 25th. Both have Kentucky ties as Squires played at Grange College while Fiore has committed to Bluegrass State but that will change since he will sign with Montreal. They both made the top 32 but OSA feels they are each on the bubble for developing enough to make the big leagues. The day feels close to a loss for the Saints. NEW YORK STARS: The only club that failed to send a representative to the meeting but second baseman Ira Armstrong and outfielder Paul Hall both agreed to join the team even though there was no one around to welcome them to the organization. OSA like's centerfielder Hall, a 22 year old out of President's College in Illinois, and feel he has great upside. Armstrong is a high school second baseman with a bright future according to OSA as well so despite having no one represent them the Stars made out pretty well. PHILADELPHIA KEYSTONES: A pair of outfielders but the Keystones made out very nicely in landing the youngest member of the Pestilli brood. Tony was ranked 15th by OSA and while his career lacks the flash of Sal, he may prove to be a very good big league outfielder. It will take time as he is just 18 and will be the only one of the 4 ballplaying Pestilli's not to play college ball before signing a professional contract. The Keystones second player is Bud Mullen, who at 32nd was the lowest ranked player in the group and is on the bubble for ever making the majors. TORONTO WOLVES: The Wolves got the player with perhaps the most untapped potential in third baseman Ockie Holliday. He was featured in the draft preview for his impressive power numbers but the question mark is he played at a small school and only for one season. The upside is there for the second team All-American as OSA ranked him #3 but will he reach his full potential. Tom Frederick was also a top 8 prospect and should be a nice fit with the Wolves. If Holliday pans out then Toronto is a big winner. WASHINGTON EAGLES: The only club to receive three players thanks to a trade with Cleveland, the Eagles ended up with second baseman Henry Sheridan, first baseman Jim Hammond and catcher Paul Wilkerson. The first two are not overly impressive but Wilkerson prevents the day from being a loss for the Eagles as the the 21 year old from Oklahoma City State has quite an upside and could be one of the better signal callers in the game someday. The standard phase of the draft, which will consist of 23 rounds this year, is now underway.
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06-19-2021, 01:01 PM
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This Week in Figment Baseball: Draft Day edition
THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL June 23, 1937 - Draft Recap Issue 1937 DRAFT RECAP This may well prove to be the weakest draft in Figment history but if so, it will not be a fair representation of the full crop of new players available. What will be remembered most about the 1937 draft, even more than it was the first one to fall smack dab in the middle of the baseball season, will be the fact that it was the first time many of the top players (32 in this case) were exempt from the draft and given some limited say as to where they wanted to start their pro careers. As a result when Central Illinois senior second baseman Charlie Ross heard his name called first overall by Baltimore, it was well after the true prizes of this class - players like Pete Casstevens, Rosie Brewer and 2 more Pestilli boys- had already found a home in professional baseball. The new draft rules will give some small margin of freedom to a select few prospects each year and was a minor concession made by the owners in order to convince the group of players as a whole to stand down on talks of challenging anti-trust laws and perhaps even unionizing. That the players group, spear-headed mainly by college players either still in the minors or not even in professional baseball yet, seemed to cave so easily and for such a seemingly small concession - one that has absolutely no benefit whatsoever for established players - indicates that, except for perhaps a few such as Brooklyn King Curly Jones, the professional players were not really interested in gambling with their careers and incite major change in the game. That is a topic for another day as today we focus on the draft results. Code:
1937 FABL DRAFT FIRST ROUND PK TEAM NAME POS AGE SCHOOL 1 BAL Charlie Ross 2B 22 Central Illinois 2 DET Bill Willman P 21 Strub College 3 NYS Dud Leary P 21 North Carolina Tech 4 PHK Al Duster P 18 Council Bluffs (IA) HS 5 CHC Preacher Pietsch P 21 Brooklyn Catholic Univ. 6 NYG Willie Gonzalez Jr. P 18 Capital Academy HS Washington DC 7 MON Jimmy Mayse P 20 East Missouri Seminary College 8 WSH Felix Anderson CF 18 Bucyrus (OH) HS 9 TOR Roscoe Zeiler C 21 Taney College 10 STL Joe Henry C 21 Lane State 11 CLE Joseph Mills LF 22 Carolina Poly 12 BOS Al Gross SS 18 Ridgefield Park (NJ) HS 13 PHS Cy Braden 3B 20 Grange College 14 PIT Rafael Mendoza SS 18 Franklin HS Philadelphia PA 15 BKN Joe York SS 18 Terre Haute (IN) HS 16 CHI Wayne Newcomb CF 20 Sadler College Second baseman Charlie Ross played just one season of organized college ball, joining highly touted Central Illinois for his senior year after spending his time at a small private school that did not offer a baseball program and forced him to suit up for a local amateur team in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The only reason Ross even had an opportunity to turn pro is former big leaguer Joe Brown, a fellow Scranton native who spent some time with several teams in the big leagues just after the turn of the century, noticed Ross and eventually put him in touch with the Condors baseball coach, who was an old teammate of Brown's. Ross made the most of his opportunity, batting .302 and impressing scouts with his defensive skills in the infield. He was tabbed #3 in the OSA final mock and grabbed by the Cannons. Ross was just one of two seniors selected this year as Carolina Poly outfielder Joseph Mills also spent just one season playing college ball before being drafted 11th by Cleveland. Ross was also one of two Scranton born players to go in the first round this year, joining Roscoe Zeiler - a catcher taken 9th overall by Toronto out of tiny Taney College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where the junior had been a 3-year starter. It marked the second straight season a pair of Scranton born players have been drafted as shortstop Jake Creel was the Cleveland Foresters first round pick a year ago while Lee Scott, also a shortstop, was selected by the Chicago Cougars in the 4th round. Prior to that only 2 players born in Scranton had ever been drafted before. You need to go back to 1915 for Ray Leonard, a 4th round pick by Detroit who had a long minor league pitching career but never made the big leagues. Before him the first was John Baudino, who was taken in the 27th round in 1912 by Baltimore and eventually played 81 career games with the New York Star. This first round also had two sons of former major leaguers selected. The first was pitcher Willie Gonzalez Jr., a high school pitcher out of Washington DC, who's father is now in politics but pitched for over a decade. The elder Gonzalez spent the bulk of his career in AAA including half a dozen seasons in Milwaukee where young Willie was born, but senior did get brief stints with the Chicago Cougars and Detroit from 1915-17, posting a 5-5 record with a 3.77 era in 15 starts. The other one is Joe York, a high school shortstop from Terre Haute, Indiana where his father presently manages Detroit's Class A affiliate. Dick York is much better known as one of the greatest catchers of all-time, spending 17 seasons with the Dynamos and helping them win a pair of World Championships. Like his son Joe this year, Dick was a first round pick as he went 8th overall to Detroit in 1917 out of Georgia Baptist University. The Dynamos organization was disappointed as they had planned on selecting Joe in the second round but Detroit will have another change next year as Dick's younger son Rick just finished his junior year at the same high school as his brother and is expected to be a top candidate for selection next year, perhaps even one of the select few that will be allowed to choose their own destination. Code:
FIRST TEAM AIAA ALL-AMERICANS DRAFTED THIS YEAR
RD PK TM NAME POS SCHOOL
X X STL Joe Pestilli OF New York Maritime
X X PIT Spud Bent 3B Maryland State
X X BAL Alex Turner SS Lincoln College
X X BKN Joe Herman OF Grange College
1 10 STL Joe Henry C Lane State
2 15 BKN Alex LaComb OF Cuyahoga University
SECOND TEAM AIAA ALL-AMERICANS DRAFTED THIS YEAR
RD PK TM NAME POS SCHOOL
X X TOR Ockie Holliday 3B Powesheik
X X BOS Duke Hendricks P Baton Rogue State
X X WSH Harry Sheridan 2B Empire State
6 15 BKN Henry Wright 1B Wisconsin State
HIGH SCHOOL ALL-AMERICANS DRAFTED THIS YEAR
RD PK TM NAME POS SCHOOL
X X DET Pete Casstevens C Syracuse (NY) HS
X X NYG Roosevelt Brewer 2B Washington HS Chicago, IL
1 4 PHK Al Duster P Council Bluffs (IA)
2 1 BAL Roy Harris OF Fairfax HS Los Angeles, CA
2 2 DET David Molina P Florissant (MO)
2 3 NYS Cliff Atkinson P Beaver (PA)
4 10 STL Joe Standish Jr. P Brooklyn Tech, Brooklyn, NY
xx - indicates part of 32 players granted exception to sign with the
team of their choice.
JIGGS REVEALS HIS ALL-STAR BALLOT The fifth annual FABL all-star game is fast approaching with the contest slated for July 7th. It will be held in Toronto, the first one ever played outside of the United States and the Federal Association is looking to get back on track after losing for the first time last year, when the Continental side emerged with a 6-4 victory at Pioneer Field in St. Louis. There are many worthy candidates that will unfortunately have to be left off of my ballot but here is the way I am voting for the 8 starters on each side. First up the Continental Association. CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION CATCHER - Young Adam Mullins is certainly playing like an all-star and will appear in many of these games going forward I think. In fact he should make this year's club as a backup but I have to give the nod as the starter to T.R. Goins, the veteran Cleveland catcher who has already participated in 3 all-star games and is showing no signs of slowing down at age 36. Goins just recently notched the 2,500th hit of his impressive big league career. FIRST BASE - I am a big Vic Crawford fan ever since his amazing AIAA career at Commonwealth Catholic but my vote goes to Ray Ford of the Chicago Cougars. The 26 year old had a very strong debut season a year ago and is picking up right where he left off this season, batting .313 with 7 homers and 33 rbis as of this writing. SECOND BASE - It comes as a surprise that John Langille has never been selected to an all-star game, not even as a reserve but that will be rectified this year as the Brooklyn infielder gets the nod over Baltimore's Clark Car and Brooks Meeks of the Foresters. THIRD BASE - Veterans John Lawson of the Chicago Cougars and Frank Vance of Brooklyn have each been named to all four previous all star teams and both deserve to be there again. Cleveland's Charlie Berry has been selected 3 times and in the early going this season looked like a runaway choice but he has slumped of late and taken himself out of consideration. I am a big Frank Vance fan but what John Lawson is doing this year, batting .339 with 12 homers gives him the spot but I want Vance on the CA bench. SHORTSTOP - It used to be you would just pencil in Harry Barrell here and move on but the young Brooklyn shortstop has dealt with injuries and has struggled at the plate when he was healthy. Barrell is heating up of late but not enough to warrant inclusion over Cleveland's George Dawson for my vote. Dawson has been an extremely steady performer over his 4 and a half seasons with the Foresters but had been overshadowed by Barrell - a player Cleveland parted ways with because they had Dawson in their system. LEFTFIELD - The Baltimore Cannons are improving, but their offense is well behind their pitching staff in that regard. One exception is Jim Mason, who is hitting .353 and looking like the player he was as a rookie two years ago and not the sophomore who struggled last season. Chicago's Doc Love also deserves consideration here. If selected I think Mason will become the first Cannon player ever voted in as an all-star game starter. CENTERFIELD - I have to look to Canada for my centerfielder and while Toronto's Levi Redding has looked very good in his first full season, you cannot deny the impact Pablo Reyes has had in Montreal. Reyes gets my pick with Cleveland's Dan Fowler also deserving some consideration. RIGHTFIELD - Larry Vestal is having himself a career year in Toronto and belongs on the team but only as a back up to two-time defending CA Whitney Award winner Al Wheeler of Brooklyn. Wheeler won a triple crown in 1935, led the CA in homers and rbi's last season and is number one in either association in both of those two categories so far this year. PITCHER - We vote for 3 starting pitchers and are allowed to vote for 3 relievers but I normally do not cast a vote for anyone out of the pen. There were a number of very good candidates in the CA this year but I went with Sergio Gonzales (9-1, 3.01) of Cleveland, Brooklyn's Joe Shaffner (8-2, 2.89) and Doc Newell (8-3, 3.06) of the Philadelphia Sailors. Had he not been injured a couple of weeks ago I would have had to find a spot for Tom Barrell (7-3, 2.66) of the Kings. Others I narrowed down to finalists but ultimately came up short were Dean Astle (8-5, 3.29) of Cleveland, Chicago's Milt Fritz (6-5, 2.05) and Baltimore's Pinky Conlan (7-3, 2.76). FEDERAL ASSOCIATION CATCHER - The catching position in the Fed is already crowded and only expects to get more so with the decision of High School Player of the Year Pete Casstevens to sign with Detroit. Carl Ames is having a good season in Philadelphia as is Washington's Claude Ramsey. John Wicklund is a two-time all-star but having a down year in Boston after coming over from the Gothams last season. They all take a back seat to Tom Bird, George Cleaves and Jack Flint this year. Bird is the oldest of the 3 at age 29 and is a two-time all-star enjoying the best start to his career for the Chicago Chiefs. Cleaves is a star in Pittsburgh at age 23, a 3-time all-star who, despite being bothered by injuries this season, is hitting .344 which equals his career best. However, all of the above are being overshadowed by St Louis signal caller Jack Flint. Flint made the all-star team last season, his first as an every day player, and is hitting a FABL best .416 this year. Bird should be the backup on the team with Cleaves latest injury sidelining him until likely after the mid-season classic. FIRST BASE - Fred McCormick missed the all-star game for the first time in his career a season ago despite hitting .351 on the year. McCormick should be the starter this year joining his teammate Flint. Ron Rattigan of the Chiefs is playing very well and Boston's Carl Carr is putting up some good numbers with reduced playing time. I so want to pencil in Max Morris as the starter despite the poor start the new Detroit player-manager is having. He should be added to the team just on reputation and his incredible career but likely won't make the cut. SECOND BASE - Even though he has been shifted to shortstop recently Pete Layton gets my vote here. Layton is a 2-time All-Star with 5 World Championships on his resume and was a key piece in the Chiefs title run last season. He was off to another great start this year but will miss the game with an injury so I am hoping Freddie Jones gets the call to replace him although Jones, who has never missed an All-Star game, has also had injuries to contend with. THIRD BASE - As much as Boston's Ken Mayhugh has impressed this year the nod at third base goes to Mel Carroll of the Washington Eagles after a .393, 9 homer start to the season. SHORTSTOP - It comes down to a choice between Washington and Boston again but the Eagles win once more with Jim Beard getting my vote ahead of the Minutemen's Charlie Reed. The 24 year old Beard is not the best defensive shortstop around but his offense gets him the nod to make the team for the second year in a row. LEFTFIELD - It is close but I am going to go with Washington's Moxie Pidgeon as the best of a decent group that includes Jim Hampton of Chicago, Philadelphia's Rip Curry and Dave Henry of Boston. Pidgeon is another one of the many players who flew the coop from New York last season and the 3-time all-star is enjoying another solid season. CENTERFIELD - It has always been a case of just write the name Bobby Barrell in at centerfield and be done with it for the Fed but not this year. In fact Barrell, a 4-time all-star, may not make the team this time around despite a pretty solid .304,10,36 start. You think catcher is deep in the Fed check out centerfield. Howard Brown Jr. looks to be starting a great career in New York and Sal Pestilli (.308,13,41) is already a star in Detroit despite the fact he was just finishing up his college season this time last year. You also have Chick Donnelly in Boston and Wally Flowers in Washington, both very strong players. My vote goes to Gail Gifford, who has been nothing short of amazing for St Louis as he has a breakout year at age 25 in his fourth big league season. I would love to see both Pestilli and Brown Jr. get the call as back-ups and I did come close to voting for Pestilli instead of Gifford. RIGHTFIELD - He won't provide many homeruns but Boston's Pete Day is a perfect model for a lead-off man. He is hitting .380 with 11 stolen bases, rarely strikes out and walks enough to give him the 4th best on base percentage in either league. PITCHER - My pitchers from the Federal Association are led by Sam Sheppard of St Louis. The 29 year who won an Allan Award 2 seasons ago hit a little bump in the road recently with 2 straight losses but as of this writing he is 12-3 with 3.40 era. Joining him on my ballot will be a pair of youngsters in 23 year old Lefty Allen, who is 9-2, 3.07 for Pittsburgh and bidding to participate in his second consecutive all-star game just like 21 year old Al Miller (10-2, 3.08) of the Chicago Chiefs. Others I considered voting for included Boston's Art Keeler (8-5, 3.71) and Charlie Stedman (7-6, 3.39) of Pittsburgh. 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 
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Lead Columnist of The Figment Sporting Journal
The Scripture of Sports |
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06-19-2021, 06:43 PM
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#180 |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Ontario Canada
Posts: 9,712
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1937 Draft recap from Brooklyn
 KINGS LAND CHRISTIAN AWARD WINNER The last thing the Brooklyn Kings needed heading into the amateur draft, especially after landing two more of them in the new free agent phase, was another outfielder but Kings Scouting Director John Spears could not contain his smile when asked about Christian Trophy winning outfielder Alex LaComb. "Yes, we have a lot of depth in our organization at the outfield position," conceded Spears, "But we absolutely love this kid's offensive tools. You can never have too much talent and with (amateur free agent signing Joe) Herman and Alex we certainly have added to what I feel is one of the best organizations in FABL for outfield depth, from top to bottom." LaComb played at Cuyahoga University where he won an AIAA batting title two years ago and his .359 career batting average is second best all-time, only surpassed by Narragansett's Sal Pestilli who is now making a name for himself in the Federal Association. LaComb followed Pestilli in winning the Frank Christian Trophy as the AIAA's best player in his draft season. "He has great speed and above average contact skills with a smooth swing," says Spears of LaComb's game. The issue LaComb will face is the same as the one that is in store for Joe Herman, a Grange College centerfielder who signed with the Kings in the new open phase for select amateurs, in that Brooklyn's outfield is so crowded already. The Kings are loaded with probably 8 players in their organization that should be starting outfielders right now in FABL. That group includes 4-time Whitney Award winner Al Wheeler, brothers Doug and Frank Lightbody, speedy young centerfielder Bill May, veterans Joe Perret and Elmer Nolde along with Alf Pestilli and Ab Thomas who are both at AAA Rochester. The mix also includes young prospects Bob Mullins, a 21 year old who was taken in the third round in 1934 and the Kings are still not ruling out 1934 first rounder Dan Rogers completely despite the fact Rogers has really struggled as a pro. Code:
BROOKLYN KINGS 1937 DRAFT PICKS AND AMATEUR FREE AGENTS RD POS AGE NAME SCHOOL BIRTHPLACE FA OF 21 Joe Herman Grange College Detroit, MI FA OF 20 Bob Pettaway Baton Rogue State Dora, AL 1 SS 18 Joe York Terre Haute (IN) HS Wichita, KS 2 OF 21 Alex LaComb Cuyahoga Univ. Cleveland, OH 3 P 18 Ed Funkhouser St Alabans HS (DC) Hagerstown, MD 4 C 18 George Jones Cathedral Prep (Queens) New York City 5 P 18 Bunny Jones Baton Rogue (LA) HS New Iberia, LA 5 3B 18 Alex Boyd Woodland (CA) HS Sacramento, CA 6 1B 20 Henry Wright Wisconsin State Chicago, IL 7 SS 21 Larry Bierwirth North Carolina Tech Hickory, NC 9 3B 18 George McDonald Passaic (NJ) HS New York City 10 P 18 Frank Stephens Norwalk (CT) HS Brooklyn, NY LaComb was not the only AIAA All-American selected by the Kings as Brooklyn picked Wisconsin State first baseman Henry Wright in the 6th round. Wright, selected to the second team, belted 27 homers in 144 college games include 10 this past season but he is considered a longshot to ever patrol first base at Kings County Ballpark. The Kings also continued their trend of selecting local ballplayers whenever they could. Three of their first ten selections (the remainder of the draft will be auto-simmed Monday) were native New Yorker including 10th round pick Frank Stephens who was born in Brooklyn but his family moved to Norwalk, Connecticut which is where Stephens played his high school ball. Entering the season Stephens was likely a 5th or 6th round pick but he struggled in his final year of school ball. Brooklyn also selected pitcher George Jones out of Cathedral Prep in Queens and infielder George McDonald who was born in New York but played his high school ball in Passaic. MISSED OUT ON PIETSCH One area player the Kings were hoping to have the opportunity to draft was 21 year old pitcher Preacher Pietsch. The Brooklyn Catholic University star was 21-15 over three seasons with the Bulldogs and the Kings had hoped he would still be available when they selected 15th. Pietsch it would turn out was gone well before the Kings had the opportunity as he was selected 5th overall by the Chicago Cougars. The youngster's gamble to attend Brooklyn Catholic certainly paid off in a sizable signing bonus hike as he was originally drafted out of high school by the Washington Eagles in the 7th round of the 1934 event, but opted to get an education instead.
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Cliff Markle HOB1 greatest pitcher 360-160, 9 Welch Awards, 11 WS titles |
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