Northsiders Fill the Trophy Cases in ‘49 PDF Print E-mail
Written by Dave Schwaller   
Sunday, 15 April 2012 14:26

Die-hard Cubbie fans kept waiting for it. The same improbable occurrence that they’ve witnessed their last four World Series visits. That feeling when they watch the final number being set into the scoreboard’s last inning that makes it go from the surreal to the all too real. First it was the A’s who were 12 games worse during the ’36 season. Then the Tigers who chalked up 9 fewer in ‘42, and the Yankees with their 17 game disadvantage in ‘43. Two years ago the knife was twisted by the team who they share the city with – they bettered the White Sox by 11. They say it’s not the destination, it’s the journey, but you probably shouldn’t say that within sight of Wrigley Field.

 

The World Series trophy will certainly go on the top shelf of owner Mike Giovacchini’s case, but others will be joining it. That’s because this season was one filled with excellence across the diamond, as well as from the past. The top pitching staff in the NL was led by Tal Abernathy, who ends up splitting the Joe Wood award with Johnny Schmitz. One could argue that he should be the sold recipient since he had more first place votes, but funnily enough, this isn’t addressed in the league rules. I’d say let’s line them up 60 feet and 6 inches away from each other and let them throw balls at each other until we have a victor. At the plate was the most feared lineup top to bottom, highlighted by a dominant 3-4-5 middle. Japan’s top hitter Kozuru hit 38 homers and stole 19 bases to set the tone. The corner outfielder would probably have brought home the Joe Jackson award if it was not for Ron Northey of the Giants with his new HR record of 48. Makoto was followed by NL Rookie of the Year Walt Dropo who was no slouch in his own right. How would you like to have your cleanup spot go for 34HR, 119RBI and bat 0.320? Rounding out this set is Jim Zapp who only hit 0.292. But with the two guys in front of him he had no troubles batting in 110 while depositing an additional 28 in the bleachers. Around this core were a number of solid players who would be household names had they played in towns like Washington or St. Louis. Guys like Jackie Robinson, Joe Greene, and Mickey Vernon. Or if pitching is more your thing, Dean, Noguchi, and Brissie. One thing if for sure, if the clubs in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis want a chance at the postseason anytime soon, they’d better figure a way to slow these boys down. To the Joe Wood and Bob Smyk awards add a probable Manager of the year for Giovacchini and a Hall of Fame induction for Dizzy Dean. This must be one of the most hardware heavy years in history.

 

Tough lessons like the one learned by Cub fans over the last 15 years never go away, they just like a change of scenery every once in a while. The fans in Philly hope this one moves on sooner rather than later. The Phillies have represented the NL the past two seasons and are tired of being the last team to lose. Betto, Collins, and Rapp should be around for a while and will keep this team in the race in the mediocre NL East. As for their city-mates their 98 win season ended sour at the hands of the 78 win White Sox. This pale hose squad just knows how to win when it counts, ending the season just a game above the reigning champion Tigers. The Sox have made a living mixing youth with trades and experienced free-agents. While much is up in the air in the AL, the A’s and Red Sox may be the only sure bets. In the end the city of Philadelphia had to watch a cross-town World Series from afar.

 

But now is the time to watch the Cub faithful enjoy their time in the sun. It’s difficult to imagine a world where the Cubs wouldn’t succeed. A bizarro world where they make the playoffs every 50 years and where the owners care only to put questionable talent on the field while charging for stars. This bizarro world would have curses and unbelievable turns of events during critical games, would have wild personalities calling games and be a place where people go not for the play on the field but for the social experience on aluminum benches.

 

Thank goodness this is only possible in my imagination.
Last Updated on Sunday, 15 April 2012 14:26
 
Detroit Takes Series! PDF Print E-mail
Written by Steve Rackow   
Monday, 12 March 2012 12:59
Change is constant and inevitable, so much so that the claim “Nothing is certain except death and taxes” rings true in any era. To this short list, though, I now propose we add “...and the Detroit Tigers winning championships.” In dispatching the Series' NL representatives, the Tigers have added to their impressive string of recent success: 6 division wins, 5 pennants, and 3 World Championships over the last 7 seasons.
The Tigers came into the 1948 Series riding a wave of confidence. Their 91 wins topped their league; their potent offense led the AL in batting average, and the majors in homers; their pitching was solid and consistent. The Philadelphia Phillies' pitching was sporadic at best, but their offense had plated 786 runs, tops in the majors. The intriguing matchup was dampened in some respects by what (or rather who) was missing, though.
Both teams had managed to make it though the end of the season and past the first round of the playoffs despite major injuries. The Phillies' #1 starter (Johnny Hetki) and their best offensive player (Cecil Travis) both were knocked out in early September, in addition to losing their #2 starter (Woody Rich) early in the year. The Tigers were missing the services of pitcher Johnny Beazley, starting left fielder Burnis Wright, and offensive juggernaut Stan Musial.
The Series was nip and tuck from the start, with the teams each posting a 2-run victory, then a 1-run win, so the games were tied 2-2 after 4. Game 5 loomed large, as it always does in a tied-up 7-game series.
The Tigers handed the ball to 18-game winner Jay Heard, 1943 Bob Smyk award winner and, rather notably, former Philly. The Tigers had burned the midnight oil at the trade deadline in 1947, pulling the trigger on a trade that gave up 2 first-round picks to acquire Jay's services in an attempt to catch the Chicago White Sox. They may have failed to catch them last season, but here was an most serendipitous opportunity to make that trade pay off, in a big way.
Philly, desperate for arms, turned to 39-year-old Lon Warneke. Acquired in a salary dump from Washington the previous season, his stats (career average 3.22 ERA and 1.25 WHIP) had ballooned to 5.60 and 1.76 this season in very limited work. The Phils were praying that, with 285 career wins, there was enough magic left in his arm to keep them competitive in his 1st career playoff start.
Boy was there! The 4,200+ innings Lon had thrown previously in his career were just prelude to the 10 innings of shutout ball he tossed that night. It would turn out to be one of the great unlikely clutch performances in Series history, remembered for decades...or rather, it would have been, if the Tigers had not matched him inning for inning. Heard threw 9 shutout innings himself, Marv Grissom and Johnny Johnson combined to throw 3 more, and the Tigers won Game Five 1-0 on Johnny Bero's pinch single off closer Tom Ferrick in the 12th.
After the Tigers took care of business in Game 6 (the only “blow-out” of the Series, a 6-2 final), a dejected Phillies bench had to watch former teammate Jay Heard celebrating with the rest of the world champs, trying to imagine what that feeling was like. A feeling that they are familiar with, “Maybe next year,” is also familiar to 14 other teams. So, congrats to the 1948 World Champion Detroit Tigers, but here is a warning to you, from the 15 other pro clubs in MLB:
Change, as they say, is inevitable. Watch out in 1949!
Last Updated on Monday, 12 March 2012 13:01
 
Twice is Nice for NY Giants PDF Print E-mail
Written by Steve Rackow   
Wednesday, 02 November 2011 18:29
The celebration in New York got kicked off for another 12 months with the World Champion Giants enjoying a ticker-tape parade through the Big Apple for a second straight year. The storybook ending to the season was far from a certainty, though.
The 1946 campaign seemed destined for mediocrity for the Giants when starter Monty Stratton went down with a season-ending injury towards the end of a sub-.500 three month period from May through July.  With their ace gone for the stretch run for the second straight year, and trailing the Boston Braves six games at the end of July, the Giant's faithful had to hope that the potent lineup could cover for a sub-par staff and pen.
Boy, did they ever rise to the challenge, finishing at or near the top of most offensive categories. They managed to overtake the Braves when they stumbled in August and September, but still had to sweat out a season-closing series against their division rival. They won the division, but the doubters would remain. How would the Giants, winners of a mere 83 games (7 MLB teams finished the 1946 season with more wins, 4 of them watching the playoffs from their living rooms) fare against a balanced Cincinnati Red team that bested both the 89-win Cubs and 86-win Pirates in an NL Central dogfight that went down to the wire?
They would struggle, returning to Crosley Field in Cincinnati after a 16-2 drubbing in Game 5, down 3 games to 2. But pitching, of all things, would provide the salvation they needed: Wilmer Fields posting a complete-game victory in Game 6, and Warren Spahn combining with several relievers for a dramatic, extra-inning, Game 7 shutout against the Red's rookie-of-the-year winner, starter Russ Meyer.
The ALCS featured the Giant's AL counterparts, the hated Yankees, a 96-win juggernaut who led wire-to-wire in the East (but still found themselves fending off the noble, upstart Washington Nationals (no bias here!) as the season wound down) and the defending AL pennant winners, the Detroit Tigers, who had to hold off the St. Louis Browns' furious 12-5 finish that saw them pull to within a single game in the standings. With the Tigers dispatching the Yankees in 5 games, a rematch of last year's Series was set.
With neither team's pitching staff very well regarded, most observers anticipated a slugfest...and that's what they got. Almost 15 runs-per-game were scored in the Giant's 4 games to 2 victory, and none of the many hitting stars in either lineup came up as big as Series MVP Danny Gardella. Danny torched the Tigers for a .619 batting average, blasting 7 homers, scoring 9 runs, and driving in 15!
There was some concern that in the time owner/GM Zach Deuel spent away from the game from 1939 to 1942, the game may have passed him by. But raising a moribund Giants franchise (they lost 200 games from 1941-1942) to consecutive championships in 5 short years seems to show that, on the contrary, it's the game that has some catching up to do with Zach. The Giants payroll may ultimately provide the next challenge for him, though that doesn't look to be a major concern until 1948. And what of the Tigers? Three straight World Series appearances, but missing out on the ultimate prize the last two years means they will return even more hungry next season.
As always, we will have to wait to see which team will have that necessary combination of strategy, talent, and luck that results in the ultimate prize: the 1947 World Series Championship. Congrats to the New York Giants, and good luck to all the teams in 1947!
 
Pale Hose FINALLY win it ALL! PDF Print E-mail
Written by Carl Mitchell   
Sunday, 18 December 2011 17:52

Its been a long 43 seasons for owner Carl Mitchell, but in the unlikeliest of seasons, the White Sox finally got over the hump and won the BB2F/BOY World Series Title! In a year where the team wasn't expected to play better than .500 baseball, nor be able to win the AL West over the mighty Detroit Tigers, with their stars Stan Musial and Yogi Berra, the Southsiders showed incredible fortitude and did what nobody could have foreseen.

The credit for the team's success is widespread amongst the players, but nobody would argue the addition of future Hall of Fame Catcher Josh Gibson back in April in a trade with the only team he had ever played for, the Boston Braves, was the major catalyst for everything the Team accomplished.

The 35 year old Gibson didn't have his best statistical season, but still hit .321 with 23 HR and 84 RBI after joining the Sox, good for a VORP of 52.1 while with the team. He provided the leadership that was sorely needed on the squad. Gibson had been to the playoffs 4 times with Boston, and to the World Series once, but had never won. His hunger for the Championship Ring drove the team. He was joined by 36 year old veteran Hank Greenberg, who knocked in 99 while hammering 20 HR to provide the majority of offensive punch. Greenberg had never been to the playoffs in his long, great career. Young 3B Gil Hodges was the 3rd point in the power trio, and despite a late season injury, he was able to come back for The Series and provide much needed help against the vaunted Cubs. Gibson and Greenberg were both inked to extensions during the season, so the three will be together at least 3 more seasons barring injury or retirement.

I would be remiss to mention that All-Time great White Sox, 39 year old Ray Brown, will indeed get his Ring, despite missing the majority of the season injured after messing up his arm on May 30th. He did have a winning season for the Sox, going 5-4. He started every game he pitched in, and all 5 victories were needed! He is expected to be released by the White Sox, who will eat the final year of his contract to make room for younger players. There is no doubt now that his career is complete.

The Sox pitching was definitely a surprise this season. The team featured no Ace, yet was steady across the rotation of starters and relievers. Their combined ERA of 3.64 was good for 2nd in the AL. Washington had former Sox Bob Lemon, and Detroit traded for Lefty LaMarque, both of whom had amazing seasons, yet it was the Sox rag-tag 5 man rotation that led to the AL pennant! By playoff time, the team pared down to 3 starters and relied on the Pen. Those starters were fantastic, though.

Former National Lefty Wilkie, a Canadian, was definitely the MVP of the playoffs for the White Sox. The Sox got him in the Lemon trade back in 1945. He has bounced between the rotation and the bullpen in his Sox career, even starting in the pen this season. He was moved to the rotation on August 30 to replace the injured Elmer Singleton. He immediately caught fire and never cooled down. His performance forced the Blue Eyed Japanese, Vic Starffin, to the bullpen for the playoffs! Wilkie then went 3-0 in the playoffs, with a 1.13 ERA and 0.78 whip, including 2-0 in the World Series where he gave up only 1 run in 15 innings pitched. He earned the Win in the Title-winning game, with a save by the displaced Starffin for good measure. Pretty good for a one and a half star swingman.

Fellow starters Andy Lapihuska and Paul "Lefty" Minner were also spectacular in the postseason. In fact, Lapihuska did not allow an earned run in 3 playoff starts, and was the winner in the clinching game over Washington in the ALCS. Minner, pitching in only his 2nd major league season, had the honor of facing the other team's Ace in the Opening Games of both the ALCS and the World Series. That tough assignment led to a post-season record of 2-2, but his ERA was a meager 0.86 and he had a whip of 0.99! You cannot ask any more of 3 starting pitchers than what the White Sox got in the Playoffs! Just goes to show that in baseball, anything can happen if your players get hot at the right time. It was magical.

One other player to mention is 32 year old 2B John Antonelli, who nearly claimed the World Series MVP for himself. Antonelli somehow managed to hit 2 HRs and knock in 5 runs in the World Series, with a total playoff batting average of .341 with a .943 OPS! Completely unexpected! He was signed in the preseason with the intention of being a backup infielder, but ended up manning 2B for most of the season as the starter despite his offensive woes. He found himself an important role player on the team which decided not to re-sign long-time 2B Stan Sperry after 1946 (who ended his season on the Cubs' World Series roster, oddly enough). He is a lifetime .197 hitter in 3 regular seasons, with only 8 HRs to his name. Again, it was magical.

So the off-season begins, with another World Series Title for the Great City of Chicago, but this time its home is on the South Side for the next year! There will be changes to the team, including a hard good-bye to a loyal long-time friend in Ray Brown, but standing still gets you passed by in today's game. I just want to say I LOVE this League, and I cannot be happier than I am at this moment. And its good to finally beat Mike!
 
Yankees (David) top (slays) Cubs (Goliath) in nailbiting 1943 series PDF Print E-mail
Written by Dave Schwaller   
Sunday, 10 April 2011 13:10
Yankees GM Vance Violante has delivered to New York what none of his predicesors had, a World Series Title.  Oh wait, he did that in 1938, that’s right.  Oops, forgot about 1931 too.  Like delivering offerings of sacrifice to an angry, lava spewing volcano, these titles have been laid before ravenous Yankee fans – and they are satisfied.

Sacrifice is what it took this year for a team vastly different from most of the elite baseball clubs.  The Yankees were setup as a scrappy, station to station lineup with a mixture of veteran and young pitchers.  They’d need to play solid, mistake free ball and avoid injuries to have a chance.  Or at least that was the common opinion before the season, because injuries were one thing the Yankees had in excess.  Ace Leroy Matlock started the season on the DL from an elbow injury suffered the previous September.  Second year starter Eiji Sawamura wend down in April after a hot 4-1 start.  Jake Wade’s glass elbow blew up in May along with Joe Dobson’s finger.  This meant that the equivalent of a major league staff would be out the majority of the first half of the season.  Add Orie Arntzen as an August scratch and it was like 3 of the 4 starters were out the entire season.  If the pitching was held together with duct tape and bailing wire, the field positions needed only the occasional oil change.  All eight field positions were manned by the same player all year, with those players all taking the field for 130+ games.  Without huge power, they depended on leadoff man George Myatt to generate runs.  Team speed along with getting on base however possible made up for any lack of power and then some.  The Yankees had a major league leading 162 steals with Myatt chalking up 68 of those.  Opposing pitchers felt like they were swatting at hornets trying to survive those long innings on the mound.  How else could a team at the bottom of the list for homers, slugging, and extra base hits win it all?

The Yankees season started off hot.  After they went 17-11 in April, they followed with an 18-10 May to lead the AL East by nine games.  Tough to imagine that they’d be up only one game going into the last series against the Nationals, but winning the first two of that series handily crushed any doubt who was going to represent the AL East in the post season.  This momentum continued into the post season against the defending champion Detroit Tigers.  The Tigers are the anthisis of the Yankees, leading the league with 185 home runs, only three times the Yankees total.  Pitching is where the Tigers were vulnerable, but that was not why the Yankees won the AL pennant 4-2.  The Tigers outscored them 26-24 in the series.  After dropping the first two by wide margins, the Yankees came back and won the next four, two of them by 1 run, one of them a two run game and the fourth by three.  On the other side of the page, the NLCS was a see-saw battle.  Opening with a 6 hit shutout, Boston Braves ace Lefty LaMarque set the tone for the first four games.  Trailing three games to one, the Cubs pinned back their ears and finished with wins of 8-1, 6-1, and 10-1 to get to the World Series.

And all of this has been the prologue to what many are calling the best World Series played.  It started in Chicago, home of the 99-55 Cubs.  By record alone this should have been a 4-1 or 4-2 series win for the Cubs, but the Yanks had been through wars all year.  Game 1 featured 31 game and 6-time Joe Wood Award winner Dizzy Dean against Leroy Matlock.  Starting the series with a run in the first inning was a good sign for the Yankees, but they were hard to come by for both teams the entire series.  Matlock won this contest scattering 7 hits for the complete game shutout, 2-0.  Game 2 only had one more run than game 1, but this time it was the Cubs winning 2-1 on a Joe Greene solo shot in the 4th.  As a quick aside, home runs were quite the story in Chicago this year as the Cubs led the NL with 159.  The power combo of Hal Trosky and Hank Sauer circled the bases 83 times, Sauer 46 of those.  That’s right, we have a new single season home run leader, and his name is Hank Sauer.  The third year left-fielder now has 115, and his eyes are squarely on John Beckwith’s trophy.

The series then moved to the Bronx, where it was Dizzy’s turn for a shutout, also a 7-hitter for a 3-0 win.  Offense has been hard to come by for these clubs so accurate and mistake free play has become all that more important.  Down 2-1 in the series the Yanks now faced the younger Dean Paul for the second time.  Only tallying one run against him in game 2 and down 3-0 in the 5th is where the club needed some clutch performances.  After two walks and a flyout, Matlock came through with a hustle play to make Shoeless Joe proud.  He squeaked out a bunt single to load the bases to the cheers of the Yankee faithful.  Two pitches later Myatt laced a single to right field to score two and get the club back into the game.  They would get to Dean again in the 6th, with back-to-back doubles by George Benson (who the club got from the opposing Cubs last offseason, can you say payback?) and Ken Sears to tie the score at 3.  This roller coaster of a game continued to excite as the Cubs put together a patchwork run in the 7th.  All was quiet until the bottom of the 8th when Benson walked followed by a 2-run pinch-hit home run by Elmer Valo.  The 1939 first round draft pick of the Phillies made the most of the opportunity putting the Yanks up 5-4.  Fans never left their feet afterwards and a creshendo came from the stands when the 1943 AL Fireman Award winner Joe Haynes toed the mound in the 9th.  Haynes collected 21 saves in his 4th season for the pinstripes.  Piper Davis had something to say about what he thought the series outcome would be as he rifled a grounder past one of the all time great Yankees and future Hall-of-Famer Perucho Cepeda.  He was sacrificed to second by Patterson on the first pitch he saw and the tone of the crowd became anxious at best as they realized the top of the Cubs order was up.  After an Ethan Allen groundout failed to move Davis, Ted Petoskey took a 2-1 fastball and ripped it into left field.  Cubs rookie third base coack Don Zimmer did his best impression of a windmill and sent Davis.  Freshly inserted into the lineup at the top of the inning, defensive specialist Tommy Thompson scooped up the ball and fired an absolute laser to backup catcher Mike Guerra, who absorbed a vicious blow from Piper Davis, knowing it was his only chance at scoring.  The crowd was made to wait an excruciating 5 seconds as the home plate umpire circled the prone bodies before him searching for the ball.  Everyone exploded in unison as Guerra raised the ball in his right hand and Davis was punched out, finishing the game.  The Yankees stormed the field, Guerra, and Thompson and it was pandemonium in the crowd.  Quite possibly the best game in World Series history was over, but the series was not.  Premature celebration has been the bane of runner-ups since the time of the gladiators, and Violante was going to do everything he could to make sure that wouldn’t happen to his club.

Another nail biter was on tap for the following day, with the clubs trading the lead multiple times in another 5-4 gem that Tommy Thompson this time won with his bat, an 8th inning double to score Pennington.  Going back to Chicago with a day off in their back pocket was just what the doctor ordered for the Cubs.  Dizzy Dean took the ball and fired his second shutout of the World Series, this time a 5-hit performance that took him 10 innings.  Nick Strincevich matched Dean for nine innings, but after loading the bases in the 10th without getting an out, Haynes threw a wild pitch with Dean at the plate to allow Dixie Walker to cross the plate and even the series at 3.  It was the Cub faithful’s turn to go crazy, knowing that the deciding game would be at their house the next day.  Game 7 was a matchup between the younger Dean and Matlock, even though the rumors that the Cubs would start Dizzy even a day after a 10 inning shutout were confirmed by GM Mike Giovacchini.  Calmer heads prevailed and Dizzy was sent to the pen.  On this day it would be Matlock who was the story, both with his arm and his bat.  Four shutout innings and a 2-run homer are all Leroy put up before leaving the game in the 5th with a finger injury.  In the end the game was not much closer than the final 11-3 score, even with the Yankees exploding for 5 runs in the 9th.

The 1943 season is over, and a gritty Yankee club without a bonafide star is your champion.  Celebrations will go on throughout the weekend until the team parade on Monday, followed shortly by the expectation of another championship.  Looking at the players and the GM who put them in the position to succeed, who can doubt their ability to do it again next year.
Last Updated on Sunday, 10 April 2011 13:12
 
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