Thursday 13 March 2008

Pre-Season, Saturday, April 18, 1953

Indians Win Again
SPOKANE, April 18—Spokane pitchers George New and Clyde DeWitt gave up only three hits Saturday as the Indians downed the Lewiston Broncs 7-3 to take a 2-0 edge in their three-game pre-season baseball series.

Calgary Blasts Wills, Hannah As FSC Loses, 14-2
McClatchy Newspapers Service
PORTERVILLE, Tulare Co., April 19—The Calgary Stampeders of the class A Western International League, plastered a 14 to 2 defeat on the Fresno State College Bulldogs here last night, avenging an 11 to 10 loss, in Fresno earlier this month.
Pitcher Don Hittner of the Stampeders WHS tough in the clutches last night. Although knicked for six singles and one double—by Jack Ladra—he left 19 Bulldogs stranded on the bags.
The bases were loaded with FSC batsmen in the fifth, sixth and ninth innings, but Hittner, and his relief, Al Lobato, retired the visitors on each occasion.
A six run second inning, with FSC's southpaw Ted Wills the victim, was enough for Calgary. Wills walked two, gave up three singles and then two consecutive doubles by Gus Stathos and Rocky Tedesco for the half dozen counter.
In the third, Wills walked the first two batters to face him, and was relieved by freshman Jack Hannah. Hannah saw Gary Cruger single home one run in the third, and three more runs on three singles, a walk and an error in the fourth, and still, another trio of runs in the fifth on three singles and one walk.
Hittner struck out 11 and walked 11, allowing seven hits. J. D. Peterson got two singles in three trips, Len Tucker two singles in five chances and Hannah two singles in five to lead the Bulldogs. Cruger and Stathos each pounded out three hits.
There was one double play by the Bulldogs—Fred Sommers to Don Walker to Fred Bartels.
—which got Hannah out of trouble in the sixth.
Fresno State ...... 001 100 000— 2 9 3
Calgary ............... 061 331 00x—14 16 0
Wills, Hannah 3 and B. Clevenger; Bennet 7, Hittner, Lobato 9 and Bricker.

Perfect Bunt Gives Pros Win in 10th
WALLA WALLA, Wash., [Union Bulletin, April 18]—A perfect squeeze bunt by relief pitcher Ernie Hockaday that scored shortstop Ray Tran from third base in the 10th inning gave the Tri-City Braves of the Western International League a 6-5 victory over Whitman at Borleske Field Saturday. afternoon. The same teams clash under the lights at Sanders Field in Kennewick Monday night.
Hockaday's perfect sacrifice, dumped in front of the plate with Tran only s couple of steps away, broke up a tight ball game that had seen Whitman hold a margin of 5-2 at the end of seven frames on little Sid Aronson locked horns with Dick Piedmonte of the Braves in a pitchers' duel.
Piedmonte and Aronson each allowed only two hits through five innings and each club had a pair of runs. In the sixth Piedmonte relieved by Hockaday and the Missionaries immediately climbed on him for three hits and three runs to go ahead 5-2. Aronson continued to baffle the pros for anther two stanzas, but tired notice ably in the eighth and gave up three tallies that tied the contest.
Neither team could score in the with, though a Tri-City rally was nipped by a fine catch of a foul by by Whitman first baseman Dean Lodmell.
After his shaky sixth inning Hockaday settled down to toss no-hit, no-run ball at the Missionaries last four frames, and earned the win.
Whitman started out with a bang in the first inning when Mert McGrew pasted one of Piedmonte's fast balls into the trees to right center for a booming home run and a 1-0 lead.
The Braves evened it in the second inning with an unearned tally, when Terry Carroll got aboard Aronson missed tagging first base on a ground ball that Lodmell fielded. Tran flied to center for the second out, but Piedmonte worked the count to 3-2, then drilled a line drive double into left field to score Carroll.
Whitman again took a one-run lead in the fourth. Don Hanson walked and Dick Fain blooped a single into short left field. Hanson cored from second as Piedmonte threw wild on Lodmell's perfect bunt, and Fain went to third. He was nipped at the plate a moment later when first baseman Vic Buccola fielded Dick Neher's bunt and tossed to catcher Nick Pesut.
The visitors again knotted the contest in the fifth, and again the tally was unearned. Buccola singled, but Aronson retired the next two hitters. Then third baseman Bill Ward made a poor throw to first on Jack Warren's ground ball, and Buccola, who had moved around on the ground outs, crossed the plate.
A walk to Lodmell, Dick Neher'a single, a fielder's choice to Myron Skubiana on which no one was retired and consecutive base hits by McGrew and Ward were good for three Whitman runs and constituted an unhappy opening for Hockaday in the sixth.
With Aronson rolling along in good style, it looked like the Missionaries might upset the professionals. But in the eighth Pesut doubled with one out and score on Tom Marier's single. Carroll walked and Tran singled to count Marier. Hockaday got the first of his two runs batted in with a fly ball to right that scored Carroll after the catch to tie the game.
Tri-City ......... 010 010 030 1—6 8 3
Whitman ....... 100 103 000 0—5 6 6
Piedmonte, Hockaday and Pesut, Johnson; Aronson and Neher

First-Sacker Sold
CALGARY, April 18 — James Mellinger, a first baseman in the St. Louis Browns organisation, has been signed by the Calgary Stampeders of the Western International League.
Mellinger previmisly was assigned to Wichita of the Class A Western League.

WILfan note: Clancy wrote one of these columns every Saturday for a number of years. They were his take on local sports over the week. During the baseball season, there was at least one small mention of the Vancouver Capilanos. I've generally been only posting those columns dealing mostly with WIL baseball, so that's why I'm posting this and have avoided the others.

Week’s Work
By CLANCY LORANGER
[Vancouver Province, Sat., April 18, 1953]
The week’s work—or California, it’s been fun.
Yakima, Wash., last stop for the homeward-bound Vancouver Caps.
MONDAY—When you get your first look at the 1953 Capilanos next Thursday, the player who’s liable to impress you most is a third baseman who doesn’t move too fast, but makes all the right ones, and hits like he was collaborating when they wrote the book.
That’s Harvey Storey, the club’s old pro, and, not so incidentally, the team’s manager. Harvey’s not so young as he’d like his 36-year-old legs to forget, which is why he’s keeping a kid named Jack Bukowatz around to spell him off at the hot corner. But nobody’s going to have to do his hitting for him. His eye is as sharp as ever, as a couple of pitchers on the Salem and Victoria clubs will tell you. He smacks a ball with authority and should give the Caps the cleanup hitting punch they’ve lacked since Dick Sinovic went elsewhere.
Harvey’s quite a fellow otherwise, too. Soft-spoken, with a suggestion of a drawl, he claims, and I can believe it, that he was long acknowledged the dry humor champion of the Pacific Coast League Example: when we dropped him off at 4 a.m. at his Forest Grove home en route here, he remarked, sleepily, “Don’t wake the kids, or they’ll want infield practice in [line unreadable].
• • •
TUESDAY [not posted; not baseball related]
WEDNESDAY—About people: Hugh Luby of the Salem Senators still needs a first baseman, is playing the bag himself in the meantime. The Solons need considerable help yet. And unless Portland comes to their rescue, Victoria Tyees are going to have to come up with a small miracle to stay with their pennant-winning pace of last season. Manager Cece Garriott is desperate for pitching. The Caps, incidentally, aren’t up to strength yet. General Manager Dewey Soriano went to see Leo Miller, and although he got no players, he [unreadable] he was promised at least a catcher by opening day. His still hasn’t heard from outfielder John Kovenz, whom he’d dearly love to have.
THURSDAY—Umpire Emmett Watson [sic], whose flourishes and color caught the eye of the California fans, told this one on himself in Healdsburg. He was about to cross a street there when he saw a female leg protruding from a car window, and a voice fuzzily asking him to come over. He went and was confronted by a woman who asked him if he’d go over to the store and get her some medicine. “Medicine?” asked Emmett, “what kind?” “Oh, about a half pint,” said the woman. Emmett explained to her that he was an umpire in organized baseball and he didn’t think it would be such a good idea.
FRIDAY—There’s one in every camp, and this time it was a huge left-handed pitcher who looked like he could throw a ball through a wall, but who would have had trouble breaking the skin on a peach. He spent most of his time getting his ankles rubbed, or taped, and on top of it all, he kept forgetting things. He was called on to pitch one day, whereupon he announced he had forgotten something again: his athletic support. There are also hangers-on and this year it was a dishwasher who made noises like a parrot, among other things. But his speciality was an imitation of a police siren tat had all the local gamblers self-conscious for days. The weekend here winds it up on the road for the Caps, with games tonight and a pair Sunday afternoon, Save a seat for me in the office, boss, the honeymoon is over.

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