Monday 17 March 2008

Thursday, June 25, 1953

W L Pct. GB
Salem ....... 34 21 .618 —
Lewiston .... 33 21 .611 ½
Vancouver ... 32 22 .593 1½
Edmonton .... 34 26 .567 2½
Tri-City .... 25 30 .455 9
Wenatchee ... 26 32 .448 9½
Calgary ..... 25 31 .446 9½
Spokane ..... 25 32 .439 10
Victoria .... 25 32 .439 10
Yakima ...... 25 37 .403 12½


CALGARY — Calgary Stampeders gained a 5-0 lead in the first inning and then coasted to an 11-6 victory over Victoria Tyees in a Western International League baseball fixture here Thursday night.
The Cowboys rattled eight hits for seven runs. Pete Younie took over at that point and went to the eighth inning when he was lifted for a pinch-hitter during Tyees' rally in that inning. The Cowboys piated three runs off him in the fifth.
Zeb Walker hurled the seventh, allowing one run.
Don Hunter, the loop's leading home-run hitter, drove numbers 14 and 15 out of the park. Gus Stathos also hammered a homer for the Stamps.
Chuck Abernathy notched Tyees opening run with a homer in the seventh inning.
Jerry Levinson, although weakening in the late stages, picked up the victory.
Victoria .............. 000 000 141 - 6 13 2
Calgary .............. 520 030 01x - 11 12 1
Drilling, Younie (3), Walker (8) and Martin; Levinson and Bricker.

YAKIMA, Wash. — Lewiston manager Bill Brenner shut out Yakima Bears with four scattered safeties Thursday night to win his 11th Western International League baseball game, 9-0.
The game, billed as a knuckleball duel between Brenner and Yakima's Danny Rios, drew 2,762 spectators—second largest crowd of the season. But Rios didn't have it and was shelled from the mound after - allowing five runs in the second inning.
Two errors in the third inning resulted in three runs coming in on a bunt—including the man who laid down the bunt. Glen Tuckett bunted with two men on. Elmer Clow fielded it at third but his toss to first was wild and Bob Williams and Art Wilson scored on that error. Tuckett kept on running and Walt Novick, catcher-manager for Yakima, threw wild to third, letting Tuckett come home.
Lewiston ....... 053 001 000—9 11 0
Yakima ......... 000 000 000-0 4 2
Brenner and Cameron; Rios, Flinn, (2) Young (7) and Novick, Weatherwax (8).

WENATCHEE - Tri-City edged Wenatchee, 7-6, in a Western International League baseball game Thursday before the largest crowd of the season. The 3,200 fans paid their way into the game by donating whatever admission price they wished.
The Braves counted four times in the eighth as Wenatchee starter Keith Bowman ran into control trouble and walked two men and hit two others. Tri-City had only one base hit in the rally.
Wenatchee came back with four runs in the ninth before reliefer Jess Dobernic could put out the fire and save the game for Tri-City.
Tri-City ....... 000 210 040—7 11 0
Wenatchee ... 010 010 004—6 9 2
Robertson, Dobernic (8) and Pesut; Bowman, Beamon (8), De Carolis (9) and Bartolomei.

SPOKANE — The new Western International League pacesetters, the Salem Senators, chalked up their ninth win in a row Thursday night as they downed Spokane 7-5 for a clean sweep of their four-game series.
Joe Nicholas pitched six-hit ball to take credit for the win.
A three-run homer by Connie Perez in the seventh inning salted away the game for the Senators.
Bill Franks pitched no-hit ball for the first three innings for Spokane, then broke down during the next four to give up ten hits before he was relieved by John Cordell in the seventh.
Spokane opened the scoring the second with two runs tripled in by Carl Bush. The Indians went scoreless then for the next four innings until Will Hafey, hitting his second home-run in as many nights, knocked in two runs in the seventh.
Les Witherspoon also homered for Salem in the sixth.
Salem ......... 000 211 300— 7 11 1
Spokane ..... 020 000 210— 5 6 2
Nicholas and Nelson; Franks, Cordell (7), New (9) and Sheets.

Vancouver at Edmonton, postponed, rain.

today’s fanfare
No Spawning Season For the Tyees
By Eric Whitehead
[Vancouver Province, June 26, 1953]
The Tyee is a species of fish that habitates the waters of the B.C. coast. It is also a species of ballplayer that habitates the gloomy reaches of Victoria’s rickety old Athletic Park.
The former species is a permanent fixture. The latter, according to current writings on the prevailing West wind, is well nigh extinct.
Within a matter of weeks, months at most, the men of Garriot will, if you’ll kindly pardon the expression, Cece to exist. At least as paid ambassadors of Western Canada’s farthest flung professional baseball citadel.
Despite the odd optimistic blurb to the contrary, Victoria’s imported Yankee tradesmen are right now wishing that they had never followed the birds to Victoria. Victoria scribes on the inside of the woeful picture will tell you that the Tyees are not only living day to day but from meal to meal.
The recent $25,000 windfall received as an out-and-out gift from what must be described as an “eccentric” Englishman has merely delayed the inevitable.
The Trend to the Exits
It is no secret that the club, among other things, still owes the bill for the spring-training stint in California.
It is no secret that the club was saved from folding just a few weeks ago by the players’ decision to go on part salary through the previous month. If the Englishman hadn’t kicked through with the $25,000, the Tyees would have been totally unable to make their current prairie road trip.
The last drop of financial aid has been wrung from Victoria’s Joe Phan by repeated booster drives, and the simple question now is; where to go from here? With the obvious answer.
Victoria is losing a lot of money. This is not news because probably so is every club in the Western International League with the doubtful exception of the Tri-City Braves. Victoria, for instance, is probably not losing as much money as is Vancouver, a club that is in no danger of folding.
Who’s Who on First
The difference here is that the Victoria organization is a privately-owned venture, whereas the Capilano Baseball Club is merely an extra keg in Emil Sick’s thriving beer-barrel dynasty.
What is even worse for Victoria is the fact that there seems no hope for a resurgence of the fans’ interest in local pro ball.
Columnist Jim Tang of that city was telling us just the other day of the public apathy that is completely scuttling the Tyees’ chances, if any, of survival.
Says he: “Nobody around here asks about the Tyees. Lots of people talk baseball—but only major league baseball. A fan will wander into our office raving about the play Ed Mathews pulled at third during today’s broadcast or how what a sweet swinger is this Mantle, and nobody here’s ever seen the guy. But this same fan can’t tell you whether Tyees’ first-baseman Chuck Abernathy has one or two heads, and what’s more he doesn’t care.
Without wishing to dip too deep into the current tub of gloom, somewhat the same shadow of apathy is creeping over several other WIL bailiwicks. Come autumn, league president Bob Brown and his ten club-owners will be taking pensive, if not outright grim, stock of their assets.
We hope it won’t evolve into the tragic-comedy of the famous Ten Little Indian Boys. But if the greedy, near-sighted big-league moguls who are ruining minor league baseball with medieval methods of administration don’t give the entire structure of baseball a swift and drastic shakeup, this will happen eventually. In our league and elsewhere.

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