Tuesday 18 March 2008

Wednesday, July 8, 1953

W L Pct. GB
Spokane ..... 7 2 .778 —
Salem ....... 6 2 .750 ½
Calgary ..... 5 3 .625 1½
Yakima ...... 5 4 .556 2
Vancouver ... 4 4 .500 2½
Tri-City .... 4 4 .500 2½
Lewiston .... 3 4 .429 3
Edmonton .... 3 5 .375 3½
Wenatchee ... 2 5 .286 4
Victoria .... 1 7 .125 5½

VANCOUVER — Edmonton Eskimos walloped Vancouver Capilanos 11-2 in a Western International League game Wednesday night as Clint Weaver slammed a bases-loaded home run.
Weaver's blow came in the fourth inning after Dale Thomason had relieved Lonnie Myers on the mound for the Caps with the sacks jammed. It came on a knuckleball that Thomason has been experimenting with.
Edmonton pushed across three runs in the second inning on a combination of three Capilano errors and a single. The Eskimos added another run in the third and sewed it up with five in the fourth.
After the game, the Caps announced that utility infielder Bob Duretto, who hit .286 in the 1952 season, had been induced to leave his job pumping gas in Los Angeles to re-join the team.
- - -
VANCOUVER [Keith Matthews, News-Herald, July 9]—It would be highly unfair to say that the Capilanos “smelled” Wednesday in their 11-3 losing effort to the Edmonton Eskimos. Yet the adjective does deserve explanation.
It seems that sometime Wednesday afternoon, the Park Board sent its men out to fertilize the newly tilled area on the east side of Little Mountain. By a strange coincidence, the odors drifted down into the stadium around the seventh inning, when the score favored the Eskimos 9-2 and made some 1200 observers suspicious.
STRANGE COINCIDENCE
However, it wasn’t the Caps, merely the strangest of coincidences.
Mind, most everyone asked of their friend after it was over, “was this game necessary.”
Vancouver came up with the gosh-awful shakes in this one, committing both mental and physical bobbles as they completely victimized their own pitcher, Lonnie Myers. Lonnie went out in the fourth inning with the score 5-1, with the bases loaded on walks and with a nightmare behind him. His defence had erred three times, Chuck Davis showing a particular adaption in this category.
UNTIMELY SMELL
Then, as Harvey Storey hustled Dale Thomason into the breach, Clint Weaver whammed a bases-loaded homer over the right field wall and it was a 9-1 ball game. Sometime shortly after that fertilizer went to work. It was untimely of the Parks Board.
DIAMOND DUST – Same teams wind up the series tonight at 8:30 from the starting pitching chores, baseball should get back to normal … It will be Pete Hernandez (9-3) for Vancouver and Pat Utley for the Esks … Calgary comes in for a 7 o’clock doubleheader Friday night … Frank Mascaro hit his fifth homer of the year far over the left field wall in the eighth … The Moose is the team’s leading slugger now.
Edmonton ...... 031 500 002—11 11 0
Vancouver ..... 100 100 010— 3 7 4
Widner and Morgan; Myers, Thomason (5) and Leavitt.

VICTORIA — Bill Prior pitched Victoria Tyees to their first victory of the second half of the Western International League schedule Wednesday night, as the Tyees defeated Calgary Stampeders 8-6.
The win snapped Victoria's 10-game losing streak.
Although hit 12 times, Prior was in real trouble in only two innings after Calgary manager Gene Lillard smashed a two-run homer in the third frame. It was Prior's eighth win against six losses.
Victoria pounded out 16 hits off southpaw Bill Francis who went all the way for Calgary and took his fourth defeat against two victories.
Prior, who was honored with a special night, was given a 6-4 lead as the Tyees pounded five single for four runs in the fifth inning.
They added two more in the seventh while Calgary could only manage a single tally in the eighth.
Don Prince, with four hits in as many trips, led the Victoria attack, while Bob Moniz, Granny Gladstone and Dwane Helbig each picked up three safeties for Victoria.
First baseman Bob Bricker pounded out three hits and batted in three runs for the Stampeders.
Calgary ........ 030 101 010—6 12 2
Victoria ........ 200 040 20x—8 16 0
Francis and Lillard; Prior and Martin.

KENNEWICK—Salem's Senators snapped a two-game Western International League losing streak Wednesday night by handing the Tri-City Braves a 9-4 defeat at Kennewick.
Connie Perez led the Senators' 11-hit attack against two Tri-City pitchers with two triples that drove in three runs.
Salem ........ 000 222 030—9 11 0
Tri-City .... 000 020 020—4 11 2
Hemphill and Nelson; Snyder, Bloom (8) and Pesut.

SPOKANE — story unavailable
First Game
Yakima ...... 001 010 1—2 6 0
Spokane .... 400 020 x—6 11 1
Rios and Novick; New and Ogle.
Second Game
Yakima ...... 000 000 101—2 9 0
Spokane .... 000 002 003—5 8 1
Del Sarto and Albini; Franks and Sheets.

Wenatchee ...... 701 000 200—10 11 1
Lewiston ......... 201 002 402—11 10 1
Bowman, DeCarlos (7), Botelho (9) and Bartolomei; Butler, Ruddell (1), Kime (7) and Cameron.

Padres Recall Smith
SALEM, Ore., July 8— Milt Smith, Salem third baseman who led the Western International League in hitting with .395, was recalled today by San Diego of the Pacific Coast League.

Cal League Purchases WIL pitcher
MODESTO, July 8—The Modesto Reds of the California league announced the aquistion of pitcher Jack Thompson. He is expected to join the club tonight.
Thompson was purchased from Yakima of the Class A Western International League, where he won 15 games and lost 16 last season. He has a 4 and 5 record to date this year. He is 6 feet, 5 inches tall.

today’s fanfare
What Made Sammy Run

By Eric Whitehead
[Vancouver Province, July 9, 1953]
Late flash from our pro baseball bailiwick: Sam Hairston, just like Lassie, may come home after all.
You may recall that one of the tragedies of springtime in the Capilanos’ baseball camp was the loss of Negro backstop Sam Hairston to Colorado Springs of the Western League. Sam was big, happy-go-lucky cuss with a likewise bludgeon who was figured for the role of people’s choice in this year’s lineup.
A technicality in the form of a prior call on Sam’s services wrecked that plan, but G.M. Dewey Soriano has never quite given up the vision of Hairston behind the plate at Cap Stadium. As recently as a week or two he tried to talk Colorado Springs into switching the big boy onto a northbound train, but no dice.
But Dewey is a stubborn cuss. If he can’t get Sam one way, he’ll get him another.
Singing the Iffing Song
And before we get too deep into the perils of misrepresentation we’d better explain.
It seems that the Salem Senators, winners of the first-half of the WIL schedule, are contemplating a like performance in the second half. And just to wrap up the elegant season, Senators’ president Bruce Williams figures he should offer his fans a post-schedule challenge series against the pennant winner of the neighboring Class A Western League. Williams has forthwith started preliminaries with the two leading clubs (Colorado Springs and Denver), of the Western League for such a series. The matter has also been brought to the attention of WIL President Bob Brown.
Enter Dewey Soriano.
This challenge series idea between the winners of these Class A circuits is a pet mania with the local boss, who feels that such a series would inject a nice shot of color into the local baseball scene.
To which we add a fervent amen.
So right now cooking also is a tentative proposal for just such a post-schedule inter-league series IF the Caps win the second half of the schedule, and IF they win the subsequent playoffs.
If, also, the whole excellent idea is sanctioned. In the meanwhile, it remains that, an excellent idea.
But, as we were saying, Hairston, like Lassie, may come home at last. But with Colorado Springs. Which, alack, ain’t the way it was planned.

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