Sunday 13 July 2008

Wednesday, September 2, 1953

W L Pct. GB
Spokane ..... 42 29 .592 —
Lewiston .... 38 27 .585 1
Salem ....... 36 31 .537 4
Yakima ...... 35 31 .530 4½
Edmonton .... 34 32 .515 5½
Vancouver ... 36 35 .507 6
Calgary ..... 30 35 .462 8
Tri-City .... 30 38 .441 10½
Wenatchee ... 28 37 .431 11
Victoria .... 28 40 .412 12½


SPOKANE—Spokane Indians blanked Wenatchee 9-0 Wednesday night behind the four-hit pitching of Art Worth to regain the lead in the Western International League and take a 2-1 triumph in their series with the Chiefs.
Two home runs by Stan Palys accounted for the Indians' first run in the second inning and their last three tallies in the eighth.
Spokane tagged Wenatchee starter Rich Botelho and Frank DeCarolis, who relieved him in the eighth, for 11 hits and six walks. Worth struck out 11 Chiefs, while walking only five.
Wenatchee threatened only once in the third inning, when an error sent Ross McCormack to first, and Mike McCormick and Harry Bartolomei got on a walk and a hit.
Spokane moves to Lewiston Thursday for a crucial four-game series with the second-place Broncs.
Second baseman Jim Brown, chosen the most valuable Spokane player by the local writers, received numerous gifts during the contest.
Wenatchee ........ 000 000 000—0 4 1
Spokane ............ 010 003 23x—9 11 4
Bothelo, DeCarolis (3) and Bartolomei; Worth and Sheets.

VANCOUVER [Clancy Loranger, Province, Sept. 3]—It’s been a long wait between visits, but for Vancouver fans at least, Lewiston Broncs’ stay here was one of the most interesting and enjoyable of the season.
Bill Brenner and his crew, who hadn’t been here since April, would probably just as soon have skipped this trip. Fighting for the pennant, the Broncs ran into a Capilano team that was bouncing back after a sad losing streak, and after three losses in four tries, will have to win their flag the hard way, if they win it.
But, even in the losing, the Broncs gave the folks something to holler about, or at least at. In splitting Wednesday night’s doubleheader, Brenner and Co. kept the paying customers off their hands all the way.
10TH FOR PETE
Showing the way in the color department was John Marshall, the extroverted pitcher who once toiled, not too successfully, for Vancouver. John has learned considerable about pitching since those days, and last night in the nightcap was trying for his twenty-second victory of the season.
He didn’t make it, as he got a little mad, and when he gets mad he tries to throw the ball past the hitters. In three separate innings, he wasn’t too successful in that regard, the Caps putting together three hits in the fourth, fifth and seventh frames to pile up enough runs for Pete Hernandez, who had pretty good stuff but was wild. Hernandez recorded his sixteenth win.
BRENNER IN CHARGE
Bill Brenner was the story in the first game, which saw the Broncs pick up their only win here. Bill, who scored victory number 20, at one stage retired 14 straight as he allowed just five hits.
And just to make sure that things wouldn’t get dull, his pitching opposition was Dick Barrett, once the scourge of the Coast League. Dick, at 46, is a trifle fat, but he’s still somewhat cute, and he was far from disgraced by the loss.
Of the seven hits he allowed before giving way for a pinch hitter in the sixth, four were of the infield variety, and Dick gave a pretty good lesson in what to do when you’re in trouble. [He also allowed four walks before being replaced by Carl Gunnarson.]
Tonight the Caps go to Victoria, where they play four games in their second-last series of the year. The Caps finish at home, with doubleheaders on Monday (Labor Day) and Tuesday against the Wenatchee Chiefs.
PROVINCE STARS – Bill Brenner, who’s still making pitching look like he invented it … K Chorlton, who does the same with his fielding in the middle garden and also tossed in a tremendous triple in the nightcap … And little Jack Bukowatz, who contributed three hits for the second straight night.
First Game
Lewiston .............. 100 002 1—4 6 0
Vancouver ........... 000 001 0—1 5 1
Brenner and Garay; Barrett, Gunnarson (7) and Duretto.
Second Game
Lewiston .............. 003 000 020—5 7 2
Vancouver ........... 000 221 10x—6 10 1
Marshall, Brenner (8) and Garay; Hernandez and Duretto.

EDMONTON — Home runs by Whitey Thomson and Clint Weaver Wednesday night gave Edmonton Eskimos a clean sweep of their three-game Western International baseball League series with the Salem Senators as they edged Salem 8-7.
Paid attendance was 587.
Thomson broke a 6-6 tie with two out in the eighth inning by slamming one over the wall for two runs. Salem manager Hugh Luby protested it went foul.
Weaver hit a four-run homer in the third inning for Edmonton after Salem had gone ahead 6-0.
After going the route in all of his previous 22 victories, John Conant required help from Ray McNulty to win the game after the Senators had scored once. Conant lasted eight and two-thirds innings in hid duel with Joe Nicholas, another 22-game winner, before McNulty came in to fan Jerry Ballard for the final out. Conant is now 23-12.
Salem ............. 015 000 001—7 14 0
Edmonton ....... 004 200 02x—8 6 1
Borst, Nicholas (4) and Nelson; Conant, McNulty (9) and Morgan.

CALGARY — Tri-City Braves swept their Western International Baseball League doubleheader with Calgary Stampeders Wednesday, winning 5-2 and 8-6.
First Game
Tri-City ......... 023 000 0—5 6 2
Calgary ......... 000 200 0—2 5 3
Robertson and Pesut; Levinson and Bricker.
Second Game
Tri-City ......... 303 020 000—8 11 1
Calgary ......... 301 200 000—6 16 1
Bloom, Dobernic (9) and Warren; Stites and Bricker.

VICTORIA [Colonist, Sept. 3]—Yakima Bears, sparked by the three-hit pitching of Ted Edmunds, ended this season’s hostilities against Victoria by scoring a 9-1 victory over the Tyees at Royal Athletic Park Wednesday night.
Edmunds exhibited little of the wildness that has often curtailed his effectiveness this season as he earned the victory that gave him a record of seven wins and six losses and which gave Yakima its 13th victory in 17 meetings with the Tyees this season. The Yakima right-hander walked three batters, hit one and set 11 down on strikes.
PRIOR BEATEN
Bill Prior suffered his fourth defeat at the hands of the Bears and his 15th of the season as he toiled eight innings for the Tyees. Although victim of errors that led to four unearned tallies, Prior was hit hard and gave up 13 hits and six runs before going out for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Bob Wellman, hitless in eight previous trips to the plate, smashed his 26th home run in the seventh inning for the first earned run off Prior, giving the winners a 4-0 lead. Three hits and an error accounted for two more runs in the eighth and Zeb Walker yielded four safeties and three runs while pitching the ninth.
Bob Moniz, with two doubles, and Dwane Helbig, with a single, connected for the only hits off Edmunds. Moniz barely missed a home run with a blow off the fence in the third but he scored the lone Victoria run after doubling to open the eighth.
“CRUCIAL” SERIES
The Tyees, opening their final home series of the season with a single game against Vancouver Capilanos at Athletic Park tonight, will be seeking to extend their skein of 28 scoreless innings over their Mainland rivals, while club officials will be hoping for at leat 2,000 fans for the first of four “payroll” games.
In a statement on Tuesday, Tyee president Arthur Cox stated that 2,000 admission must be sold for each of the four games with Vancouver in order that the Victoria cub could meet payroll commitments and to ensure WIL baseball here next season.
Yakima ............ 012 000 123—9 17 0
Victoria ........... 000 000 010—1 3 4
Edmunds and Albini; Prior, Walker (9) and Harford.

Brown Calls League Meeting In An Attempt to Solve Woes
By CLANCY LORANGER
[Vancouver Province, Sept. 3, 1953]
With cries for financial help rising all around him, WIL president Bob Brown Wednesday called an early meeting to discuss the league’s mounting worries and woes.
Club officials will gather Sept. 26 in Yakima to decide whether the WIL in 1953 [sic] will be a 10-team loop, as at present, an eight (which seems more likely), or something else entirely.
At least one club official, President Paul Thomas of Wenatchee, has suggested an entirely new set up. He was quoted yesterday as favoring a plan that would have Wenatchee, Yakima, Tri-City and Lewiston withdraw from the Class A WIL and form a Class C league, possibly with Walla Walla and Tacoma.
TACOMA NEXT?
Vancouver, Victoria, Spokane, Edmonton and Calgary, he suggested, could continue in Class A, picking up perhaps Great Falls or Billings, Montana.
Bob Brown doesn’t give this plan much chance of success. Tri-City and Lewiston have no great financial troubles, he says, and Salem already has money ready for next year’s operation.
Yakima, Spokane, Victoria and Vancouver have always been good franchises, and Edmonton has drawn well in its first year. And well-backed interests in Tacoma want to play Class A ball, not Class C, he says.
CALGARY SHAKY
Calgary is the league’s one franchise that’s really shaky. Brown is convinced the teams will refuse to play in Calgary’s bandbox ball park, and he can’t see the Stampeders back in the circuit unless they spend some money.
Fred Mercy at Yakima wants to get out, and so does Roy Hotchkiss at Spokane. But that doesn’t mean baseball’s finished there. But [unreadable few words].
One thing is certain: the Sept. 26 meeting won’t be dull.

IT BEATS ME
By Jim Tang
[Victoria Colonist, Sept. 3, 1953]
Around the WIL is the rumor that Victoria Tyees either have had the promise of financial aid or have found a buyer for next year. Don (Edmonton Journal) Fleming ran into the rumor in Salem and reported that “Victoria’s plight appears to have lessened with the news that a wealthy man and his associates have been scouting the situation with the intention of investing heavily.”
Asked about Fleming’s quote, business-manager Reg Patterson, busy trying to scrape together enough money to meet the Tyees’ final 1953 payroll, only scoffed. “Wish it was true,” was the essence of his response as he denied any knowledge of possible sale or financial help.
Despite the denial, however, there have been recent indications that something is in the wind as regards the Tyees. How else can one account for the rather incompatible statements attributed to club officials Tuesday?
First of all, Patterson was quoted Tuesday afternoon as stating “We’ll be back in ’54—if there is a league.” On another page in the same publication, club-president Arthur Cox was reported as stating it would be “impossible” to keep baseball here unless the club averaged 2,000 fans a game for its remaining home games.
Patterson denied making a statement that the Tyees would definitely be back but the second statement was borne out by a press release over the signature of Cox which said in part “…and it is necessary to have 2,000 fans at each game to meet this payroll. If we are to keep baseball next season, it is necessary that all salaries be paid.”
Tuesday night the Tyees drew only about 300 fans instead of the 2,000 said necessary. Following the game, Cox is reported as saying “We intend to start working on next year’s club immediately following the conclusion of the season.”
The apparent assurance could hardly have come from the first-night response to pleas for 2,000 fans a game. I think I can be excused for wondering just what is up.
Random Harvest
John Ducey, business-manager of the Edmonton Eskimos of the WIL, has made it clear that his club will oppose the continuation of Calgary Stampeders in the league unless Calgary is able to get a new park or suitably renovate what has passed for a park this season … Ducey has also plumped for Lethbridge as a WIL possibility in case another city is needed. And there are recurring rumors that Tacoma will seek to re-enter the league and that Eugene, Oregon, is still anxious to get a franchise.

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