W L Pct GB
Vancouver .... 33 19 .635 —
Yakima ....... 32 24 .571 3
Edmonton ..... 23 23 .500 7
Wenatchee .... 28 29 .491 7½
Lewiston ..... 27 28 .491 7½
Salem ........ 27 30 .474 8½
Victoria ..... 23 29 .442 10½
Tri-City ..... 24 32 .429 10½
YAKIMA [Vancouver Province, June 23]—This city’s Bears, the only real threat to Vancouver’s chances of winning the Western International League’s first half title now that Spokane Indians have folded, apparently aren’t ready to concede.
Down 2-0 Tuesday to the powerhouse Caps, who have led the league all season, the Bears battled back to tie the score at 2-2 in the sixth and finally won this first game of an important three-game stand in 10 innings, 3-2.
TED DID IT
The victory moved Lou Stringer’s squad to within three games of the front-running Vancouver team, and they get two more cracks at the Caps’ lead, tonight and Thursday. On Friday, contrary to an erroneous report out of Tacoma Tuesday, the Caps return home to play Lewiston. George Nicholas and Ted Edmunds, both looking for their 10th wins, hooked up in a pitchers’ battle here last night. Edmunds allowed just five hits, Nicholas nine, three of those in the Bears’ 10th, or winning, inning.
The three big blows came off the bats of Dick Briskey, Herman Lewis and Len Noren as Nicholas suffered his fifth loss.
Briskey and Noren had a hand in Yakima’s game-tying two runs in the sixth, too. Their singles, with another by John Albini following an error by Bob Wellman, did the damage.
The Caps scored first on singles by Danny Holden, K. Chorlton and Dick Greco in the third inning.
[Holden and Chorlton had two hits a piece, Greco had one. Noren had three of Yakima’s hits and Briskey two. There were no extra-base blows in the game. 2,037 took in the opener]
Vancouver ...... 002 000 000 0—2 5 1
Yakima ........... 002 000 000 1—3 9 2
Nicholas and Duretto; Edmunds and Summers.
SALEM, June 22—“Save Your Senators Night,” set up by the Salem management to determine whether the fans want to keep their club in the Western International Baseball League, was a whopping success in the stands and on the playing field Tuesday night.
Mindful that Spokane and Calgary were forced, by poor attendance, to drop out of the league this week, the Salem front office asked the fans to demonstrate by their turnout Tuesday night whether they want professional baseball to continue in Oregon’s capital city.
The apparent answer was “yes.” The management counted 4,142 puying customers in the stands, the largest crowd of the season.
On the field, the Senators responded with a 7-5 come-from-behind victory over Tri-City.
Trailing 3-1 in the fourth inning, the Senators tied the game with Harry Warner’s two-run homer, added a single run in the sixth, two in the sixth and an insurance tally in the seventh. Tri-City opened the scoring with two first inning runs and singles by Terry Carroll, Vic Buccola and Edo Vanni. Dick Watson’s single scored Len Tran, who had tripled, in the second, and the Braves closed their scoring with two runs in the sixth on hits by Carroll, Buccola and Vanni.
Tri-City .... 210 002 000—5 12 3
Salem ...... 100 212 10x—7 12 0
Clough, Lemieux (7) and Warren; Rayle, Roenspie (2) and Ogden.
LEWISTON, June 22—Bob Drilling came up with one of his best pitching jobs and Lewiston Broncs came up with three unearned runs last night as Victoria Tyees squared their WIL series at 1-1 in the Idaho city.
Held in check by John Marshall for the first seven innings, the Tyees scored twice in the eighth inning on two singles, two bases on balls and an important error to win it. They made it certain with two more runs in the ninth on a single a base on balls and a two-base muff.
Up until the eighth, Marshall had held the Tyees to three hits, one of them a home run by Neil Sheridan which tied the score in the fourth inning.
Lewiston scored in the first inning and went ahead in the seventh when manager Larry Barton hit a home run. Both Drilling, who won his seventh game, and Marshall gave up six hits.
Result moved the Tyees up a notch in the standings.
The two clubs continue their series Wednesday and wind it up Thursday.
Victoria ....... 000 100 022—5 6 1
Lewiston ..... 100 000 100—2 6 3
Drilling and Lundberg; Marshall and Cameron.
WENATCHEE, June 22 — Edmonton jumped on three Wenatchee pitchers for 15 hits Tuesday night as the Eskimos subdued the Chiefs 16-3 in the Western International League series-opener.
The Eskimos scored five runs in the third off starter Larry Richardson and seven more in the sixth off Jack Thompson, who relieved Richardson.
Ray McNulty allowed eight hits in going the distance for Edmonton. The Eskimos
were helped by five Wenatchee errors.
Edmonton ...... 205 117 000—16 13 0
Wenatchee .... 100 011 00x— 3 8 5
McNulty and Self; Richardson, Thompson 93), Oubre (6) and Helmuth.
WIL STATS
(Through games of June 22)
BATTING
G AB H HR RBI Pct
Williams, Van ...... 49 195 79 7 28 .405
Wellman, Van ....... 44 158 61 9 41 .386
Storey, Salem ...... 43 150 56 4 27 .373
Taylor, Calgary .... 40 156 58 10 27 .372
Tran, Tri-City ..... 53 195 69 3 38 .354
Unfried, Wen ....... 56 249 74 12 61 .350
Warner, Salem ...... 45 153 53 7 29 .346
Buccola, TC ........ 56 203 70 0 17 .345
Carroll, TC ........ 55 219 75 0 28 .342
T. Perez, Vic ...... 52 211 72 8 40 .341
Skurski, Edm ....... 36 126 43 5 24 .341
Hafey, Spo ......... 54 199 67 9 54 .337
PITCHING
G IP SO W L Pct
Anderson, Spo ...... 12 106 42 10 1 .909
Edmunds, Yak ....... 11 89 59 9 1 .900
Giovannoni, Spo .... 14 51 11 5 1 .833
Briggs, Salem ...... 17 110 100 9 3 .750
Robertson, TC ...... 15 94 41 7 3 .700
Marshall, Lew ...... 13 88 56 7 3 .700
Roberts, Van ....... 12 83 30 7 3 .700
Nicholas, Van ...... 13 97 26 9 4 .692
Brenner, Van ....... 17 131 48 8 4 .667
Johnson, Sal ....... 13 67 37 4 2 .667
Wenatchee Seeks Foe
WENATCHEE, June 22—The Wenatchee baseball team of the Western International League is scouting around for a possible semi-pro opponent to fill in a weekend series in event Victoria declines to play here.
The Victoria nine was scheduled hurriedly to play at Wenatchee Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Calgary’s team disbanded and dropped from the WIL.
A Wenatchee club spokesman said Victoria officials indicated they were unwilling to travel to Wenatchee unless they could get 60 per cent of the gate receipts for making the fill-in trip.
Wenatchee officials said they would prefer meeting a top-flight semi-pro club rather than meet the 60 per cent demand or travel to Victoria.
Lundgren to Return to Class B
NOGALES, June 23—Tucson Cowboys Manager Don Jamieson has announced that his club has opened negotiations with Seattle of the Pacific Coast league to buy Chuck Lundgren.
Lundgren is the second baseman who hit .318 for the Pokes last year and hit 34 home runs for the Arizona-Texas League club.
This season Lundgren has been playing outfield for Calgary in the Western International loop. Calgary recently folded and Jameson is trying to take advantage of the situation. Lundgren was sold to Seattle at the end of last season.
IT BEATS ME
By Jim Tang
[Victoria Colonist, June 23, 1954]
Beset by almost every other kind of trouble this season, the WIL now finds itself beset by a schedule-maker who seems to be obsessed with the idea of cramming as many games as possible into the meaningless first half.
Asked to redraw the schedule after Calgary and Spokane had dropped from the league, Salem-manager Hugh Luby has come up with something that has the Tyees and Capilanos playing four doubleheaders and a single game in five days between July 1 and 5. And the Tyees move from Victoria to Tri-City and the Caps from Vancouver to Salem in the middle of it.
That’s something the major leagues wouldn’t try and their clubs have 25-player rosters and 10 and 11-man pitching staffs—and don’t have to ride buses. Fans who take in the last three or four of those games are not likely to see much in the way of baseball.
To top that off the league has apparently decided not to close out the first half on June 30 but to continue it through July 5. This is a prime example of the type of reasoning which has caused a lot of its woes.
At least six of the remaining eight clubs are out of contention for the first-half championship, practically a Vancouver cinch. With that in mind, plus the publicity of recent weeks, it would see that the smart thing to do would be to start a new race as soon as possible. Instead, as many games as possible have been crammed into the last days of the first half, which include July 1 and 4, Canadian and American national holidays, an excellent time to start over.
The excuse? Starting the second half on July 1 doesn’t allow enough time to draw up a “decent” schedule. Well, picking the games out of a hat would result in something just as good as the WIL used in the first half, particularly the last few days of the first half.
* * *
Pitchers Joe Orrell and Ernie Stites and outfielder Gus Stathos of the defunct Calgary Stampeders have offered their services, for a set sum, of course, to the Tyees. No action has been taken although Orrell, a former major leaguer with the Detroit Tigers, gave Victoria business-manager Reg Patterson quite a sales talk. He said he could win 15 games in the second half and beat Vancouver every time he got the chance, disregarding a 4-6 first half and a 5.96 earned-run average. That’s no better, if not any worse, than the Tyees’ pitching average.
Sports Notes
BY GIL GILMORE
[Tri-City Herald, June 23, 1954]
WIL May Find Solution
If the Western International league can hang in there as an eight-team circuit for the rest of this season, it may be that some of its problems will solve themselves by the time next season rolls around.
But when the brass meets this winter to discuss the problems, it would be a good time to really get down and keep an eye to the future and thereby avoid the situation as it existed this year.
The real solution is still this. A six-team U.S. league consisting of Lewiston, Tri-City, Salem, Wenatchee, Yakima and Spokane. The league classification isn’t important but enforceable salary limits are.
Two things are necessary to bring this about. First will be the return of Spokane to the fold. It’ll be back. Fact is, considerable sentiment was voiced at the recent league meeting that it would be a good idea for the Indians to fold this year so the town could get organized to field a team the next year — without Roy Hotchkiss.
* * *
Canadians May Break
The other problem is parting with the Canadian teams. This may be easier than you think. In Edmonton, sports writers there are thundering on the theme of having an
All-Canadian league and cite several promising possibilities.
As Jim Brooke of the Edmonton Journal put it:
“No matter how hard they try, a lot of pretty fair Edmonton sports fans just couldn’t care less how badly the Eskimoes beat Lewiston. Tri-City or Wenatchee. The average Edmonton fan hasn’t got anything against Lewiston, Tri-City or Wenatchee.
“But let a Winnipeg baseball team come to town to do battle with the Eskimoes and the people will turn out to boo the dastardly invaders with deep sincerity.”
Now that prairie baseball has been started, it may be that “Uncle Jawn Ducey,” the Edmonton G. M., has things on a firm enough footing to push a league throughout Western Canada. If, he has, it will solve the other big problem for the WIL.
By Jim Tang
[Victoria Colonist, June 23, 1954]
Beset by almost every other kind of trouble this season, the WIL now finds itself beset by a schedule-maker who seems to be obsessed with the idea of cramming as many games as possible into the meaningless first half.
Asked to redraw the schedule after Calgary and Spokane had dropped from the league, Salem-manager Hugh Luby has come up with something that has the Tyees and Capilanos playing four doubleheaders and a single game in five days between July 1 and 5. And the Tyees move from Victoria to Tri-City and the Caps from Vancouver to Salem in the middle of it.
That’s something the major leagues wouldn’t try and their clubs have 25-player rosters and 10 and 11-man pitching staffs—and don’t have to ride buses. Fans who take in the last three or four of those games are not likely to see much in the way of baseball.
To top that off the league has apparently decided not to close out the first half on June 30 but to continue it through July 5. This is a prime example of the type of reasoning which has caused a lot of its woes.
At least six of the remaining eight clubs are out of contention for the first-half championship, practically a Vancouver cinch. With that in mind, plus the publicity of recent weeks, it would see that the smart thing to do would be to start a new race as soon as possible. Instead, as many games as possible have been crammed into the last days of the first half, which include July 1 and 4, Canadian and American national holidays, an excellent time to start over.
The excuse? Starting the second half on July 1 doesn’t allow enough time to draw up a “decent” schedule. Well, picking the games out of a hat would result in something just as good as the WIL used in the first half, particularly the last few days of the first half.
* * *
Pitchers Joe Orrell and Ernie Stites and outfielder Gus Stathos of the defunct Calgary Stampeders have offered their services, for a set sum, of course, to the Tyees. No action has been taken although Orrell, a former major leaguer with the Detroit Tigers, gave Victoria business-manager Reg Patterson quite a sales talk. He said he could win 15 games in the second half and beat Vancouver every time he got the chance, disregarding a 4-6 first half and a 5.96 earned-run average. That’s no better, if not any worse, than the Tyees’ pitching average.
Sports Notes
BY GIL GILMORE
[Tri-City Herald, June 23, 1954]
WIL May Find Solution
If the Western International league can hang in there as an eight-team circuit for the rest of this season, it may be that some of its problems will solve themselves by the time next season rolls around.
But when the brass meets this winter to discuss the problems, it would be a good time to really get down and keep an eye to the future and thereby avoid the situation as it existed this year.
The real solution is still this. A six-team U.S. league consisting of Lewiston, Tri-City, Salem, Wenatchee, Yakima and Spokane. The league classification isn’t important but enforceable salary limits are.
Two things are necessary to bring this about. First will be the return of Spokane to the fold. It’ll be back. Fact is, considerable sentiment was voiced at the recent league meeting that it would be a good idea for the Indians to fold this year so the town could get organized to field a team the next year — without Roy Hotchkiss.
* * *
Canadians May Break
The other problem is parting with the Canadian teams. This may be easier than you think. In Edmonton, sports writers there are thundering on the theme of having an
All-Canadian league and cite several promising possibilities.
As Jim Brooke of the Edmonton Journal put it:
“No matter how hard they try, a lot of pretty fair Edmonton sports fans just couldn’t care less how badly the Eskimoes beat Lewiston. Tri-City or Wenatchee. The average Edmonton fan hasn’t got anything against Lewiston, Tri-City or Wenatchee.
“But let a Winnipeg baseball team come to town to do battle with the Eskimoes and the people will turn out to boo the dastardly invaders with deep sincerity.”
Now that prairie baseball has been started, it may be that “Uncle Jawn Ducey,” the Edmonton G. M., has things on a firm enough footing to push a league throughout Western Canada. If, he has, it will solve the other big problem for the WIL.
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