W L Pct GB
Vancouver ... 20 11 .645 —
Edmonton .... 14 11 .560 3
Yakima ...... 16 13 .552 3
Victoria .... 16 14 .533 3½
Wenatchee ... 14 15 .483 5
Tri-City .... 15 17 .469 5½
Lewiston .... 14 16 .467 5½
Spokane ..... 14 16 .467 5½
Salem ....... 14 18 .438 6½
Calgary ..... 10 16 .385 7½
VANCOUVER [Clancy Loranger, Province, May 29]—When a baseball team rolls up a total of 20 runs and four players on that club get three hits (or more), it’s generally a team effort, and it’s pretty hard to point at one fellow and say HE stole the show.
But even an old trouper like Joe E. Brown had to admit that not even Shirley Temple at her dimpliest ever stole a scene more convincingly than K Chorlton did last night at Capilano Stadium.
K, who is in the midst of his best year in baseball, turned loose his larceny before the ball game started, when he was supposed to play straight man for old movie comedian Joe E. Chorlton, who’s been convulsing his teammates since spring training, in private, convincingly swiped Joe’s act with a selection of gyrations that have to be seen to be appreciated.
OTHERS TOO
Then, when the Caps got down to the serious business of beating Calgary Stampeders, K was equally effective. The loose limbed outfielder got the locals’ big hit parade of the season going in earnest in the second when he clouted a bases-loaded home run (his sixth) far over the left field wall.
And just to prove it was his night, K added a couple more singles to bat in a total of five runs, and contributed two great running catches as the Caps made it two straight over the unfortunate Stamps.
There were a few other Capilanos who did their part, of course. Dick Greco batted in four runs with a single, triple, and the season’s longest home run (about 380 feet); Arnie Hallgren had four-for-five; Marv Williams had three hits, including a triple; and Bill Franks turned in the best pitching performance of the year in picking up his second win.
BILL MAY TRY
The series winds up today with a game this afternoon at 2:30 and another at 8:15. Manager Bill Brenner was somewhat uncertain of his pitching choices, with George Nicholas, Tom Lovrich and Brenner in the running against Bob Schulte and Bill Stites.
DIAMOND DUST – The Caps got down to the player limit of 17—today’s the deadline—in a unique manner. Brenner announced he’s traded pitcher Tom Del Sarto to Salem for pitcher Jack Hemphill … But the latter lives in Salem and “likely won’t report” … Calgary’s Gene Lillard and catcher sent catcher Don Lundberg to Victoria as he cut down … The Caps make their first prairie trip next week … They fly to Edmonton Monday, and also hit Calgary and Lewiston before returning home June 10 against Wenatchee … Province stars: K Chorlton, the one-man show … Dick Greco, the powerhouse … And Gus Stathos, who went four-for-five for Calgary.
Calgary ........ 020 000 100— 3 10 3
Vancouver .... 051 043 16x—20 18 2
Orrell, Whyte (7) and Luby; Franks and Duretto.
VICTORIA [Jim Tang, Colonist, May 29]—Victoria Tyees got a bad one out of their systems last night as Edmonton Eskimos squared the current four-game series at 1-1 by scoring a 9-6 win at Royal Athletic Park.
TWO GAMES TODAY
Third game will be played this afternoon at 2 and the fourth tonight at 8. Ray McNulty and Ken Kimball have been named by manager Bob Sturgeon to do the pitching for the Eskimos in that order. Victoria manager Don Pries nominated Bill Prior for the evening game but was undecided about his choice for the afternoon game.
Tyees had neither pitching or defense last night and wasted most of their 13 hits as they had starter Charlie LeBrun on the ropes in almost every inning but couldn’t find a knock-out punch. They left 12 runners stranded and hit into three double plays.
Home runs, the 19th and 20th off Victoria pitching in the last nine games, gave the Esks their first three runs but the Tyees scored two in te second and three runs in the fifth to take a 5-3 lead.
HELPING HAND
They gave those runs right back in the sixth, when good defense would have held the Esks scoreless and bad defense helped them get five runs and the ball game. A double-play ball went through at second base for a hit, a chance was missed to get a runner trying to stretch a single into a double (he got it) and a perfect throw from Dain Clay was fumbled at the plate to let another runner score. Before it was all over, starter Bill Bottler was out of the game and Berlyn Hodges finally got the side out.
Shortstop Whitey Thomson and rightfielder Vern Campbell hit Edmonton home runs, while Bill [sic] Brown and Dan Prentice each picked up three hits. Tom Perez, shifted to third base as he traded places with Steve Mesner, and Joe Joshua each had three hits for the losers.
Catcher Don Lundberg, purchased only yesterday from the Calgary Stampeders, broke into the Victoria line-up as a pinch-hitter and drove in a run with a single.
The Tyees have also announced that they have persuaded pitcher Joe Nicholas to join them and the side-arming right-hander, who is driving up from his California home, is expected to be here either today or tomorrow.
Edmonton ..... 021 005 010—9 13 2
Victoria ........ 020 030 100—6 13 2
LeBrun and Prentice; Bottler, Hodges (6), Drilling (8) and Martin.
YAKIMA, May 28—Dick Young's masterful three-hitter gave the Yakima Bears a 9-1 victory over the Spokane Indians in a Western International League game here Friday night.
Spokane .... 000 000 001—1 3 1
Yakima ...... 101 400 03x—9 16 1
Giovannoni, Wisneski (4), Aubertin (9) and Dean: Young and Summers.
WENATCHEE, May 28 — Charley Beamon, optioned this week to Wenatchee from Oakland of the Pacific Coast League, got off to a good start Friday night as he held Lewiston to five hits and the Chiefs won a Western International League baseball game, 5-3.
Lewiston ....... 000 100 002—3 5 2
Wenatchee .... 001 010 30x—5 7 1
Yaylian and Garay; Beamon and Jenney.
SALEM, May 28 — Tri-City broke a 5-5 tie with three runs in the ninth inning Friday and defeated Salem 8-6 in the opening game of a Western International League baseball series here.
Tri-City ..... 301 001 003—8 11 2
Salem ....... 200 010 111—6 10 0
Thomason, Dobernic and Warren; Roenspie, Rayle (7), McFarlane (9) and Ogden, Heisner (9).
BUSY BUNCH
Our Caps Dominate The Book
By CLANCY LORANGER
[Vancouver Province, May 29, 1954]
Want to know why the Capilanos are leading the pack in the Western International League? It’s in the book.
Official figures of the league, released today, show Bill Brenner’s boys leading in no less than 10 individual departments through games of May 23. And if you wish to add the team figures, just to impress your friends, you could mention that the Caps, as a group, are in front in eight other departments.
* * *
Here are the Caps who qualify as the league’s best:
Leading hitter—Bob Wellman, .432; most hits—K Chorlton, 51; home runs—Dick Greco, 10; runs batted in—Ken Richardson, 41; runs—Greco, 31; total bases—Chorlton, 78.
And on the pitching side:
Earned run average—Bill Brenner, 1.75; wins—George Nicholas, Bob Roberts, tie with two others, five; innings pitched—Brenner, 72; won-loss percentage—Roberts, 5-0, 1.000.
* * *
As a team, the Caps of course lead in won-lost, and have these: batting, a fabulous .32; hits, 307 the only club over 300; runs, 205, 30 more than their nearest rivals, Lewiston; total bases, 491, just two short of 100 more than Spokane, their closest rival; home runs, 36, 10 more than Calgary has managed, bandbox park and all; runs batted in, 196; and the least strikeouts of any club, 85.
And if the Caps aren’t the best fielding team in the league, they aren’t the worst, either. There are five teams behind them.
Those standings of course are what they pay off on. There are nine teams behind them there.
Hotchkiss Through As Spokane Head
SPOKANE, May 28—Roy Hotchkiss announced Friday night he is through as owner of the Spokane Indians of the Western International League, and has asked the league to take over the club as of Saturday.
Poor attendance at Spokane ball games and his own poor health were the reasons Hotchkiss gave for bowing out.
“If the league can find someone to operate the club, or someone or group--comes forward with a workable solution, then I will be only too glad to make arrangements to continue operating. But I am through,” he said.
NO SALES
“Whether the Indians return to Ferris Field to play their next home game on June 7 is going to be up to whatever actions the league or citizens of Spokane may take between now and then,” he said.
Hotchkiss, who was laid up with a severe heart attack earlier this season, said “I was ordered, when released from hospital, to stay away from the club.”
“I find that I have endangered not only my health, but my family’s security, with no appreciable improvement in the Indians’ situation,” he added.
In 1947, when the WIL was a class-B league, Spokane set a minor league attendance record for B teams, with 287,185 attending during the season.
Since then attendance has declined steadily and in 1952 when the Indians became a class-A team, it was 104,500. This year the attendance for a single night has only rarely been over 1,000. Sometimes it has been under 200.
Hotchkiss said only 720 of 9000 season ticket books were sold.
Service clubs and other organizations in the city took over the job of selling them, but only 20 percent of the 50-book packets ever were opened by the organizations which agreed to sell them, he said.
Most of the Spokane players are owned by the Philadelphia Phillies of the Natinal League, parent club of the Indians.
SECOND “VICTIM”
Spokane is the second club to fall back on the league because of hard times this year. The league took over the Calgary Stampeders for a week at the start of the season because of a bad financial situation there, and the situation there is still far from stable.
Clown Prince Beasley Returning to Capilanos
By KEITH MATTHEWS
[Vancouver News-Herald, May 29, 1954]
The rejoicing along Ontario Avenue was only natural. Bud Beasley is returning to the Vancouver Capilanos June 15!
For those who aren’t acquainted with the name, Beasley is a left-handed pitcher with a right-hand mentality and screwball personality.
He is, perhaps, the funniest man who ever walked out on a baseball field to do a serious job. He wiggles, cotorts, makes funny faces with his Popeye-like appearance send baseball people home feeling they have just seen the greatest show on earth. Usually, they have.
When Bud pitches, nobody particularly cares if the score is 17-0 or 1-0, or for which side.
When Bud was in the Pacific Coast League several seasons so—first with Sacramento, then Seattle—rival owners demanded they be given two days’ notice whenever the “Clown Prince of Baseball” was to pitch. Once, when Bud was so advertised in San Francisco, 15,000 fans jammed the ‘Frisco ball park, saw their home team lose 12-0 and went home cheering wildly.
Beasley was with Vancouver during the 1950 and 1951 seasons. He never attracted less than 3000 fans on the nights he performed, and in his last season, he won six games and lost one. Yes, he can pitch, too.
When Bud goes through his gyrations on the mound, people naturally feel he is but a clown trying to make fans laugh. That is only part of the reason.
Beasley once explained that when is started in professional baseball, he almost got his ears clouted off.
“I didn’t have a thing and still haven’t,” Beasley explained. “I developed these contortions for the express purpose of keeping the batter off-balance. When I notice he is relaxing at the plate, I throw the ball. Then, he realizes too late that I’ve fooled him, and he pops up. It works wonders.”
A demon on physical fitness, at 38 years of age Bud is still a very capable pitcher. As part of his training routine, he insists on walking too and from the ball park each night. The distance must be two and a half miles, because Beasley walks five miles each day no matter what.
For that reason, Beasley is very careful about selecting his summer accommodation in the city in which he plays baseball. The house, or room, or whatever, must be exactly two and a half miles from the ball park.
Bill Brenner, the Capilanos’ general manager, said he talked to Bud on the phone Friday.
“He’s in Reno teaching school,” Brenner said. “He agreed to join us June 15 and said he was already in good shape. He has been running and throwing with some of his school kids.
More color on the Capilanos? Man, this is the ultimate!
