Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Caps Win First Game at Capilano Stadium

Sinovic, McGuire Shine As Snyder Wins No. 12
Salem 3 Vancouver 10
By ERWIN SWANGARD [Vancouver Sun]
When general manager Bob Brown and manager Bill Schuster chose their outfielders for the 1951 season they put the emphasis on speed, obviously with an eye on the wide open spaces of the new Little Mountain stadium.
And because of that speedy outfield, particularly Bob McGuire in left, and Dick Sinovic in centre, Cap pitchers will have much easier sailing than they had in the old Athletic Park.
Lanky Bob Snyder, Capilanos' leading pitcher, was the first to experience the benefit of much space in the park's outfield and much speed by the outfielders as he coasted to his twelfth Western International Baseball League victory of the season Friday night.
Long Salem drives, which would have been homers, triples or doubles in the old park became mere routine flies as Messrs. McGuire and Sinovic galloped joyfully about the outer gardens.
CAPS WERE HITTING
Meanwhile, Snyder's mates pummelled a couple of Salem pitchers, including ex-New York Yankee Bill Bevens, and went wild around the bases as the Senators entered into the spirit of opening night celebrations with an exhibition of carnival in the seventh inning.
Caps wasted little time in showing the nearly 8000 customers and Salem which team was in charge.
They teed off for one run in the second and three in the third inning. After that Snyder went along smoothly and easily, even if he did give up a couple of runs in the sixth and another in the ninth.
About the seventh inning carnival, in case you haven't heard because just about every baseball fan in town was there anyway, Chuck Abernathy was on second and Charlie Mead on first with two out when Reno Cheso slashed a hard grounder through Curt Schmidt at second base.
GREAT EXHIBITION
All three Caps ran like blazes. The Salem Senators tossed the ball around with abandon to catch the runners. When the dust had cleared away Caps scored three runs and Senators had picked up two errors.
Today, Caps and Salem were finishing their three-game series with Sandy Robertson scheduled to pitch in the afternoon and George Nicholas in the evening.

Caps Wallop Salem 10-2 to Top off Big Event
Bob Snyder Gets 12th Win Before 7500 in New Park
By KEITH MATTHEWS [Vancouver News Herald]
Capilanos 10, Salem 3
What was probably the greatest crowd in Vancouver's baseball history crammed all the nooks and crannies of "new" Cap Stadium Friday night.
And apart from being sent away happy at the 10-3 Capilano victory, the crowd—and it was unanimous—was of the opinion that Vancouver now possesses one of the finest homes for baseball on the continent.
So large was the crowd, that Bob Brown's office crew hadn't counted all the noses by the time the game had ended. At a minimum estimate, 7500 were there and when the attendance is officially totalled this morning, Mr. Brown may then dig into his records to see if this was a new mark for attendance at a baseball game.
It seemed that all of Vancouver, some of New Westminster and a representation from several American towns were there for this one.
They started lining up to get in at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and they were still running around looking for seats, which had long since been filled at 8:45. It was a tremendous gathering, which was fired awed by the beautiful spectacle of the brilliant new setting and then started to sway and gush enthusiastically with every pitch.
Bob Snyder saw to it that every pitch was a winning one for the Caps.
Bob Just Couldn't Do Any Wrong
The guy they always pick to pitch the tough ones was out there again last night. He should have been a little nervous, for 7500 pairs of eyes were watching him as if he were a freak of nature. He should have been a little wild, for it seemed natural that he wanted to win this one so badly that something surely would go wrong. He might have felt that the opposition was being a little unfair to him, for Bill Bevans was the rival pitcher and hadn't the same fellow just four years ago come within one of pitching a World Series no-hitter?
None of it phased the string-bean right-hander. He mowed them down with such regularity that his attack caught fire under him and built him a lead he couldn't possibly slip and fall off.
For five innings Snyder allowed only one hit and no more. For all of the nine he didn't walk a man. Plainly, he wasn't giving anything away for nothing.
Meanwhile, Snyder's attack went to work. They scored once for him in the second inning when Reno Cheso got life on an error and Ray Tran batted him in on an infield hopper. They scored three more in the third when Chuck Abernathy crashed a hit-and-run double down the first base line to score [Gordie] Brunswick and Dave [sic] Sinovic smashed a tremendous 400-foot triple.
As far as Snyder was concerned, those runs were enough for his 12th pitching victory, but before the night was out, the Caps had picked up more for their ace.
Comparisons between the old park and the new were being handed out freely. Of course, there is no comparison between old and new, so great is the difference.
'Homer' Turns Into Outfield Fly
However, most of the 7500 came there for that reason and they got their first chance in the second inning when Charlie Mead got some good wood on a 3-and-2 pitch and lofted it into far-off right field. It was caught after a hard run by George McDonald and you could almost hear them saying, "That would have been a homer in the old park."
And so it went. Inning after inning, comparison after comparison.
In the seventh, with the Caps already well in the van, the great throng got together and started a hand-clap chant. It was new. In the old park, they would merely have stamped their feet on the wooden floorboards.
Here, it was hand-claps. 7500 pairs of hands clapping as one. They probably heard it in Kokamunga [sic], but after the game the players remarked "that it was sure nice to hear them hollering. It made us feel like we were in a ball park at last."
Today, there probably won't be so great a crowd as opening night. It might take an awful long time to wipe this record out. But the same two clubs will play twice, 2:30 in the afternoon and 8:30 at night.
Sandy Robertson will get his first call to arms in the afternoon game and George Nicholas (8-4) will pitch under those $20,000 lights.

8000 See Big Show
Caps Blast Senators 10-3 For Park’s Baptism

By DON CARLSON [Vancouver Daily Province, June 16, 1951]
Vancouver 10, Salem 3

Vancouver’s greatest baseball-audience ever turned out Friday night to open the new Capilano Stadium, and the Caps responded by baptizing their park with a victory.
Pitching masterfully, Capilano ace Bob Snyder, (now 12 wins, two losses for the season), fully justified his choice by manager Bill Schuster as the man to start a new baseball era here successfully.
In cold statistics, Caps beat Hugh Luby’s Salem club 10-3, getting to work early on Bill Bevans, the legendary ex-Yankee, and turning in a workman-like, if not too exciting, job of baseball.
Capilano general manager Bob Brown said after close to 8000 fans must have seen the game. “We lost track when we began rushing them in just at game time,” he said.
Besides those who got in, Brown said, crowds were turned away outside the gleaming new silvery turnstiles.
Scores more watched the game from lofty perches on Little Mountain.
FIELD SOFT
They sat for more than three hours, drinking in the beauty of the new stadium, and enjoyed baseball from an entirely new point of view to what they had been used to in the old dingy park where the fans sat practically on the players’ shoulders.
There was an hour of opening ceremony and entertainment. Then two more hours of pleasure for the hometowners as the Caps took their new field in their stride, without breaking their winning pace.
“The field was very soft,” manager Bill Schuster said after. But it affected the Caps less than Salem, the Senators bobbling four times, the Caps not at all.
LOTS OF BOOM
“It wasn’t too hard a game to win,” Snyder said after when, radiantly, he beat the rest of the team out of the showers and into Brown’s office where the bubbling spirits spoke of the end of a perfect day for the Capilano organization.
Snyder allowed 9 hits, struck out 6, and had only two weak innings, the sixth when they hit him three times and he delivered a wild pitch, and the ninth, when he obviously was relaxing.
Most obvious difference between the new park and old was the room the outfielders now have.
Caps outfielders McGuire, Sinovic and Mead, accounted for ten put-outs. Glen Stetter and Ritchie Myers each pounded a long drive against the left field wall 335 feet away.
The Brownies got one run in the second, then opened up in the third on a single, double and triple by Brunswick, Abernathy and Sinovic respectively.
Sinovic’s triple was a straight-away blast to almost dead centre that kicked up the dust at the foot of the wall over 400 feet away. From there on they weren’t headed.
Brunswick, who had a good batting night, three hits in five times, tripled in the fifth on a long drive to his off field that went into the right field coffin corner.

Caps Do It Right; ‘Firsts’ All the Way on New Field
[Vancouver Daily Province, June 16, 1951]
It was a strange coincidence June 7 when, in the last game ever played at old Athletic Park, Capilano figured in every “last” [line unreadable].
The coincidence soared last night at the opening of the new Capilano Stadium when Capilanos figured in every offensive “first”—plus both defensive “firsts.”
Here are last night’s historic “firsts”:
Run: Reno Cheso [photo left]. Single: Bob McGuire [photo right]. Double: Chuck Abernathy. Triple: Dick Sinovic. RBI: Ray Tran. Sacrifice: Bob Snyder. Assist: Gordie Brunswick. Put-Out: Abernathy.
The two firsts that the Caps didn’t want were recorded by Salem players. Error: Curt Schmidt. Strikeouts: Dick Faber.

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