Wednesday, May 16, 1951

               W  L Pct. GB
Vancouver ... 17  8 .680 —
Spokane ..... 16 10 .615 1½
Tri-City .... 11 10 .524 4
Salem ....... 12 11 .522 4
Victoria .... 12 12 .478 4½
Yakima ....... 9 14 .391 7
Wenatchee ... 10 16 .385 7½
Tacoma ....... 9 15 .375 7½

TACOMA, May 16—Bob Snyder racked up his seventh consecutive win in pitching Vancouver to a 4 to 3 Spokane victory over Tacoma in a Western International league baseball game Wednesday night.
The Capilanos grabbed a two-run lead in the first inning and added insurance tallies in the sixth and eight frames. Tacoma almost tied the game in the ninth, but Snyder forced Jose Bache to hit into a game-ending double play.
Vancouver .. 200 001 010—4 14 1
Tacoma ...... 000 002 001—3 6 3
Snyder and Ritchey; Barta and Watson.

WENATCHEE, May 16 — Little Tommy Breisinger, Wenatchee southpaw, threw a five-hit win Wednesday night as Wenatchee defeated Spokane 7 to 1 in a Western International league baseball game.
Breisinger racked up his first win after four straight losses. The Wenatchee hurler held Spokane runless until the sixth when the Indians scored their only run on
successive singles by Edo Vanni, Steve Mesner and Ken Richardson.
Spokane ........ 000 001 000 — 1 8 3
Wenatchee ..... 111 400 00x — 7 10 1
Conant, Martin (5) and Melcenheimer, Breisinger and Len Neal.

YAKIMA, May 16 — The Victoria Athletics treated three Yakima hurlers roughly Wednesday night as they pounded out a 20 to 0 win over the Bears in a Western International league baseball game.
Victoria collected an even 20 hits from three Yakima moundsmen.
The Athletes' big inning was the third when 10 runners crossed the plate, including
two chased in by Bill White's homer. Victoria southpaw Jim Hedgecock spaced four hits.
Victoria .... 03(10) 020 005—20 20 0
Yakima ...... 000 000 000—0 4 0
Hedgecock and Martin; Del Sarto, Anderson (3), Tiesiera (4) and Brenner.

KENNEWICK, May 16—Salem unleashed a 16-hit attack to defeat Tri-City 9 to 5 in a Western International league baseball game Wednesday night.
Salem roared to a four-run lead in the first inning. The Senators put together four singles and a double. Catcher Bill Beard's single chased across two of the runs.
Salem scored two more in the third, one in the fourth and two in the ninth to outdistance the Braves. Buddy Peterson's seventh-inning home run with two aboard accounted for three Tri-City runs but Aldon Wilkie came on and held the Braves runless the rest of the route.
- - - -
KENNEWICK, May 17 [Herald]—The bounding Tri-City Braves who have been bouncing around
in third place of the Western nternational league lately bounced one again last night.
Since the season started the Braves have had only two prolonged spells. The first came when they dropped four games in a row and the second when they snapped the first by putting together five consecutive victories. Since then they've been winning and losing every other game in methodical clock like style. They won Tuesday's game from Salem so Wednesday was their turn to lose. They did, 9-5.
The victory left the series even with the rubber match set for 8 p.m. tonight. If the Braves hold fast to their habit they should win this one. Lou McCollum will try and get it and the veteran (2-2) right hander, who lost the season opener to the Senators, will try to even up that score too. A left hander, Ludwig Lew, will take the hill for the Senators.
Spokane opens a four-game series here on Friday.
Cy Greenlaw made his third start last night and was charged with the defeat. Reliever Bob Costello making his fourth "fireman" appearance took over in the first with two out and was in turn lifted by Manager Charlie Petersen in the fourth. Ken Michelson, who apparently likes putting out fires better than starting games, then took over and choked the Senators with five hits. But the game was lost by the second of the third.
PITCHING IS PROBLEM
Ray McNulty notched the Saem victory although manager Hugh Luby sent Aldon Wilkie in for the last two innings after the Tri-City team had combed McNulty for three runs in the seventh.
Pitching continued to be the big problem for the Braves. Of the 26 games played thus far only seven starters have managed to go the full distance, Joe Nicholas had done it three times while McCollum and Zande each have pair of completed games.
Greenlaw after getting the first hitter, Ritchie Myers in a high foul, gave up four succesive hits which accounted for two runs. Then with two out Greenlaw walked Glenn Tuckett to load the sacks. That brought in Costello from the bullpen. Catcher Bill Beard greeted him with a single and McNulty followed with another. Two runs scored on Beard's slash and only a strike by Artie Wilson from the outfield which cut down Tuckett when he tried to score from second on McNulty's blow prevented a fifth in that inning.
Costello scored the first Tri-City run when Al Spaeter tripled him in to open the Braves' fifth. The second baseman was plated on Buddy Peteron's high fly to the outfield. Peterson put on a display of hitting power last night with a smash over the left field wall in the seventh that also found Vic Buccola aboard the bases.
Aside from a mental boot by Neil Bryant the Braves infield continued to play tight baseball as did the Senators. Both combinations robbed, and were robbed alike of potential base hits that were turned into outs.
Peterson may have gotten that extra punch onto his home run blow from a rhubarb he iiad with plate umpire George Behringer just before he poked it. Peterson took exception to a called strike, as did many other batters last night. He hit McNulty's next pitch into Port Orchard.
Salem ....... 402 100 002—9 16 1
Tri-City ..... 000 020 300—5 6 0
McNulty, Wilkie and Beard; Greenlaw, Costello, K. Michelson and Pesut.

ON THE INSIDE
By DON BECKER, Herald Sports Editor [from May 17/61]
“What,” sputtered Al Spaeter, “do you have to hit on this club to get near the top. Here I'm doing as well as I did last season with a .312 average and yet my name is so far down the list I got eye-strain just try to find it.” At that Al has a good point, he was llth on Tuesday's list of Brave batting averages. Going into Tuesday's game the Braves had been at bat 591 times and hit safely 211 times. That's a stupendous team batting average of .357. Only two regulars were below the .300 mark and Neil Bryant's .291 was casting a long shadow on it.
The question that naturally follows is how in the world can a team hitting like that get beat? Well, quite a few of those 291 blows came in such games as the 21-5 victory over Yakima. Then there are other games scores as 12-10, 12-8, and 13-8. The Braves won the latter two and lost the first so right there you have a run total of 35, and it took some hitting to get them. Yet here are a couple of scores they lost by where they were still hitting. Like 9-6, to Salem, and 9-7 to Tacoma. That answers a big part of the question.
BETTER THAN ALL SEASON
Charlie Peterson had his Braves running on Salem's catcher Jim McKeegan Tuesday night and both Spaeter and Artie Wilson were successful in pilfering second. That is twice as many bases as the Braves had stolen all season up to that point.
A LITTLE LATE, BUT THEN
We're probably a little late getting around to it but Tri-City and Tacoma tied a league record a short while back. One that has been on the books since 1940 too. The 98 times the two teams went to bat in their recent 7-6 ball game in Tacoma tied a record set by Vancouver and Salem. The Braves stepped up to the plate officially 51 times and the Tigers 47. That 51 total is one more than Vancouver's 50 when the record was first established. Not too long ago the Braves tied another league mark when they and Yakima hit five triples in a single game. . .
That one base runner which Salem left stranded Tuesday nieht must be a near-record if you don't count those perfect games. It's for sure that it is at least within one of being a record or tieing one, and how much closer can you get.