Vancouver ... 60 30 .667 —
Spokane ..... 58 31 .652 1½
Wenatchee ... 43 45 .489 16
Salem ....... 43 46 .483 16½
Tri-City .... 42 48 .467 18
Victoria .... 39 52 .429 21½
Tacoma ...... 37 52 .416 22½
Yakima ...... 35 53 .398 24
VANCOUVER [Erwin Swangard, Sun, July 17]—Before each season and periodically during a season Western International Baseball League president Robert Abel impresses on his officials that hustle on the diamond is half of the entertainment.
Apparently Umpires Dick Valencourt and Charles Ross need an extended refresher course as they permitted Vancouver Capilanos and Tacoma Tigers to struggle two hours and 45 minutes through a listless and lustre-lacking game at Little Mountain Stadium Monday night.
Actually it could have been one of the better contests of the season. It had all the elements of tense excitement as Capilanos’ Jerry Barta, newly acquired from Tacoma, extricated himself from one jam after the other with the result that 13 Tacoma Tigers were left on base.
He finally needed help in the eighth inning. Bill Whyte and Bob Snyder saved his first victory.
Bill didn’t leave because of any particular trouble. He made room for pinch-hitter Charlie Mead.
Caps picked up all their four runs off starter Tom Kipp in the third inning. It was a contribution of five hits, a balk and some infield plays which did the trick.
Tigers finally broke through Barta in the fifth when pitcher Walt Schulte singled, Saul [sic] Israel double and Mike Catron brought him home with a fly to right field.
Tonight, the same teams go again in the second of the four game serious [sic], scheduled to end Thursday.
Tacoma ............. 000 020 000—2 8 0
Vancouver ......... 004 000 00x—4 8 2
Kipp, Schultz (4), Miller (9) and Lundberg; Barta, Whyte (8), Snyder (9) and Ritchey.
VICTORIA, B.C., July 16 — Victoria Athletics took the opener of a four-game series with Wenatchee Chiefs Monday night 5-4 as they made an early-inning lead stand up.
Victoria jumped on Al Treichel for three runs in the first inning. The poker-faced veteran hit Bill Dunn with his second pitch. Singles by Hal Jackson and Gene Thompson and Bill White's two-run double plated three runs.
Wenatchee's defence fell apart in the second inning when errors by Walt Pocekay and Jim Marshall gave the A's two unearned runs. But Treichel closed the door from there-
Jim Propst, who walked six but didn't yield an extra base hit, ran into his first trouble in the fourth when two bases on balls and a pair of singles left the bases loaded with one run in and one out. Walt Raimondi grounded into a double play.
Two hits and a walk put the first three Chiefs on base in the eighth. Two runs scored as runners were reired at first and it became uncomfortably close when Len Neal drove in a third with a single to make it 5-4.
In the ninth, Propst opened by walking Ross McCormack but Wenatchee didn't elect to play for the single run. Bud Hjelmaa, the second batter, swung away and popped out and Pocekay flew out before Marv Diercks made a fine catch of Jim Marshall's hooking liner to end the game.
Wenatchee .... 000 100 030—4 8 3
Victoria ......... 320 000 00x—5 11 0
Treichel and Neal; Propst and Martin.
SPOKANE, July 16—Spokane Indians took a bushman's holiday in the Western International league pennant race Monday night. A crowd of approximately 3000
watched as the Indians lost a night exhibition game to the barnstorming House of David baseballers 6 to 4.
The Indians wore their new short pants and outfielder Edo Vanni umpired. A. Murray O'Flynn, Spokane baseball clown, pitched for the Indians.
ONLY GAMES SCHEDULED
TACOMA, July 17— Although he had only a mildly successful week at the plate, collecting nine hits in 25 appearances, Vancouver's John Ritchey remains comfortably out in front of the pack in the Western International league batting race with a .380 average.
The Capilano catcher's nearest rivals are Buddy Peterson of Tri-City and Len Neal of Wenatchee, deadlocked at .352, while Dick Sinovic, Vancouver outfielder who held the top spot for several weeks, has dropped to fifth place at ,348, behind Tacoma's Butch Moran at .350.
Sinovic retains his runs-batted-in lead with a total of 74, as against Moran's 70, while Hal Jackson of Victoria is third with 62.
Will Hafey of Wenatchee is the home run pace-setter with 11, followed by Vic Buccola of Tri-City and Bill White of Victoria with nine each.
The leaders, as released today from the office of Robert B. Abel, W-I president:
AB H RBI Ave
Ritchey, Van ....... 279 106 50 .380
Peterson, T-C ...... 281 99 60 .352
Neal, Wen .......... 281 99 43 .352
Moran, Tac ......... 349 122 70 .350
Sinovic, Van ....... 345 120 74 .348
Pries, Vic ......... 347 119 42 .343
Vanni, Spok ........ 387 132 48 .341
Baxes, Yak ......... 322 108 41 .335
Kovenz, Tac ........ 317 103 45 .325
Chorlton, Tac ...... 179 58 27 .324
PATROLLING THE
Sports Highway
WITH AL WARDEN
[Ogden Standard-Examiner, July 17, 1951]
Remember Bevens
The score: New York Yanks, 2: Brooklyn Dodgers, 1.
The scenery: Ebbets field, Oct. 3, 1947—site of the fourth world series game.
The situation: There were two outs in the ninth inning: Dodger runners, by virtue of two walks, were on first and second. Bill Bevens was pitching for the Yankees.
But that was only back drop to the drama. The Dodgers had garnered a total of no hits off the strong, silent Bevens: one more out and he would walk out of the world series with the first no-hitter in its history.
Then Brooklyn's Cookie Lavagetto walked up to the plate and slugged a double into right field. Before they caught up with the ball, two Dodgers had scored, with Brooklyn winning, 3-2.
Bevens had lost not only his no-hitter but the ball game as well. He never again started a game for the Yanks.
In this week's Colliers, Associate Editor Tom Meany tells the rugged story of what it's like to approach near greatness—and then shift into reverse.
Bevens spent one more year—a tortured season—with the Yanks, but his arm gave him great pain and the hop had faded from his fastball. He started down the ladder of organized baseball.
One year after Bevens was robbed of a no-hitter by Lavagolto's ninth-inning double, he was back in Salem, Ore. working for a beer company, hoisting cases onto trucks.
In 1950 he started the long road back. Meany relates: today, as a pitcher for his home-town club, the Class B Salem Senators of the Western Inlrrnational league, Bevens—at the age of 33—knows what it's like to exchange thr luxury of big league living for the drudgery of life in the minors.
"He also hopes in his heart that someday he will be back on top." Meany writes in Collier's. "He is grimly and coolly directing every effort toward that target. Bevens is a much improved pitcher, and there's a chance that he'll make it. Meanwhile he stolidly endures the rigors of smalltime baseball."
The scenery: Ebbets field, Oct. 3, 1947—site of the fourth world series game.
The situation: There were two outs in the ninth inning: Dodger runners, by virtue of two walks, were on first and second. Bill Bevens was pitching for the Yankees.
But that was only back drop to the drama. The Dodgers had garnered a total of no hits off the strong, silent Bevens: one more out and he would walk out of the world series with the first no-hitter in its history.
Then Brooklyn's Cookie Lavagetto walked up to the plate and slugged a double into right field. Before they caught up with the ball, two Dodgers had scored, with Brooklyn winning, 3-2.
Bevens had lost not only his no-hitter but the ball game as well. He never again started a game for the Yanks.
In this week's Colliers, Associate Editor Tom Meany tells the rugged story of what it's like to approach near greatness—and then shift into reverse.
Bevens spent one more year—a tortured season—with the Yanks, but his arm gave him great pain and the hop had faded from his fastball. He started down the ladder of organized baseball.
One year after Bevens was robbed of a no-hitter by Lavagolto's ninth-inning double, he was back in Salem, Ore. working for a beer company, hoisting cases onto trucks.
In 1950 he started the long road back. Meany relates: today, as a pitcher for his home-town club, the Class B Salem Senators of the Western Inlrrnational league, Bevens—at the age of 33—knows what it's like to exchange thr luxury of big league living for the drudgery of life in the minors.
"He also hopes in his heart that someday he will be back on top." Meany writes in Collier's. "He is grimly and coolly directing every effort toward that target. Bevens is a much improved pitcher, and there's a chance that he'll make it. Meanwhile he stolidly endures the rigors of smalltime baseball."
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