W L Pct GB
Salem ........ 4 0 1.000 —
Spokane ...... 3 1 .750 —
Wenatchee .... 3 1 .750 1
Tacoma ....... 2 1 .666 1½
Bremerton .... 1 2 .333 2½
Victoria ..... 1 3 .250 3
Vancouver .... 1 3 .250 3
Yakima ....... 0 4 .000 4
YAKIMA—Salem took a Western International league doubleheader from Yakima here Sunday, capturing the free-hitting nine-inning opener, 11-10 and the seven inning nightcap, 7-0. Spencer Harris, Yakima manager and left fielder, was banished from the game in the seventh inning of the first game for arguing over a home run ball pulled down on the third base line by Salem's Frank Lucchesi. Harris claimed the ball went foul.
First game:
Salem .......... 102 101 420—11 9 5
Yakima ........ 050 023 000—10 8 5
Adams, Fallin (2) Gerkin (7) and Salmon; Byrd, McHugh (6), Yaylian (6) Kralovich (8) and McConnell.
Second game:
Salem .......... 000 130 3—7 8 0
Yakima ........ 000 000 0—0 3 3
Gunnarson and Daniels; Marshall and Gibbs.
SPOKANE, [Alf Cottrell, Sun Sports Editor, April 29]—The Capilano caravan of performing baseball talent is rolling toward Vancouver this afternoon, looking forward to tomorrow night’s lid-lifter at the home stadium in preference to looking back at the opening series in Spokane against that city’s indifferently-named Indians.
The best the Caps could get was a saw-off in the Sunday double-header, which, coming on the heels of two previous losses, gives the Fifth Avenue club an unglittering .250 mark in the Western International League standing.
The Vancouver entry took a 10-inning hair-curler from the Indians in the afternoon yesterday, 6-5, but they dropped the nightcap in an annoying drizzle of extra base hits and rain, 4-1.
Manager Syl Johnson says he will lead with Ronnie Bryant in tomorrow night’s home unveiling against Spence Harris and his Yakima Stars.
BRYANT FIREMAN
Yesterday afternoon Jim Hedgecock showed much stuff and fair savvy against the Spokes for most of the journey, but Jim was dead short. He tired so fast that a 5-2 lead had all but disappeared, during a bad eighth inning when Ronnie Bryant relieved the tall ex-marine. Ronnie took over as if he owned the Indians, getting them out with dispatch.
In the last of the ninth, after the Caps had threatened mildly, Vic Picetti, the ornery kid who plays first for the Indians, left off with a double. Strategically, the Spokes sacrificed him to third. Manager Johnson elected to have Bryant walk the next Indian hitter, hoping for a double killing to pull the game out of the fire, and he elected correctly.
The light-haired laddies in the tenth were Mullens, who singled and advanced on an infield out, and Indian Jim Estrada. Jim singled in the clutch to drive home Mullens with a run, the ball game and Vancouver’s first 1946 triumph.
SPOKE POWER
The evening encounter was strictly unlively, the [Caps whil]ing away most of the evening by hitting long fly balls into distant outfield gloves.
Bob Snyder, a righthanded fastball pitcher with a penchant for pitching to spots, found more rough spots than smooth ones as Bob Patterson, Picetti, Levi McCormack and Bob James hammered out intermittent blows into unguarded territory.
Vancouver’s only run came in the third, when Kretchmar singled, then scored all the way from first of Bellingham Sid Van Sindern’s rude poke to the base of the fence in left field.
Saturday, the Caps witnessed some weird umpiring, giving them a chance to make with the tonsils in a home plate demonstration de luxe.
Recapituating, which we hope means something other than capitulating, the Caps are beginning to bear a resemblance to a ball club. Kretchmar and Bonnell have a flock of double plays to their credit and could possibly lead the league in that department.
First game:
Vancouver ........ 000 032 000 1—9 8 3
Spokane ........... 020 000 030 0—5 12 3
Hedgecock, Bryant (8) and Zender, Spurgeon; Kinnaman, Bass (6), Wittig (9) and Cole.
Second game:
Vancouver ....... 001 000 000—1 6 0
Spokane .......... 012 000 01x—4 11 2
Snyder and Spurgeon; Powers and Paulson.
WENATCHEE, — The Wenatchee Chiefs piled up eleven runs on nine hits to defeat Victoria Athletics 11 to 7 Sunday night, taking three games of the opening WIL four game series. The Chiefs won 12 to 2 in the afternoon.
First game:
Victoria .............. 000 000 020—2 5 6
Wenatchee ......... 202 232 01x—12 17 1
Blankenship, Al Raimondi (4) and Mulcahy; Penrose and Pesut.
Second game:
Victoria ............. 010 210 003— 7 10 5
Wenatchee ........ 220 050 20x—11 9 3
Bruno, Biale (5) and Mulcahy; Babbitt and Pesut.
BREMERTON—Tacoma took a 2-1 victory over Bremerton here in a game called at the end of the seventh inning because of rain. The second game was postponed.
Hal Jungbluth, just out of the Marines and assigned to Tacoma by the Coast League's Los Angeles Angeles, got the win.
Tacoma ........... 010 100 0—2 4 0
Bremerton ........ 000 000 1—1 3 2
Jungbluth and Kemper; Holt and Volpi.
Yakima Gets Stagg
SEATTLE — Bob "Buttercup" Stagg, young Seattle bullpen catcher, has been optioned to Yakima of the Western International league. Carl Branum, who worked out with Seattle in training camp and who has been with the Vancouver Caps, will return to Seattle as a relief catcher.
Dunham Homeless; Quits
SPOKANE—Spokane Indians second baseman Will Dunham, who played in the series against the Vancouver Capilanos, has quit the Western International League club.
Dunham has complained he cannot find a place to live in Spokane.
By ALF COTTRELL, Sports Editor
[Vancouver Sun, April 29, 1946]
Nibs’ Forced Snarl or Two
SPOKANE—After seeing Vancouver’s 1946 representatives in the house of baseball, the Capilanos, drop their opener Friday night, I was left with a lingering suspicion that they wouldn’t take umbrage if it was handed to them on a platter.
Somehow it seemed out of character for a bunch of boys were (all 19 of them) closely concerned in the late disagreement with the Axis. Spokane’s Indians romped on the Caps Friday night and our boys made as if they like it.
Apparently, it took an umpire, or at least an unreasonable facsimile by the name of Bill Smith, to start them snarling. That was Saturday. Mr. Smith, like Doug Ford, our pitcher for the occasion, was in trouble all night. When Willie finally called Cap catcher Ray Spurgeon out at home after conferring with himself for several seconds, he lit the fire under the Capilanos.
They stormed the home plate like it was Bouganville all over again, surprising even the Spokane fans by their sudden show of interest. Smith got worse as he went along, while Ford improved somewhat, so that when Dick Zender, Al Kretchmar and Earl Silverthorne opened the ninth with successive bingles, the Spokes finall realized that the gun was loaded after all.
Even then the score was 7-2 for the enemy, but Frank Mullens dropped a double out there somewhere, Goose Goslin singled and the scoreboard read 7-6. The Caps literally ran the string to bases loaded and two out. Then Zender, who had started it all, grounded out to wind it up. We had lost, but the Caps had discovered that they could fight.
Sunday afternoon (as I write I have just returned from the Sabbath matinee) the club was a spirited organization. Before the game Sid Van Sinderen boomed one over the fence in left where it said 388 feet, striking a moral blow for our side. Then Lefty Jim Hedgecock of the U.S. Marines took over. The Marine had landed.
Cap Power Should Pop Soon
Jim tired in the eight after a great show, and Ronnie Bryant made an inauspicious debut by erring on a made-to-order double play, but the Caps refused to let the game get away from them.
The tieing run across for Spokane in the ninth and the winning run on.third, silvery Sylvester Johnson ordered Bryant to walk a man to set up a double play, as one was out. The batter rapped to Kretchrnar, the shortstop flipped it to second baseman Art Bonnell, and Art got the ball over to Goose on first for the saver.
“That ain’t got it,” moaned Gosney as he stepped into the dugout wiping perspiration from his forehead. “That’s too close.”
Indian Jim Eatrada was the award winner, however, when he singled to score Mullins from second in the tenth with the winner. His mates almost tore the burly brave apart as he came of the field in their big moment of joy.
That was the first win for silvery Syl and his crew, and it’s a reasonably late conjecture to say that it won't be their last. There is plenty of latent power out there, apparently, in this cleancut gang of youthful war veterans. Bonnell is meeting the ball well, and Mullens, tall husky and rapid of foot, may be up there with the front runners in the batting race.
Clene Ramsey ballooned a knee in breaking up a double play on Saturday night, but the kid hobbled out there to bat in a significant run with a sacrifical fly ball Sunday afternoon. The tipoff on the calibre of the Capilano outfield is that Jim Youngman, a dependable, experienced gardner, is sitting it out on the bench.
Holler-Guy, That’s Watts
The weak spot on this ball club was supposed to be at first base, where Frank “the Goose” Gosney holds forth. However, the Goose has been making, a monkey of the experts. He topped off a consistently brilliant performance to date by making a diving catch of a sharp line drive Sunday afternoon. Even the big Spokane mob gave their palms a beating for that one.
Just how, down in the lobby regular third sacker Walls Gulan, the roughish clown of this otherwise polished collection of ours, was phoning his wife in Sedro Woolley. He was back 50 feet away in a booth, but all over the lobby there were grins as his voice bulged the walls.
“We win one, honey,” he said. “We lose the opener, 5-0, you know, and the umpires rob us in the second. I hurt myself in the first game. Pulls a muscle, but it isn’t much, honey, so don’t worry.”
“The guy’s heart is in the right place,” murmured Mullens sympathetically. “But why does he phone? All he needs to do is go out on the street and talk. She’ll hear him clear to the coast anyway.”
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