Thursday, June 7, 2007

Sunday, July 14, 1946

                W  L  Pct GB
Salem ........ 51 31 .622 —
Wenatchee .... 52 34 .605 1
Bremerton .... 44 29 .603 2½
Tacoma ....... 44 34 .564 5
Spokane ...... 35 36 .493 10½
Yakima ....... 33 44 .429 15½
Vancouver .... 28 49 .364 20½
Victoria ..... 27 57 .321 25


SPOKANE, July 14—Catcher Gus Paglia, on loan to Spokane from Bremerton, was lost to the Western International League club indefinitely. He split a finger in the first game of a double-header, won by Wenatchee 13-4.
A more pleasant split was the fact Spokane came back to win the second game, 4-2.
First Game
Wenatchee .... 340 002 400—13 19 2
Spokane ........ 013 000 000— 4 7 5
Babbitt and Fitzgerald; Mehrens, Bakamus (1), Swope (2) and Paglia and Varrelman (5).
Second Game
Wenatchee ...... 100 000 010—2 6 0
Spokane .......... 000 301 00x—4 10 3
Vivalda and Fitzgerald; Faria and Varrelman.

Victoria ......... 001 043 000— 8 11 4
Tacoma ......... 082 006 31x—20 17 1
Oliver, Hess (2), Bass (3) and Paulson; Greenlaw, Martin (6) and Kuper, Kemper (6).

First game
Bremerton ......... 021 002 003—8 14 1
Yakima ............. 032 000 002—7 11 1
Kittle and Volpi; Yaylian and McConnell.
Second game
Bremerton ......... 002 000 0— 2 7 2
Yakima ............. 160 004 x—11 11 1
Holt, Pintar (6) and Volpi; Strait and Gibb.

ON THE SUNBEAM
By ALF COTTRELL, Sports Editor

[Vancouver Sun, July 15, 1946]
Cap Revival Meetings Are Good

As you may know if you have followed these sport pages for the past few months, I have long been a devoted admirer of our local professional ball club, the Capilanos. It’s true, as more critical writers have pointed out, that they couldn’t play baseball, but then you can’t have everything.
On Friday and Saturday nights I was fortunate enough to be among those present at Capilano Stadium as the Caps, erstwhile hitters of the banjo or chicken wing variety, came out of their corner snarling and swinging at the Salem pitchers.
Led by the dark and silent young citizen, Ray Orteig, the Caps stroked ball after ball over the obstruction which sportswriters laughingly describe as the right field barricade. Orteig hit four over in the three games, two of the contests composing a Saturday night double-header. With equally fine and fearless disregard for taxpayers thoughtfully strolling along Sixth Avenue, sturdy Frank Mullens followed suit by dropping another there over there.
It is now a matter of record, of course, that Orteig got nine hits in nine consecutive times at bat during all this target practise, and that sundry other Caps pushed balls to all corners of the field for useful if lesser blows in aid of the cause. After the lengthy drought in this department a little light carnage was highly welcome and the sellout crowd was deeply appreciative.
The reason for the sudden display of power in the ranks isn’t easy to discover. In an effort to dig it out I went around to the local dressing room after the final game Saturday. In the alleyway under the stands en route to the room I passed the Salem dressing quarters and heard the visiting manager, Ted Gullic, offering to swap three Salem pitchers, slightly used, for a second hand bat bag or anything else of similar value.
That Old Sock May Be A Good Yarn
In the Caps’ room three athletes showering simultaneously were rendering “Pickle in the Middle” and other light classics.
Left-handed knuckleballer Jim Hedgecock, sitting and fairly naked, said he would he would be delighted to each one of his socks if they didn’t beat Yakima “next week.” He exhibited the sock and one realized that he must be in dead earnest.
Orteig, unsmiling and looking extremely unlike a man who would hit nine for nine, four of them homers, was quietly and mildly voicing his regret to a reporter over the matter of hitting the smash straight at the Salem centerfielder, which ended his consecutive skein. Meanwhile Ray Spurgeon, the gimpy little catcher, was still dirty and almost fully uniformed. When not discoursing on the peculiar eyesight of umpires he was assisting the singers. Given a series of lessons by some good voice culturist there is a young fellow who could make fair money buying second hand bottles and rags.
Over and one end of the room manager Eddie Carnett, whose approach to these things is purely academic, was speaking to one of his pitchers of the evening, rather seriously, on the subject of bases on balls.
“If you give two more bases on balls this season, I’ll can you, so help me I will!” he exclaimed.
Half a Grand for Half-Hitch Vico
I have it from a source almost as close to the players as their undershirts that they would interrupt one of Bob Feller’s fast balls with their heads if he told them to do so. Carnett came to them as their boss at a time when they had gone about as far in a downward direction as it was possible to go. Under him they do play baseball and in fact have played .500 ball against the toughest teams in the loop. And under him Ray Orteig, given to understand that he doesn’t have to pitch even occasionally, has develop into the classiest third-sacker in the league.
One wonders what the assembled big league scouts thought, under their mask of indifference, about Orteig’s hitting display. Or for that matter about the highly touted Geo. Vico, Salem first baseman, who didn’t seem to be able to hit Cap pitchers even if you had given him a broom.
The scouts, we hear, noticed a fault in Vico’s swing, and scouts are prudish about such things. Geo. Norgan, who as president of the Portland Pacific Coast League club owns Vico, was informed by one scout that Vico would be a $100,000 player were it not for that hitch in his swing.
Norgan protested that it wasn’t half as bad as all that, but the scout insisted it was a definite half-hitch.
“Okay, then give me half the $100,000 for him,” said Norgan.

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