Thursday, May 16, 1946

                 W  L  Pct GB
Salem ......... 15  6 .714 —
Spokane ....... 13  9 .591 2½
Yakima ........ 12  9 .571 3
Wenatchee ..... 12 10 .545 3½
Tacoma ........ 10 10 .500 4½
Bremerton ...... 9 11 .450 5½
Vancouver ...... 8 14 .363 7½
Victoria ....... 6 16 .273 9½

SALEM—Yakima won a narrow 7-6 victory over the Salem Senators Thursday night in a Western International league baseball game thick with extra base hits.
Total extra base blows smacked out during the evening was nine, the majority going to Yakima. Each team had 11 hits.
Yakima ....... 102 310 000—7 11 2
Salem ........ 100 310 001—6 11 3
Kravolich and McConnell; Gerkin, Fallin (4), Adams (9) and Salmon.

TACOMA—Making effective use of 11 hits and six Tacoma errors, the Bremerton Bluejackets hammered out an 8-2 victory over the Tigers here to take a 2-1 lead in their series.
Tacoma miscues made the first four Bremerton tallies unearned, and thereafter the Jacks produced a quartet of legitimate runs.
Bremerton .... 021 000 320—8 11 2
Tacoma ....... 000 000 002—2  9 6
C. Federmeyer and Volpi; Sostre and Kuper.

VANCOUVER [Clancy Loranger, News-Herald, May 17]—When Wenatchee Chiefs came to town to meet our Capilanos, they were in second place in the Western International League. After our somewhat lowly crew beat them in the first two tilts of their seven-game series here without too much trouble, the local experts began to wonder if maybe the Chiefs had sneaked up there through a secret door or something.
But Buddy Ryan’s boys weren’t travelling under false colors after all. They demonstrated that again last night as they handed the Brownies their second straight loss, 5-1, to even the series at two wins apiece.
Gene Babbitt, a gent who is noted as somewhat of a workhorse, toiled on the Wenatchee mound last night, and the Caps won’t be sorry if he doesn’t feel strong enough to work any more games in this series.
MULLENS HOMERS
Aided by some smart work afield by his mates, he had the Vancouver crew blanked until the ninth, when our most consistent swatter, Frank Mullens, slapped out his third hit, a home run over the wall for the Caps’ only score.
Art Bonnell doubled in the second, and Jimmy Estrada singled immediately after, but Art was tossed out at home on the play. We picked up two more singles in the fourth, but the runners died on base when starry Jim Warner pulled down Bonnell’s long drive to centre.
It was anybody’s game until the eighth. Hunk Anderson, making his local mound debut, looked good till then in limiting the visitors to five hits, two of them unfortunately home runs [by Mel Wasley in the fourth and John Fitzgerald in the fifth]. But he was hit hard for four safeties in the eighth, and gave way for a pinch hitter.
CUFF NOTES—Ray Orteig, who drew a large hand in his pinch-hitting role last night, will attempt to pitch Syl Johnson’s boys one up on Wenatchee tonight … If Ray looks as good as he did in the senior league playoffs last year, the folks should be satisfied … Visitor last night was Babe Herman, the ex-Brooklyn “great,” who is on a scouting tour for Pittsburgh … Umpire Hughie Day, who tossed Anderson off the Vancouver bench the other night, kept his record clean by bouncing Jim Hedgecock last night … “All I called him was a bum,” said James … Second-sacker Art Bonnell continued to sparkle last night, pounding the ball hard and handling 13 chances, 10 of them putouts … He was pivot man on two smart double plays, too.
Wenatchee ....... 000 110 021—5 11 0
Vancouver ........ 000 000 001—1  8 2
Babbitt and Fitzgerald; Anderson, Palica (9) and Brenner.

VICTORIA [Colonist, May 17]—With their big bats booming out loud and often, Spokane Indians unloaded a barrage of base hits and a 23-to-1 shellacking on the hapless Victoria Athletics last night at Royal Athletic Park, for their fourth straight victory in the current seven-game Western International League baseball series.
ndians took to the weak, ineffective offerings of the Athletics’ hurling staff like a duck takes to water and punched out 17 stinging base hits, the majority of them for extra bases. Visitors included three out-of-the-park home runs, three triples and seven doubles in their onslaught on A’s pitching.
After a scoreless opening frame Spokane pushed across seven markers in the second and their score mounted as the game progressed. They added four runs in the fourth, three in the fifth, four in the sixth and five in the seventh for a 23-run total.
Helpless against the power-hitting of the visitors, A’s sent four hurlers to the slaughter. Joe Blankenship and Rudy Biale, two regular members of the pitching staff, and Walt Raimondi, shortstop, and Ken Myers, catcher, sharing mound chores.
Gus Hallbourg, a right-sider worked the route for the Indians and held the Athletics to four scattered singles and a lone run, scored in the last half of the ninth inning.
James, Indians’ outfielder, paced their attack with a perfect evening, which included a circuit blow, a double and three singles. “Chief” Levi McCormack, who has been pounding the ball in this series, came up with a homer, a triple and a double in five trips to the plate, while Picetti laced out a four-bagger and a double.
Murphy was the A’s top attacker with two for four.
The clubs will meet in the fifth game today with game time at 8 p.m. Bob Kinnaman will go to the slab for the Indians and Johnny Carpenter looms as the probable pitching choice for the A’s.
[WILfan notes: Biale didn't get an out. He allowed a hit and two walks before being pulled ... Five runs were charged to Raimondi (on five hits, a hit batter and eight walks) in two and two-third innings and nine off Myers (on seven hits and four walks) in the final four and two-third innings.]
Spokane ......... 070 434 500—23 17 0
Victoria .......... 000 000 001— 1  4 1
Hallbourg and Paulson; Blankenship, Biale (2), Raimondi (2) Myers (5) and Mulcahy.