Friday, May 24, 1946

                 W  L  Pct GB
Salem ......... 18 11 .621 —
Wenatchee ..... 18 12 .600 ½
Yakima ........ 15 12 .556 2
Spokane ....... 17 14 .548 2
Tacoma ........ 14 12 .538 2½
Bremerton ..... 13 15 .464 4½
Vancouver ..... 13 18 .419 6
Victoria ....... 8 22 .267 10½

VANCOUVER [Clancy Loranger, News-Herald, May 25]—Friday was a bad day for baseball managers. Frisco Edwards, manager of Salem Senators, died of a heart attack in Bremerton. Joe McCarthy and Jimmy Dykes resigned in the majors. Manager Mel Cole of the Spokane Indians received news of a $25 fine and indefinite suspension for his attempted attack on Umpire Rice here Thursday night.
Yep, it was a bad day for just about everybody except Syl Johnson of our Capilanos. Syl was all smiles as he watched his Brownies take their first twin bill of the season on the holiday, 14-5 and 2-1, to take a 4-2 series bulge on the Spokane crew. The Tribe won Thursday night’s tilt, 4-2.
Appropriately enough, the Caps saved the best till the last, Friday night’s 2-1 thriller keeping the goodly holiday crowd on the edge of their seats right down to the finish, as Hunk Anderson and the Spokes’ Bob Kinnaman tangled in a hurlers’ duel.
Anderson, although he looked good on the mound in registering his third win, and even batted home the winning run, had to share hero honors with Reg Clarkson. With the tying run coming home in the ninth, Reggie grabbed Neil Clifford’s blow in centre and threw out Vic Picetti at the plate to take the heart right out of the Indians.
The afternoon game was “no contest” as the locals pounded out three homers—three triples and a doubles off a pair of visiting hurlers to give Bob Snyder his first victory. Frank Mullens, Earl Silverthorn and Watts Gulan hit for the circuit, Earl getting his inside the park and Gulan’s blow clearing the left field barrier.
Tonight the Caps, with their first series victory already clinched, will attempt to make it 5-2 over the Injuns in the final game at 8 p.m. Ronnie Bryant is the hurling choice, with Gus Hallbourg the probable Spokane chucker. And remember, there’s no afternoon game today.
[WILfan note: Frank Mullens doubled in Vancouver’s first run in the fourth inning of the night game … Kinnaman held the Caps to four hits and walked only two. Estrada and Gulan (a double) got the other two hits besides’ Anderson’s game-winner … Bob James knocked a run in for Spokane for a brief 1-0 lead in the fourth … Al Kretchmar, Estrada and Silverthorn bashed the triples in the night game … Silverthorn bated in five runs and Mullens, four.]
First game:
Spokane ......... 020 000 080—5 15 1
Vancouver ...... 003 542 00x—14 12 2
Bass, Powers (4) and Paulson; Snyder and Spurgeon.
Second game:
Spokane ........ 000 100 000—1 9 1
Vancouver ..... 000 110 00x—2 4 0
Kinnaman and Clifford; Anderson and Brenner.

BREMERTON — Hub Kittle of Bremerton powered a home run in the eighth inning with one man aboard to win his own game from the Salem Senators, 4 to 3, after the visitors bad broken up his stellar pitching performance in the seventh.
The Salem team, saddened by the death the loss of manager Leo (Frisco) Edwards earlier in the day from a heart attack, lacked its usual snap.
The crowd stood for a moment in silence as a tribute to Edwards just before the game started, and the flag flew at half-mast throughout the contest.
Salem ............. 000 000 201—3  6 2
Bremerton ....... 000 000 22x—4 11 1
Gunnarson, Gerkin (7) and Kerr; Kittle, Federmeyer (9) and Volpi.

VICTORIA — The Wenatchee Chiefs and Victoria Athletics took turns slaughtering each others' pitchers with the Chiefs winning in the afternoon 9-3 and Victoria taking the flood lighter 14-1.
First game:
Wenatchee ....... 022 005 000—9 13 1
Victoria ............ 010 000 002—3 11 4
Penrose, Cronin (9) and Fitzgerald; Carpenter and Mulcahy.
Second game:
Wenatchee ....... 000 010 000— 1  4 2
Victoria ............ 00(10) 100 30x—14 10 4
Logg, Fitzgerald (3), Spurgeon (4) and Pesut; Jansen and Mulcahy.

Tacoma-Yakima, postponed, rain.

ON THE SUNBEAM
By ALF COTTRELL, Sports Editor
[Vancouver Sun, May 25, 1946]
Relations Are Mostly Cordial

The differences that come between umpires and players are a lot like the relations between husbands and wives, when you compare them. And everybody know how relations can come between husbands and wives.
The other day, for instance, Helen went down to do a spot of afternoon bowling. When I got home from the office there was no one home. Maybe it was a bit early but I felt hungry so I grabbed a bit here and a bit there and started to push it down.
Pretty soon Helen came in. With a rather hurt look she said, “Oh, you’re eating.”
“Well, yes,” I said. “Call it a whim if you like, but I like to eat once of twice a day, at least.”
Not just the thing to say, I admit. From then on everything goes wrong. Eventually it gets to the point where you clench your first wistfully, wishing she were a man. A small one, of course. And at that moment her sister will walk in.
“Helen!” He wasn’t going to hit you, was he?” she says, giving me a whithering look.
“Quite likely not,” Helen will say coolly. “Sometimes I have known him to go hours without hitting me.”
Yet we get along pretty well on the whole. Very well. I never hold out a dime on her—well hardly a dime. And she goes around doing the countless little things a wife does. We don’t appreciate it when she has the right kind of sox ready at the right time. Nor when she presses and takes the spots out of your clothes. Especially five-spots.
Indian Cole Performs War Dance
I hadn’t meant to go on so long in this tender vein, but I got to thinking like that after seeing a lively row between umpires and players at the ball game Thursday night.
Spokane had apparently driven a runner in with a bingle down the left field line. The plate umpire called it a foul ball.
Mel Cole, the young Spokane manager, tossed away his hat as if he had no further use for it in this world at least, jumped up and down a couple of times to warm up, then cocked his right fist well back as he moved in on the umpire. Seeing that nobody was ready to grab and hold him, so interested were his players in abusing the umpire, Mel held the pose until finally a couple of his men yanked him back.
He tore himself loose, cocked the fist, and was again grabbed. He must have been pulled off 15 times before he gave up and accepted the umpire’s ruling that he was off duty for the evening.
The plate umpire then consulted the base umpire. The latter seemed to disclaim any knowledge of the hit in question, not having seen it. The Capilano players bear this out. When the war showed no sign of abating, however, he reversed his field and said the hit was fair.
Then the local manager, Syl Johnson, came bouncing out. I wasn’t close to him but from a rough glance I would say he didn’t seem quite his usual sunny self. There was further name calling that ended with the announcement that Vancouver was continuing under protest.
There’s Overcrowding Everywhere
The point I wanted to make was that even an umpire is entitled to make a mistake once in a while. Earl Silverthorne, for instance, was one of the loudest debators. Yet Earl at one stage of the game, prepared to do or die for dear old Vancouver, had gone into third in a cloud of dust, only to discover that things were a bit crowded at that sack owing to it already being occupied by Earl’s teammate, Reg Clarkson.
Just like in married life, everyone makes mistakes, and some give and take is necessary. Of course, the rioting and bloodshed may be more apparent than real. Quite likely the Spokes’ manager was just saying to the ups, “Aren’t you the guy I punched in the nose in Oshkosh, Mich., one night?”
And the umps probably said, “Possibly, but one meets so many people in this business.”
Could be, I mean.