S T A N D I N G S
W L Pct. GB
Salem ......... 11 0 1.000 —
Wenatchee ...... 7 4 .636 4
Tacoma ......... 5 5 .500 5½
Victoria ....... 5 6 .455 6
Bremerton ...... 4 6 .400 6½
Vancouver ...... 4 7 .364 7
Yakima ......... 4 7 .364 7
Spokane ........ 3 8 .273 8
Wenatchee to Test Salem
Salem's unbeaten Senators, with 11 — count 'em — consecutive victories, put their winning streak to the test Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights when they tangle with the second-place Wenatchee Chiefs at Wenatchee.
Four games ahead of the field, the Western International league leaders first victimized Yakima in four straight, then hung seven straight defeats on the erstwhile visitors from Spokane, sending the Indians into the basement.
The way ex-umpire Leo "Frisco" Edwards' club is going, the other club, owners are beginning to case the umpire field to see if they can find somebody else among the bandits in blue who can manage a team into eleven straight victories.
Only Victoria and Yakima play a straightaway seven game series this week, the Canadian Athletics unpacking for a week's stay at Yakima.
While Salem is testing Wenatchee's hospitality, Bremerton goes to Tacoma for that city's season inaugural, and Vancouver travels to Spokane.
Come Friday, Vancouver goes to Tacoma, Bremerton returns to Wenatchee for the second straight weekend, and Salem picks on Spokane again, this time in the Inland Empire. All are four-game series.
Hunk Anderson Joins Caps Friday
[Vancouver Sun, May 7, 1950]
Vancouver Capilanos’ starting staff gets its first shot in the arm—and a sorely needed one—Friday when the team opens in Tacoma. The new flinger is Hunk Anderson, the Seattle Rainier product.
Anderson, another college protégé like Doug Ford, has kicked around baseball’s pro circles more than Ford. He divided a series with the Pioneer and “Willie” loops in 1941 before entering the Army. This year he was good enough to catch two starting calls with the Rainiers.
The Caps start their week-long road trip tonight at Spokane against the slugging Indians. Syl Johnson yesterday named either Jim Hedgecock or Bob Snyder as his starting mound choice.
VANCOUVER [Clancy Loranger, News-Herald, May 7]—Vancouver Capilanos checked into the Halliday Hotel in Spokane Monday and, we trust, got a good night’s sleep.
It was less than two weeks ago that our Western International League entry hit the Inland Empire for the first time this season—but what a whale of a difference less than two weeks makes.
When Syl Johnson’s boys debarked from their bus April 24, they had just pulled in from training camp at Sunnyside, Wash., and they were rarin’ to go. They had looked pretty good in training, and the experts had them tabbed as one of the teams to beat.
‘TWAS DISASTROUS
And so they got down to business. Or rather, they got the business. They wound up at Spokane with one win and three losses, and limped home to face Yakima, who hadn’t won in four starts at Salem.
Well, you know what happened there. After getting away to a good start against the hard-hitting Stars, our Caps ran into that disastrous weekend, when they dropped three games to wind up with a 3-4 record in the seven-game series.
That left them, or leaves them as they open their three-game string with the Indians of Spokane tonight, with four wins and seven losses and a sixth place tie with Yakima. And that, no matter how you look at it, ain’t good.
The trouble would seem to be in the department that was supposed to be our strongest—pitching.
Of the seven flingers who have worked in the two series, only two, Alex Palica and Jim Hedgecock, have looked at all good. Two more, Ronnie Bryant and Bob Snyder, are expected to come around soon.
FORD DISAPPOINTS
The other three, Doug Ford, Lou Janicek and Dick Conover, haven’t shown much. Biggest disappointment is Ford. The large University of Washington chucker, who came down from the parent Seattle Rainiers marked “handle with care,” was supposed to burn up the league. So far, all the big boy has done is burn up the fans—and his teammates—with his uninspiring and uncontrolled hurling, and his lack of hustle.
You can expect some action on—or from---the hurling corps soon, though. For one thing, Ray Orteig joins the club this week, and he’ll help a lot.
As for the rest of the cub, there’ll be a shakeup before the weekend, which probably will see first sacker Frank Gosney replaced. Vice-president Bob Brown, who doesn’t approve of a losing club, visited Seattle on the weekend, and got a line on three possible replacements.
First of these is Bill Wright, a member of the pennant-winning ’42 Caps, just released from the Army. Bill is now the property of the Los Angeles Angels, and may be shipped here after reporting.
NICK LOOKS GOOD
Then there’s Nick Sunseri, who looked very good in spring training with the Spokane club, but was shunted out of starting spot when Vic Picetti was optioned to the Indians by Oakland. And finally, there’s Bill Gray, now with the Hollywood Stars.
Major disappointment, outside of the pitching, has been the hitting, or lack of it, of big Sid Van Sinderen. The tall Bellingham youngster hit the ball hard and often at Sunnyside, but it’s apparent they weren’t throwing any curves in the spring. Sid, who fields well and ha a wonderful arm, had better find out how to hit that wrinkle if he’s to stay in organized ball.
All this paints a very sad, sorry picture indeed, but before you order a dozen crying towels, take a look at the date. Got it? Okay. The season lasts till Sept. 8.
By ALF COTTRELL, Sports Editor
[Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, May 7, 1946]
Sorry Saga of the Sagging Caps
It begins to seem that members of the Vancouver Capilanos board of baseball strategy made one or two mistakes this spring: they either under-estimated the strength of the Western International League or they over-estimated the ability of their own hirelings.
Putting the finger on which of the two errors was committed is barely necessary. It doesn't matter whether the executioner uses the old-fashioned hemp or a neat hot chair job. In the end, you are equally as dead.
Yours truly was fortunate enough to be with the Caps at Spokane when they made their official debut in their new grey road suits against the Spokes. I say “fortunate,” because Spokane is a brisk sporting little city. I wouldn’t want to indicate that being in attendance at Ferris Field when the Caps bowed before the Indians was either enlightening or pleasant.
That Spokane series was hardly enlightening, because it led us to think (a thing we should never do, of course), that in the Indians we were losing to the club which we would ultimately have to whip.
Manager Syl Johnson brought his club home, then. He seemed ready to expose them to the home fans with a good deal of confidence, despite the necessity of having to shuffle, because of injuries, the deck in the manner of a card sharp in an E. Phillips Oppenheim novel.
Our Pitchers Are Getting Wilder
In view at Boss Johnson’s assurance, your truly feels no particular shame in revealing that he, too, felt quite fairly good about the club. After all, Johnson has been around practically since catchers first started to wear gloves.
For that matter, vice president Bob Brown, as far as we could judge, was another believer in the Caps, and he is rumored to have been the inventor of the first glove.
After the first two victories against Yakima here, old Sylvester told he thought the boys were finally going to settle down. Only now do we realize the serious portent of those words. Over the weekend the Caps began to settle down at an alarming rate with the basement now just one more stumble or so away.
About now Mr. Johnson is probably peering anxiously at the blueprints to see just where he went wrong, Better, or at least older, architects than he have had the same problem. Certainly the Capilanos began to show serious signs of disorganization as last week wore on. First sacker Frank Gosney spent all too much time looking intently, bat on shoulder, at curve balls.
In the main, pitchers were at fault. With only a couple of left-handed sticking regulars on their own squad and scads of them swinging for the opposition, that short right-field wall became a nightmare.
You could hear them trying to figure it out.
“Curve ‘em and pray,” suggested one righthander, “but above all, curve ‘em.”
“Fire at their heads,” suggested another flinger.
“What's the use?” said Lefty Jim Hedgecock, “The cowards duck.”
Help Is Coming—Vancouver Hopes
Meanwhile, Salem, apparently in an awful hurry for some reason or other, has won all of its first 11 games. A lot of those games were won from Spokane, the club the boys figured they had to beat.
Help is said to be coming. Ray Orteig, the one-man gang from the U.S. Coastguard, told our pal Bill Finlay in Bellingham on Sunday that he will join the Capilanos late this week at Tacoma. Mr. Brown is following all available clues in search of a first baseman. He trailed one down in Seattle last week, but it turned out to be Peerless Hal Chase’s mother.
It seems she had played for the House of David nine in ’96.
Our main hope lies in the known fact that Brown is allergic to losers. We suspect, after hearing some of the remarks around town yesterday, that a check on the fans would show that he has a lot of company.
Before and After
By Ken McConnell
[Vancouver Province, May 7, 1946]
LIFE CAN BE, ETC.
So we had a brisk set of tennis and then went to the P.A. Club where Eric Alberg punched sagging muscles back into place. No place quite like a steam-room to pick up interesting items, including the desire to live again.
In a nearby shower was Watts Gulan, Capilanos’ third sacker now recovering from a leg injury, and he was groaning a trifle over a torn ligament.
On a table nearby was a survivor of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association’s recent annual convention. He was ironing out the kinks, or something.
A citizen with a flare for the body beautiful was doing a hand-spring and dishing out liberal lashings of information regarding the Pro-Rec display at the Forum on Friday night.
My friend Tack, with a critical eye, was out surveying the entire scene and you got the impression he wouldn’t wager a thin dime on the possibility of any of them living out the day.
And then somebody asked what was the matter with our baseballing Caps.
+ + +
THEY’LL BE BETTER
Well there does not seem to be a great deal that can not be fixed.
Our pitching, obviously enough, has no been good although Alex Palca has turned in a fair enough chore. Disappointing so far is Doug Ford and that practically goes for the rest of the hurlers.
There have been a good many injuries, including Al Kretchmar stopping one pitch with his head. Cleve Ramsey, a fairish hitter, has been on the sidelines and Gulan, as we mentioned before, is still limping.
All of these things can happen to a ball club in the early part of the season, and those teams which are now flying may be slowed down considerably when the campaign has been in progress a month or so.
Meanwhile, Salem continues to set the pace of any team in baseball. Imagine, 11 straight! That really isn’t fair and something should be done about it.
Probably something will be done about that, though. There is considerably rivalry between these two particular clubs and with the front office in Seattle more than slightly interested in the Caps, it can be taken for granted that any needed replacements will be here in good time. At least time enough before Salem arrived!
+ + +
In a subdued voice, Robert P. Brown, vice-presdent of the Capilanos, announced this morning:
“Hunk Anderson, a really good pitcher, will join our club Friday at Tacoam. Cleve Ramsey should be back with us then and also Watts Gulan. I think manager Johnston [sic] will switch Cleve to first base in place of Frank Gosney and Gulan will, of course, go to third base.
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