All-Star Break 1947

A day before something crashed in Roswell, N.M., on July 7, 1947, sparking debate about the existence of UFOs and little green men, the baseball season rested for its All-Star break.

I have reached that point in the 1947 APBA baseball replay I’m doing and a few teams are as mysterious as whatever the military found on the sheep pasture in southeastern New Mexico on July 8 that year. The Cincinnati Reds, for example, are a much better team in my replay than their 36-46 record indicates. In the real season, the Reds had a record of 41-41 after the same number of games played. Shortstop Ed “Eppie” Miller has 16 home runs and 80 RBIS to pace Cincinnati. Ewell Blackwell is 11-7 and could easily have won two or more games had he received run support. Pittsburgh Pirate left fielder Ralph Kiner is knocking homers out of parks that look like streaking UFOs. He’s on pace to break Babe Ruth’s 1927 season record. Kiner has 31 home runs after the Pirates 83^rd game of the season. Ruth clouted his 31^st after 93 games.

In the American League, the New York Yankees are three games worse than the actual Yankees of 1947 and trail the Boston Red Sox by 4.5 games in the replay.  In the real season, the Yanks were in first place with an eight-game lead over both the Red Sox and the Tigers when the All-Star game was played.  Joe DiMaggio has 16 home runs and 62 RBIs at the break in my replay, and is batting .328. Meanwhile, Ted Williams is playing out of this world (see what I did there?) for Boston and is one of the main catalysts for the Red Sox’ success. The “Splendid Splinter” is batting .359, has 22 home runs and an amazing 93 RBIs. Pitcher Joe “Curly” Dobson is 11-4 for Boston.

Here are the 1947 replay standings at the break.

AMERICAN LEAGUE   W     L   GB      NATIONAL LEAGUE   W    L   GB

Boston                          57   24   --             Brooklyn                      54    26    --

New York                   53   29   4.5            St. Louis                      54    26    --

Detroit                       48   34   9.5            Boston                          51    30    4
Chicago                      39   46  20             New York                     36    42   17
Cleveland                   37   45  20.5          Philadelphia               37    45   18

St. Louis                      32   46  23.5         Cincinnati                   36   46   19

Washington                30   50  26.5         Chicago                       27    53   27
Philadelphia               31   53  27.5          Pittsburgh                  28    55   27.5

Williams is ahead of DiMaggio by five home runs to lead the American League, 21-16. Jeff Heath of the St. Louis Browns has 16 at the break as well. Bobby Doerr, the Red Sox second baseman, has 68 RBIS for second place behind Williams. Joe Page of the Yankees has 10 saves to pace the American League.

In the National League, New York Giants first baseman Johnny “Big Cat” Mize has 21 home runs to trail Kiner. He also has 68 RBIs. Will Marshall has 18 homers and 56 RBIs for the Giants. The Giants are a fun team to roll their games with six players hitting 10 or more home runs. Their problem, however, is a combination of slow-footed runners and less than adequate pitching. Any time the Giants seem to get a rally going and Marshall, Mize, Walker Cooper or Sid Gordon are on base, they get thrown at second or third because of their (S) Slow ratings. Ace Larry Jansen is 7-8 in my replay.  In the real 1947 season, he went 21-5. George Koslo leads the Giants with a 9-3 record.

Brooklyn is another fun team to roll for. Ralph Branca is 12-2 for the Bums, Jeff Taylor is 11-2 – already bettering his actual season record of 10-5 – and Joe Hatten is 11-3 on the mound. One of the Dodgers who is playing well above his actual stats is Gene Hermanski. He doesn’t play that much in the replay; usually Pete Reiser is in left field. But, I’ll stick Hermanski in on occasion and he’ll play well. He leads Brooklyn with 10 home runs. In the real 1947 season, he had seven homers. He also has 31 RBIs in the replay, compared to 37 in his actual full season. Seems like Hermanski wants to play. He’s had a couple of two-home run games and he hit for the cycle against the Cardinals in a 14-9 win in a June 13 contest in the replay. Hermanski is playing, dare I say, like he’s from a different planet.  And like those who firmly believe what crashed in Roswell was an alien ship and not a military weather balloon, it’s hard to refute playing Hermanski more.

We’ve reached the break. Who will win the National League, St. Louis or Brooklyn? Can Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain put Boston in the NL picture? Will Kiner hit 61 or more home runs for the season? Can the Yankees catch the Red Sox? It, like the strange crafts that zip across the sky, is all up in the air.