Two Games

It was raining earlier today but the sun is out now, shining through the window blinds in the “baseball room” where I write things and roll my APBA baseball replays.

Outside, a small girl rides her bike down the paved street. Her wheels are pink as are the flapping tassels on the handlebars. The neighbor across from me is mowing his yard and barn swallows have returned to the nest birds built under the overhang at the entrance to my home several years ago. Based upon the endless squawking, the mockingbirds who have a nest of their own in a nearby tree, must feel it necessary to update the swallows on all the day’s news.

It’s peaceful here in the baseball room. It’s a good time to roll a few games and forget about the pandemic that is killing thousands and dominating the evening newscasts and the constant buzzing news alerts on my phone.

Two games I played today in my 1947 season replay have helped and it’s yet another reason why we play the APBA games.

Even though the first game was a meaningless contest between the National League-worst Pittsburgh Pirates and the disappointing New York Giants, it turned into a great game. It was a replay of the July 14, 1947, game in the Polo Grounds. The players combined for eight home runs, including Ralph Kiner’s league-leading 33^rd.

Bill “Hoss” Cox opened the scoring with a two-run homer in the second inning, giving the Pirates a rare lead.  But the Giants responded quickly and Jack “Lucky” Lohrke hit the first of his game’s two home runs in the bottom of the second to tie the game. Pittsburgh scored a lone run in the top half of the third, but Bobby “Giants Win the Pennant” Thompson popped his 14^th home run of the season in the Giants’ third to give New York a 4-3 lead.

Kiner hit his blast in the fifth and three batters later, Jimmy Bloodworth knocked his 11^th dinger of the year and Pittsburgh had a comfortable 7-4 lead. The Pirates tacked on three more runs on home runs by Frankie Gustine in the sixth inning and catcher Clyde Kluttz in the ninth. Lohrke hit his second of the game in the eighth, but the Giants, which lead the majors with 106 home runs, ran out of gas and only scratched a single in the bottom of the ninth before Pirates hurler Jim Bagby shut them down. Lohrke, fittingly, popped out with two outs to end the game.

The second game was much more of a defensive battle. National League-leading St. Louis Cardinals visited Philadelphia, sending their ace Harry “The Cat” Breechen up against Phillies pitcher Dutch Leonard. Philadelphia scored two in the first inning as Del Ennis drove in Harry Walker with a double and then Johnny Wyrostek blopped a single to Cards’ left fielder Enos Slaughter.

Both pitchers settled in for the next five innings; Breechen and Leonard each surrendered only two hits. But then Phillies third baseman Lee “Jeep” Handley lashed a double to plate Wyrostek and Philadelphia held a 3-0 lead.

The Cardinals won 13 of their last 15 games and swept a doubleheader against the Phillies on July 13, to regain first place in the National League over the Brooklyn Dodgers, so the fact that they were losing and, even more so, their bats were silent in this game was surprising.

In the top of the eighth, though, the Cards mounted a rally. Whitey Kurowsky scored on a sacrifice fly by Ervin “Four Sack” Dusak (the nicknames in 1947 were pretty creative, hence why I add them here) and then Marty “Slats” Marion scored when Red Schoendienst hit his own sacrifice fly.

The Phillies held onto their 3-2 lead into the top of the ninth and I debated about pulling Leonard for a reliever. I thought, though, of Leonard, a seasoned veteran of 14 years by then and who ended his career with 191 wins, telling manager Ben Chapman to get off his mound and let him finish the game. Leonard stayed in and struck out Stan Musial and Slaughter before getting Ron Northey to pop up to Handley to end the contest. Leonard only gave up three hits in his complete game.

These were two pretend games in a replay of a season that really meant nothing in the context of the world outside. But it meant everything in my sunlit baseball room as the birds kept chirping and the little girl continued to peddle lazy circles outside on her bike with the pink wheels.