No-hitter

The Brooklyn Dodgers were struggling in a pennant race in my 1947 APBA baseball replay. With only seven games remaining, they were trailing the St. Louis Cardinals by 5.5 games. Basically, the Bums had to win each of their last games and the Cardinals had to bomb in historic fashion.

Five of the Redbirds’ remaining eight games are against the Chicago Cubs, the worst team in the replay that is sure to lose 100 games this year.

So, after being swept in three games in St. Louis a few days earlier, Brooklyn took two out of three in Cincinnati and then traveled for what seemed to be two easy games to Pittsburgh before returning to Ebbetts Field. In fact, the first game of the two-game series against the Pirates, played on Sept. 17, 1947, seemed more of a football game. The Dodgers scored three touchdowns on their way to a 21-15 rout. It only stood to reason to speculate they’d score plenty the following game and head home with hopes still intact.

Ralph Branca, the Dodgers’ ace with a 20-6 record, faced Pirates’ hurler Kirby Higbe, an overused pitcher, both as a starter and reliever, with a 14-16 record. APBA rated Branca, a 21-year-old right-hander, as an “A” pitcher, which is about as good as it gets in the mostly weak pitching of that era. Higbe, a 32-year-old rightie from Columbia, S.C., was given a “C” rating. APBA grades pitchers based on their ERA and won-lost record, much like a grading system in school.

It seemed like a lock that the Dodgers would win, especially when only one hit was recorded in the game.

Brooklyn opened with Pete Reiser getting on base with a two-out walk. Dixie Walker then grounded out and the inning was over.

The Pirates responded with two runs. Jim Russell tripled, driving in Wally Westlake, and then Westlake scored on a long sacrifice fly by Frankie Gustine. Pittsburgh led, 2-0.

From then on, it was a pitcher’s duel. Higbe retired the next seven batters before walking keen-eyed Reiser again in the fourth inning. Meanwhile, Branca matched by getting eight out in a row before Hank Greenberg walked.  Higbe then bore down, getting 16 in a row out. Branca, meanwhile holding Pittsburgh hitless since the first, struck out Russell to end the eight and the Dodgers were up in the top of the ninth.

Higbe walked Eddie Miksis to open the top of the ninth and, after getting Eddie Stanky out on a grounder, hit Jackie Robinson with a pitch. For the first time in the game, Brooklyn had two runners on base. Reiser popped up and Walker, who leads Brooklyn with 132 RBIs in my replay, came to bat. Could he clout a home run and give the Dodgers the lead? Would he poke a single through a hole, scoring Miksis and continuing hope?

Nope.

Instead, and this is the case I’ve seen many times in APBA. Higbe bore down and struck Walker out.

The line score was simple. Branca gave up one hit and two runs. He walked four and struck out three. Higbe walked three and struck out five.

Earlier, St.  Louis beat the Boston Braves, 2-1, winning their 99^th game. A day later, on Sept. 19, the Cards took a 5-1 lead in the second inning against the hapless Cubs and a victory seemed assured. But Chicago came back, and fueled by Bill Nicholson’s 32^nd home run of the season, won, 7-6, after Emil Kush filled in as a reliever and gained his third save for the Cubs.

The no-hitter symbolized the frustration of the Dodger’s last two months of the season. On July 1, Brooklyn was a half game ahead of the Cardinals. Branca had won 11 games at that point and Harry Taylor and Joe Hatten had each taken 10 games. But since then, the Dodgers have gone 45-29 to St. Louis’ 51-22 mark. Stan Musial, with 141 RBIs and 30 home runs as of Sept. 19, 1947, is a lock to win the National League Most Valuable Player. Although the Cards have only two pitchers who could win 20 games in the season – Harry Breechen and Cotton Brazle – only one pitcher has a losing record. Jim Hearn has a 5-6 mark on the mound for the Cardinals.

Brooklyn will host Boston for two games and then New York before traveling for one game each in Boston and Philadelphia. Even if they win all six games to finish with a 100-54 record, if the Cardinals win two games of their remaining eight, which they surely will, they’ll take the pennant and head to the World Series where, whoever they face (the Yankees, Red Sox and Tigers are all in a dogfight and are within 1.5 games of each other now) will be the favorite to win it all.

 

 

Hitting the Wall

I had planned to begin the World Series in my 1947 APBA baseball replay today. It wasn’t that I was on any set schedule; the pace I had been playing during the past several months just seemed to indicate I’d be done with the season on Oct. 17 and ready to start the Series today.

But as of today, I still have 79 games left to play.

Three things happened in the past few months that changed the pace of play.

First, I’ve involuntarily changed my sleep habits. I often don’t go to bed until 3 a.m. I wake up at 7 a.m. to head to work. I’m tired. Now, when I get home, I crash on the couch and start passing out just after the local news ends at 6:30 p.m. This may be the oldest thing I’ve ever said so far, but there are days when I fall asleep before the final puzzle on Wheel of Fortune.

I awoke the other day in that neck-kinked, bleary-eyed stupor you get from nodding off. The Bachelor was on television. Our local news comes on the ABC station and it’s usually on that channel when I pass out. The Bachelor comes on at 7 p.m. When I woke and saw that, I thought maybe I was either still dreaming or I had died in my sleep and descended into hell. The program featured gang of guys pining for some plastic woman, trying to win her hand in marriage while out-drama queening everyone else. In the brief moment I saw the show, there were more guys crying there than in Brooklyn when Bobby Thomson hit the home run in 1951 to lead the Giants over the Dodgers.

So, there’s less time to roll APBA games when I’m in coma land.

Second, I now have monthly assignments for two magazines and a newspaper may soon pick up some of my stuff. I’m spending more time freelance writing, which is nice. I got three checks in the mail on the same day  a couple of weeks ago and for a brief moment felt like I wasn’t living in poverty. I need to keep doing that.

So, there’s less time to roll ABPA games when I’m in writing land, too.

And, finally, I’ve reached that point all replayers hit at some time during a full-season replay, albeit a tad later than I had hoped.

I hit The Wall. It’s hard to get motivated to play a Sept. 14, 1947, doubleheader between the Philadelphia As and Cleveland Indians when both teams have long be eliminated from pennant contention. Or a contest featuring the Phillies and the Cubs, or a clash between the St. Louis Browns and the Washington Senators. 1947 has been an entertaining season, though. After leading the American League for most of the season, the Boston Red Sox have slipped and the Yankees have taken over. New York is now 90-53, compared to Boston’s record of 88-57. The surprising Detroit Tigers are half a game behind at 87-57. It’s headed down to the last games of the season to determine the American League champion. Can the Yanks hold on? Will Boston have resurgence? Will the Tigers surprise everyone?

In the National League, St. Louis has all but wrapped up the crown. At 97-44, the Cards are 6 games ahead of Brooklyn. The Cardinals have 13 games remaining to play; the Dodgers have nine games left. St. Louis’ last nine games of the season are against Chicago and Pittsburgh – the two worst teams in baseball. Hand the Cardinals the National League pennant.

So, there’s reason to be motivated to keep playing and to roll many games to see how this turns out. Other teams are fun to play as well. Despite its 51-95 record, the Pittsburgh Pirates have Ralph Kiner and Hank Greenberg in the lineup. Kiner has been stuck on 51 home runs for several games now. That’s the number he hit in the actual season. Will Kiner’s bat hit at least one more in the remaining eight games to top his actual mark?

The Giants are another fun team. Bobby Thomson is having an amazing season with 34 home runs and 107 RBIs so far. Johnny Mize is trailing Kiner with 47 home runs and Will Marshall has 39 dingers. The Giants won’t have a record of above .500, but they’ll lead the league in home runs by a huge margin.

And of course, there’s the rivalry between Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. DiMaggio has a batting average of .353 and hit 20 home runs with 124 RBIs. Williams is leading the Triple Crown with a .367 average, 43 home runs and an astounding 175 RBIs.

The Wall takes time to overcome. We APBA replayers have all been there at some point and it often takes a jolt to the system to get back on track. Holly and I are headed to Chicago this coming week. Maybe when I return, I’ll find the spark to finish the season.

But it’s hard to keep the game pace going when I’m falling asleep on the couch or trying to build up a writing business. And then there’s time I have to spend watching to see if the winning Bachelor is the guy who cries the most.

1947 American League race

When June ended in my 1947 APBA baseball replay, the Boston Red Sox had a five-game lead over the New York Yankees and it seemed they were a lock to represent the American League in the World Series.

Sox’ outfielder Ted Williams was leading in the league in Triple Crown categories with 21 home runs, 87 RBIs and a .378 batting average. Pitcher Joe “Curly” Dobson had an 11-2 record to pace the team on the mound for the season and Red Sox pitchers had six shutouts in June. In fact, the team dominated everyone else that month, going 24-5.

But then July came and Boston fell back to earth and the American League race became a lot closer. The Red Sox gave up 13 runs to the lowly St. Louis Browns in a loss on July 25 and despite a relatively easy schedule for the month, could only put together a four-game winning streak. Although he hit nine home runs and drove in an astonishing 39 RBIs in July, Williams’ batting average dropped 26 points to .356. It seemed Williams wasn’t hitting in clutch situations like had done earlier.

And this is what makes APBA’s game even more enjoyable. The game is based upon statistics of the player’s real seasons. Each player is given a card with numbers that correspond with batting situations. Williams’ card is heavy with hits, of course, because in the real 1947 season he batted .343. Based upon the mathematical formula on its own, it would seem Williams would hit at a consistent pace to hit around .340. However, there are unexplained variances in this game. Players actually get “hot” with the bat or fall into slumps. All APBA players have seen certain players either shine above what they are expected to do (Richie Zisk was a monster for Seattle in my 1981 season replay) or fall short of their expectations (Mickey Mantle was a disappointment when I replayed 1957). So, as Williams cooled off so did the Red Sox.

Meanwhile, the Yankees were having issues in June, going 18-11 for the month and seemingly were not going to make the World Series as they did in the real 1947 season. Yankees outfielder Joe DiMaggio was clipping along with a .313 batting average with 16 home runs and 58 RBIs when July began. Pitcher Allie Reynolds had a 9-5 record on the mound and reliever Joe Page led the league with 10 saves, but New York seemed listless. They split a four-game series in St. Louis early in the month and then lost two of three in Chicago. On June 30, maybe as a foreshadowing of things to come, the Yankees did beat the Red Sox, 1-0, when consecutive errors by Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky and third baseman Eddie Pellagrini scored Robert “Doc” Brown, who had singled for New York in the second inning.

The Yankees went 17-9 in July to Boston’s 16-11 record. New York remained 3.5 games behind when August started with a 66-37 record. The Sox were at 69-33.

The Yanks beat Cleveland, 3-0, on Aug. 1, but then lost three in row to drop to 4.5 games behind Boston. However, the two teams met in Fenway Park on Aug. 8 and the season changed. New York won the first game, 8-7, holding off a ninth-inning rally by Boston. Dom DiMaggio hit a three-run home run with two outs to cut the Yankees’ lead to one run, but Williams then flied out to end the game. The following day, New York shut out Boston, 3-0, as Spud Chandler gave up only four hits in his complete game. Williams went 0-4. The third game of the set was a blowout. The Yankees beat their rivals, 19-1. Thomas “Old Reliable” Henrich hit his 19^th and 20^th home runs in the game and Page, in his first start of the season, clouted a homer. Williams went 0-3. The win gave New York a record of 72-40, a game behind Boston’s 72-38 record. Williams went one for 12 at the plate with no RBIs. DiMaggio had five hits in 12 at bats during the series with four RBIs.

A week later, Boston traveled to Yankees Stadium and lost two out of three games, including a 12-inning clash. Suddenly, New York was in first place with a 76-41 record. The loss dropped the Red Sox to 74-41.

The two teams play five more times, including a four-game series in Boston in early September. The Red Sox travel back to New York for one game on Sept. 25, in a quirky schedule that saw a lot of one-game or two-game series at the end of the season.

Despite his slump, Williams is still the Triple Crown leader as I head into games for Aug. 20. He’s batting .377 with 35 home runs and 145 RBIs. DiMaggio is hitting at .347 with 18 home runs and 102 RBIs. DiMaggio had a streak of 26 homerless games before he hit one. His bat went quiet again for 14 more games before he hit another. The following day, against Boston, he hit a grand slam in the Yankees’ 9-2 win.

It looks like it’ll be a great pennant race through the rest of August and the last of the season. Will Williams get hot again? Will DiMaggio find his home run swing?  Will some unsung hero step up to pace his team? We’ll see.

In the National League, St. Louis continues to lead Brooklyn by 3.5 games. The two teams play each other in a three-game set in St. Louis in mid-September. The Cardinals, like the Red Sox, seem unbeatable and are the likely team to represent the National League in the World Series. But then, a month ago, I thought the same about the Red Sox.

60

If I was a car, I’d either be in a classic car show, gliding down some Main Street during a parade or heaped up with other cars in the junkyard.

If I was piece of furniture, I’d be on Antique Roadshow with the host describing my old Kennedy-era manufacturing.

I turned 60 a couple of weeks ago; I’ve gotten old.

60!

It’s hard to even think of that number. It seems like I was a teenager just a few years ago and now I’m a candidate for Senior Discounts at most restaurants. The other day I looked online at our library’s schedule. It opens at various times during the pandemic and I was checking to see if I could go there during a lunch break at work. There, posted first, were the special times for the elderly. They could come in daily from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. before the rest of the public was allowed in the library. The “elderly” referred to those 60 and older. I didn’t take advantage of the special times and instead went to the library during the “youngsters” times.

 I know there are those who are saying “Age is just a number,” and “You’re only as old as you feel” and “60 is the new 59” or whatever they say. I get that. But I also get just how fast the years have gone by and that’s what stuns me.

Mentally, I haven’t changed. Those who knew me in high school would agree. I still have the maturity of a 13-year-old. I still laugh at farts and poop jokes. I still haven’t figured out what I want to be when I grow up. I best be gettin’ to work on that last one.

Physically, I’m shot. I tore the medial meniscus in my left knee the day after Christmas walking up steps. Youngsters tear their knees playing football or scaling mountains. I bummed mine up climbing six steps and using a handrail.

The past two weekends, a friend and I drove to a book warehouse in a town about 100 miles from here. The warehouse owner would get thousands of books delivered by truck and he’d sort them and dump them in large bins. Customers could dig through the bins in search for books and be charged by the weight of their finds.

The first weekend we went, I noticed as I got out of the car after making the two hour trip how my knee had locked up and I limped into the store. Then, as I stooped to dig through the bin of sports books, my back started hurting. Sheesh, I thought. How old am I? Then I realized.

Yesterday, we returned and I refused to let age get in the way. I dug through the sports bin again like a woman searching for sales and found nearly two dozen great books. I ignored my age and acted like I wanted to, not how my age dictated I should.  And when I mowed the yard a few days ago, I did the entire yard in one push. Generally, I’d stop after cutting the front yard, rest a bit, mow the side, rest again, and then finish with the backyard. This time, I shook my fist at the age demon and just kept mowin’.

Here’s the APBA part of it all. As I grew, APBA grew with me. And the game is what grounds me. I began rolling the dice with the APBA replay basketball game in the winter of 1977 and worked my way through the football, then hockey and finally the baseball games. I’ve done this for 43 years now. So, while I am aging, I still play the game that I did as a teenager and it’s kept my youthful in one way.

It is odd being this old now. It’s weird saying it, although I still really don’t want to admit it. But then I go the baseball room in our home, pull out the 1947 season cards and time seems to stand still for a while and I revert back to days when I still had a future and my knee didn’t hurt.

I’m sure when I turn 70 and then, if I make it, turn 80, I’ll still be rolling games and whining about being old.

1947 Nicknames

With a last name that rhymes with a word for poop, at an early age I knew I was in a world of crap when it came time to dole out nicknames.

Sure enough, on the first day of first grade, the first day, I received a new name. “Kenny Heard, the big bird turd,” came the chant from some little booger-grabbing classmate. And so it stuck. Years later, when I reached adulthood, a friend’s father always greeted me with “Turd,” when he saw me. His name was Richard, so I always responded with “Dick.”

I wasn’t so stunted as to not hand out nicknames as well. In that same first grade, we had a girl whose last name was Lauderbaugh. I ended up calling her “Little Turd Ball.” I know, nice. With our combination of early nicknames it was a wonder we didn’t end up together in some fecal matrimony. Later, a really obnoxious girl got her hair fixed at some salon. Most of us in that class got our trimming from our mothers, electric shears and a bowl for edging. This girl thought she was pretty special and, because it was in northern Minnesota, she didn’t fit into that humbleness for which we all strived. We ended up calling her “Ozob,” which is Bozo spelled backwards, which we said her hair looked like.

And, when I moved to Arkansas while in high school, I burned my foot battling a large woods fire near our home. I still had a strong northern accent and limped around like an Arctic bird. Of course, I became known as “Penguin.”

So, it is with interest and long tradition that I pay attention to the nicknames of the baseball players that are in our APBA replay games. The game company creates cards for players that we use in recreating seasons and lists their names, position, ratings, demographic and, in some cases, their statistics for the year. The cards also include given nicknames.

In 1947, the year that I’m currently replaying, those who gave nicknames were pretty creative.

A few of the names focused on players’ sizes or lack of and some, apparently, were made in irony.

There was Clyde “Big Un” Vollmer, an outfielder with Cincinnati who, at 6-1 and 187, seemed sort of average in size in comparison to other players. He was a mere shadow when facing Pirates pitcher Ernest “Tiny” Bowman who stood 6-2 and weighed 215 pounds. There was also Bill “Big Bill” Voiselle, a Boston Braves hurler, who was 6-4 and weighed 200. Another odd nickname was Del “Skinny” Ennis, a Philadelphia Phillies outfielder. Ol’ Skinny, at 6-0 and 195 pounds, was actually heftier than “Big Un.”

Nicholas “Jumbo” Strincevich, a Pirates pitcher, was 6-1 and all of 180 pounds.  William “Hoss” Cox, a Pirates shortstop, was 5-10 and weighed 150 pounds, which is the lightest player carded for the 1947 season. He is even smaller than Harold “Pee Wee” Reese, the Dodgers’ shortstop who tipped the scales at 169 pounds.

Nationalities were also handed out as names. Earl Harrist, a Chicago White Sox pitcher, was nicknamed “Irish” and was born in that Celtic hub of Dubach, La. Apparently  the Phillies weren’t all that creative when doling out names.  Both pitcher Emil Leonard and second baseman Emil Verban were nicknamed “Dutch.” Both were born in Illinois. Must have been the first name connection. Hometowns didn’t mean much in those days. Andrew “Swede” Hansen, a New York Giants pitcher, hailed from Lake Worth, Fla.

Others were given names based on animals. I imagine Giants first baseman Johnny “Big Cat” Mize overpowered St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Harry “The Cat” Breechen when the two met based upon size alone. Swamps may have been prevalent at the ballparks in Pennsylvania and Ohio. William Dietrich, a Philadelphia As reliever, was known as “Bullfrog” and Cleveland Indians outfielder George Metkovich was called “Catfish.”

Some nicknames played on the player’s actual names. There’s Donald “Cab” Kolloway, a White Sox second baseman who was named as such perhaps for jazz singer Cab Calloway. Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Virgil “Fire” Trucks was a natural as was Boston Braves outfield John “Hippity” Hopp.

And then there were odd ones. William “Puddin’ Head” Jones, the Phillies third baseman, took the cake, or at least the pudding.  Braves reliever Clyde “Hardrock” Shoun should have trademarked his name in light of the successful restaurant franchise of the same name of years later.  John “Bear Tracks” Schmitz, a Cubs ace, was named such because, I read somewhere, of his large size 14 feet and his bearlike shuffle when taking the mound to pitch.

Then there was Giants pitcher Sheldon “Available” Jones. He only pitched in 16 games – six starts and 10 in relief -- in 1947. I can see him in the bullpen when the manager calls for a reliever. “I’m available,” he’d say sadly when someone else was summoned to the mound. I guess he could commiserate with Sam “Sad Sam” Zoldak, who won nine games in 35 contests as a pitcher for the 1947 St. Louis Browns.

Paul Lehner, an outfielder with the Browns, was named “Gulliver,” in 1947, which foreshadowed his future travels. He ended up playing with six teams in seven seasons.

Of course there’s the “Reds” and the “Leftys” that are commonplace for teams back in the day. And in 1947, there were at least three “Spec” or “Specs” and three “Babes,” none who had the power of George Ruth. But there are scores of unique nicknames in this season as there are in any era. They are as reliable as double plays, strikeouts and home runs in baseball. Just ask Yankees outfielder Thomas “Old Reliable” Henrich.

Emulations

When I was a youngster playing driveway basketball at the home of my friend’s in northern Minnesota, I often emulated Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s skyhook.

I should say I tried to emulate Jabbar’s patented skyhook. Back then, I was nine, about 4 and a half feet tall and had the hoops skills of a one-celled amoeba. But it didn’t matter. On that driveway, shooting at a garage door hoop that was only eight feet off the ground, I felt like I was Jabbar. It also didn’t matter that I probably made five out of 100 shots. Back then, in my mind, I was doing what Jabbar did.

Like all kids, I continued emulating sports heroes. When at bat during our whiffle ball games in the small back yard of my friend’s house on  Calihan Avenue in Bemidji, I would wait for the pitch by taking counterclockwise swings and hitching the bat at the top of the swing each time, just like Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates used to do. Another hero, another form to copy. And when I pitched, I often held the ball in my glove, shook the glove and raised my arms in my windup as Boston Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant did.

My baseball skills, like my basketball skills, were non-existent, but I kept at it. At that age, I didn’t realize the one in a million chance it took of being a Jabbar, Stargell or Tiant.

The emulations continued on into my teenage years. When we played basketball in a dusty church gym after my family moved to Arkansas, I would wipe my hands on my shoes like Larry Bird did. I never figured out if I was doing it to clean the dust off my shoes or give my hands more grit to be able to handle the ball better. By then, I had evolved into a 6-foot teenager that still had the one-cell amoeba playing style.  Larry Bird would be ashamed of seeing me, I know now.

When my friends and I snuck onto the golf course in my town to play a few holes, Fred Couples was my golfing hero. So, I tried to be him. I couldn’t copy his skills, of course, so I copied him. I walked like he did, when approaching a shot. I’d pace the fairway with a cool-moving stride just like he did. Couples embodied the essence of nonchalance and being laid back. I came across more like a slinking Xanax addict trying to stay awake.

Again, it didn’t matter. Maybe it wasn’t having gained the sense of failure or that people would be judging me for those moves back then. In college, a few of us journalism students would go to someone’s house, put the Rolling Stones on the cassette deck (this was in the late 1970s) and we’d all become the group. It stuns me now of those Stones’ days because I try to keep a low approach and just stick to the periphery of the public radar. Back then, though, I’d be the brash Mick Jagger. I’d strut around and dance herky-jerky like he did and actually copy his vocals, all while the others were singing and being Keith Richard and Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood.

I’m embarrassed now even reading back over that last paragraph.

So, what happened? When do we quit emulating our sports heroes (or musical ones) and begin the more subdued life we will carry on to the end. Maybe it’s the realization of not being able to be as good as the real people we tried to mimic. I’ll never be a Fred Couples walker now. After tearing the medial meniscus in my knee last Christmas, I walk around more like Fred Sanford with hemorrhoids. The last time I played golf was maybe 10 years ago on a simple par 3 muni course. I played so poorly that I immediately called a golf shop after the game and tried to sell my clubs. They only offered me a dollar a club, so instead I briefly put them on sale on Craigslist until I realized only serial killers use that internet selling spot. The clubs still sit in my home behind a chair.

If I tried now to mimic the Stargell hitch, I’d get a hitch all right. A hitch in my back, as they say in the south, that would require chiropractic care.

Oh, I still try to emulate people at times. But no longer are the replications of those who can do physical things. As I near six decades of life in a couple of weeks, that whole sports thing is over. Instead, when I was a newspaper journalist until two years ago, I’d try to write like my hero, former Chicago Tribune columnist and author Bob Greene, or bark out questions in press conferences like Sam Donaldson of ABC News used to do.

But those carefree days of thinking I could be like the athletes I admired are gone. Maybe it’s part of the tipping point of when you go from a kid with endless possibilities to an adult who knows reality. It’s part of life, I guess.

Three Games in July

It was the proverbial immovable object against the irresistible force when Brooklyn hosted St. Louis in a three-game series in mid-July of my 1947 APBA baseball season replay. The Dodgers were armed with excellent pitching that helped the team. Starters Ralph Branca was 12-2 at the All-Star break and Jeff Taylor was 11-2. Joe Hatten was 11-3; the Bum’s three starters were 35-7 at the break.

The Cardinals came in with hot bats. Stan Musial and Whitey Kurowski were tied with 18 home runs and Musial was leading the league with 76 RBIs before Pirates’ left fielder Ralph Kiner began slugging at an amazing pace.

The two teams were tied for first at 59-29 when they met in Ebbets field on July 18. In the real season, Brooklyn and St. Louis each one won game in the three –game set and were tied in the third contest, 3-3, after nine innings.

This was APBA, however, and there are no rainouts or games called due to darkness in APBA.

Here’s how the games went.

July 18, 1947

St. Louis 3 Brooklyn 0

Murry  ‘Dick’ Dickson raised his record to 11-4 for the Cards, limiting Brooklyn to only three hits in the third, fourth and sixth innings. St. Louis led 1-0 after Terry Moore drove in Red Schoendienst with a single. There was no scoring through eight as Dickson and Hal Gregg battled. In the ninth inning, though, Stan Musial teed off on reliever Clyde King, clubbing a two-run home run, his 19^th of the year. That win put the Cardinals up by one game over the Dodgers.

July 19, 1947

St. Louis 8 Brooklyn 0

The Cards shut out the Dodgers again as pitcher Red Munger gave up only one hit to Pee Wee Reese in the fifth inning. St. Louis had a balanced attack with Ron Northey hitting his 12^th home run of the year and driving in three runs in the game. Musial added three RBIs, too, with a double and single. Vic Lombardi took the loss, giving up six runs in six innings. Brooklyn closer Hugh Casey, who has been playing poorly of late, gave up the Cards’ final two runs in the ninth.

July 20, 1947

St. Louis 13 Brooklyn 2

The Dodgers finally scored in the fifth inning, but it was far from enough. The Cardinals held Brooklyn scoreless for 22 consecutive innings before Jackie Robinson doubled off Harry “The Cat” Breechan and to score Ed Stanky. Pete Reiser then hit a triple to drive in Robinson that briefly tied the game, 2-2. But the Cardinals scored four in the sixth, four in the seventh and three in the eighth to bomb the Bums. Musial hit a grand slam in the seventh, his 20^th homer of the season. Harry Taylor took the loss for Brooklyn.

By series end, St. Louis had a 62-29 record, compared to Brooklyn’s 59-32.  

It seemed the series took a lot out of both teams. After the three-game set, the Dodgers have gone 2-3, taking two of four against Cincinnati and losing to the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2. St. Louis has gone 2-2 after sweeping Brooklyn, losing two out of three at home versus the New York Giants and then winning the first of a four –game set hosting Boston.

In the real 1947 season, Brooklyn won the National League by five games over the Cardinals. In my replay, the Dodgers trail the Cards 3.5 games now with 58 games left. The two teams face off nine more times, including an upcoming three-game series in St. Louis on July 29. Because of a work furlough due to the virus, I’ve had more time to roll games at a quicker pace. I’ve just reached games for July 26 and should be playing the Dodgers-Cardinals series within a week or so. Maybe the Dodgers can return the favor and sweep St. Louis, making the race tighter again. Or maybe the Cardinals will continue their dominance and increase their lead.

It’s why we roll these games.