Thursday, May 1, 1952

W L Pct.
Victoria ..... 7 1 .875
Spokane ...... 6 4 .600
Vancouver .... 5 3 .625
Lewiston ..... 5 4 .556
Salem ........ 4 6 .400
Tri-City ..... 4 6 .400
Yakima ....... 3 6 .333
Wenatchee .... 2 6 .250

VICTORIA, B. C., May 1 — The Victoria Tyees made it four in a row and seven out of eignt Thursday night by trimming the Yakima Bears, 18-10, in the opener of a four-game Western International League series.
It took the Tyees and the Bears two hours to complete the first four innings. Victoria finally won after:
1. Five pitchers had give up 22 bases on balls (seven short of the league record set by Spokane and Tri-City Tuesday).
2. Every Victoria player had made at least one hit and scored at least one run.
3. Each Victoria player had batted in one or more teammates.
Twenty-three runs were scored in the first four innings. Victoria added two more in the eighth and Yakima scored the last three runs in the top of the ninth.
The Bears drew 13 walks and picked up only six hits off the two Victoria pitchers.
Yakima ...... 060 100 002—10 6 5
Victoria ....... 441 700 02x—18 17 1
Albini, Dials (2), Tamelier (4)and Donahue, Myers (6); Wisneski, Heard (2) and Martin.

KENNEWICK, May 1 — Tri-City and Spokane split a Western International League doubleheader Thursday night, Tri-City blanking the Indians 4-0 in the nightcap
after dropping the opener 6-3.
It gave the Braves a 2-1 edge in their first 1952 series at home.
Spokane won the first game on a three-run splurge in the ninth inning after Tri-City had tied the game 3-3 in the sixth. Bob Roberts went in for Spokane Pitcher John Conant, who was trying to tie the league record of 12 consecutive wins in that inning and received credit for the victory.
In the second game, Tri-City got its first run in the third inning when pitcher Ralph Romero walked and scored after a pair of Spokane errors. The Braves added three more runs in the fifth on two hits and two more Indian errors.
First Game
Spokane .... 200 100 3—6 9 1
Tri-City ..... 020 010 0—3 8 1
Conant, Roberts (6) and Sheets; New, Johnston (1), Satalich (7) and Pesut.
Second Game
Spokane ..... 000 000 000—0 6 4
Tri-City ....... 001 030 00x—4 4 0
Marshall and Sheets; Romero and Pesut.

SALEM, May 1—Three consecutive infield errors ruined the Salem Senators Thursday night and they dropped a 7-2 decision to Lewiston in a Western International League game.
The errors came in the fourth inning, when Lewiston worked in a walk and hits by Sol Israel and Charlie Mead to score five times.
Manager Bill Brenner, pitching for Lewiston. was in control the rest of the way, using a slow ball style that Salem could not solve. He fanned four and gave up no walks.
The weather was cold, limiting the crowd to 522.
Lewiston ..... 000 501 001—7 12 2
Salem .......... 001 000 001—2 10 4
Brenner and Helmuth; Mann, Hemphill (8) and Nelson, Leavitt (9).

Vancouver and Wenatchee were rained out.

DON CARLSON
[Vancouver Province, May 2, 1952]
Prairie Ball
Local baseball ears should prick up at John Ducey’s promise in The Province Thursday that Edmonton would welcome membership in the Western International League if New Westminster also joined.
Ducey, a veteran baseballer on the prairies, who sits on a potential gold mine in Edmonton, where stars like Heinie Manush started, raises the obvious objections to the WIL as now constituted: too great traveling distances spread among too small centres.
He suggests a shift of the WIL geographically to the northeast, paring off Salem, Tri-City and Lewiston, reviving of Tacoma, shifting of Salem to New Westminster. It is a reasonable play, and, I suggest, the very thing the WIL has been groping for since its post-war revival.
Edmonton, Calgary and New Westminster offer us a combined population, including the Fraser Valley, of at least half a million.
*
Including of New Westminster offers us inter-city rivalry for box office which professional hockey has capitalized on to its salvation ever since the post-war Coast League’s infancy, when Frank Dotten and Coley Hall and Kenny MacKenzie were not the hockey figures they are today.
New Westminster, if Doug Grimston is any spokesman, would go for WIL baseball with enthusiasm and vigor. Grimston suggested assistance would be given a new club for its first year, at least, in the form of free or reduced park rent.
“We helped MacKenzie when he was getting his Royals started,” said Grimston, “and there is no reason why we wouldn’t go to bat for baseball, too. We’d love it.”
*
There is only one hurdle at this writing and that appears to be Bob Brown. Although on record as anxious to include Edmonton and Calgary in the WIL, Brown is historically suspicious of allowing a competitor in New Westminster.
He zealously guards what he calls his “territorial rights” which takes in the Royal City, and unless he concurred, his fellow WIL directors, of course, would not override him. He is too respected. His baseball judgment is too sound, on its record, to reject.
Nevertheless, I suggest to Bob that hockey has certainly killed this spectre of his that New Wesminster baseball would hurt his Caps. It has actually shown that competing teams in each city complement each other. The Ducey plan, I believe, is worth a lot of serious thought by the WIL.