Tuesday, April 29, 1952

W L Pct.
Victoria ..... 6 1 .875
Spokane ...... 5 3 .625
Vancouver .... 5 3 .625
Lewiston ..... 4 3 .471
Salem ........ 3 5 .375
Yakima ....... 3 5 .375
Tri-City ..... 3 5 .375
Wenatchee .... 2 6 .350

VICTORIA [Colonist, April 30]—Only the fact that Victoria’s league leading Tyees won made it worthwhile for the hardy Victorians who turned out at Royal Athletic Park last night to watch the W.I.L. opener here.
Opening night conditions were probably the worst in seven years. It was cold, it was windy and it was wet. Yet most of the crowd of nearly 3,000 stayed to the last out to see the Tyees eke out a 7-6 victory over the Wenatchee Chiefs.
The win was the third in a row for Cece Garriott’s surprising crew and their sixth in seven decisions. It left them in first place by a game and a half over the Vancouver Capilanos.
GOOD BASEBALL
Considering the conditions, the game produced good baseball. The Tyees failed to show the attack which they displayed in the first week of the season and Ben Lorino was not at his best on the mound but they did manage to come up with the big inning which has been the feature of their play to date.
It wasn’t exactly much of an inning but it did produce five runs, mainly on the strength of some daring base-running with capitalized to the fullest on two scratch hits and three short singles and two bases on balls.
Held hitless by Bud Bauhofer, promising 20-year-old rookie righthander for three innings, the Tyees broke through in the fourth. It started when Garriott opened by drawing a base on balls. Don Pries topped a ball down the third base line and beat it out for Vancouver’s first hit. Then Chuck Abernathy beat out a bunt to load the bags.
KEPT RUNNING
Garriott scored after the catch on Granny Gladstone’s short fly and the Tyees never stopped running. Pries was picked off second and caught in a rundown between second and third with Abernathy moving to second on the play. John Treece then walked. Milt Martin dropped a hit in front of the centre-fielder, scoring Abernathy and moving Treece to third, and wet to second on the play to the plate. Lorino blooped a hit behind third and went to second as Martin thundered across the plate behind Treece to the surprise of everyone, particularly the Chiefs. Luther Branham got a ground hit into left field and Lorino chugged in all the way from second fro the fifth run.
Bauhofer’s bad throw to second base on an attempted force out gave the Tyees their last runs—both unearned—in the sixth.
They were needed with Lorino keeping himself in trouble with bases on balls. Manager Dick Adams doubled behind two walks to give the Chiefs a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Adams doubled in the sixth and went to third as Walt Pocekay’s wind-blown fly fell for a double in right field. Elwin Elton plated both with a bloop single and then doubled in two more in the eighth. The Chiefs left the tying and winning runs on in the ninth while Gladstone clutching Bud Hjelmaa’s high pop for the final out.
Lorino wound up with nine strikeouts and was charged with seven bases on balls. He didn’t allow a hit from the first through the fifth, struck out the side in the seventh after his shaky sixth inning and just got by in the last two innings.
ERRORLESS BALL
The Tyees played errorless baseball with Lorino proving a defensive wizard. The Chiefs tried to bunt on him in the fifth after his base-running but he tossed two runners out at first with neat plays. He also made a good play on a topped ball in the sixth to forced a runner at second. Left-fielder Elton and right-fielder Ross McCormack both came up with good catches for the Chiefs, robbing Abernathy and Treece respectively.
On the hitting side, Pries picked up three singles in five trips and catcher Milt Martin had two in four tries to lead the Tyees. Adams, with two of Wenatchee’s five doubles, and Elton with his single and double, did most of the damage for the losers.
Second game of the series is billed tonight with rookie Bill Wisneski out for his third hit for Victoria. Don Tierney is the probable mound choice for the Washingtonians.
Wenatchee ..... 200 002 020—6 6 3
Victoria ........... 000 502 00x—7 9 0
Bauhofer, Kanshin: (7) and Pocekay; Lorino and Martin.

KENNEWICK [Herald, April 30]—They did a lot of walking and a lot of standing around last night at Sanders Field when the Tri-City Braves made their first home appearance of the 1952 baseball season. And in between times a marathon game was played that took three hours and 10 minutes.
It all added up to one new league record, a new park record and a couple of near misses at further denting the book.
In chalking up the 11-5 victory the Braves snapped a jinx that has pursued them for two years. The win was the first in three attempts by Tri-City to come out on top in their first home appearance. Incidentally it was also pitcher Kenny Michelson's first of the year. Michelson took the hill in the third relieving starter Joe Nicholas.
The five pitchers who appeared in the game gave up a total of 28 bases on ball to erase a league record that has stood since May 18, 1947 when Yakima and Wenatchee combined to give up 26 free passes.
And all that standing around added up to 30 base runners' left stranded, one shy of tieing the WIL mark of 31. set in 1949 by Salem and Wenatehee.
Tonight Manager Charlie Gassaway will send Ralph Romero to the mound to oppose Spokane's John Conant. Currently working on a string of 11 consecutive victories, nine of them from last season, Conant will be looking for his 12th. Should Conant be able to come through he will tie a league record currently held by three pitchers.
HUGE CROWD ATTENDS
Approximately 3,268 fans jammed into Sanders Field last night for the opening contest, and that too comes close to the record park attendance. All in all it was a night for much to happen. . .and it did.
The Braves got all the runs they needed to win the game in the first two innings. In the opening stanza second baseman Tom Marier lashed out a double to score Pat Patterson and Vic Buccola. Patterson had drawn a walk and Buccola got on when he was hit by a pitched ball.
A long single by cleanup hitter Bill Rogers cleated the Braves plate with two in the fourth while Buccola drove in another. The fourth one came when Spokane's hurler Frank Chase obliflingly walked Des Charouhas with the sacks loaded.
Nicholas started for the Braves but the usually reliable side armer just didn't have his control last night. He finally gave way to Michelson in the third with the bases all filled up. Michelson promptly got out of the hole on a double play started by Charouhas that finished up in Buccola's glove.
The two teams had four twin killings, two apiece.
Tri-City picked up another run in the fourth, Charouhas scoring on Roger's single. A big seventh that counted four finished off the evening's parade for the Braves. Charouhas' single accounted for two while the others walked home from third. Again it was the by now old story of Spokane's hurler, this time Wulf, failing to find the plate with the bases clogged.
Spokane made an effort in the top of the ninth but Michelson snuffed that effort by striking out the side.
Spokane ......... 102 000 002—5 12 1
Tri-City .......... 240 100 40x—11 6 1
Chase, Wolf (5), Osborne (7) and Sheets; Nicholas, Michelson (3), and Pesut.

SALEM, April 29 — Lewiston scored three runs in the top of the 12th inning to defeat Salem 11-8 in Salems Western International League baseball opener here Tuesday night.
Snag Moore opened the 12th inning Lewiston scoring attack with his single. That was followed by a sacrifice, a walk, a single by Sol Israel and a double by Artie Wilson. That scored three runs to give Lewiston the ball game.
Wilson was the star batter of the night. He got three hits in six times at bat— two doubles and a triple. His teammate Charlie Mead collected two hits for Lewiston.
Lewiston ... 500 021 000 003—11 16 2
Salem ......... 110 013 011 000—8 14 1
Owens, Thomason (6), Powell (9) and Helmuth; DeGeorge, Edmunds (1), Shandor (7) and Nelson.

Yakima at Vancouver, postponed

Home Plate Ritual Names Garriott ‘Chief Big Shot’
[Victoria Colonist, April 30, 1952]
Victoria Tyees are now led by an Indian chief. Manager Cece Garriott was made “Chief Big Shot of Vancouver Island” in a colorful and unusual pre-game ceremony at home plate last night and the name is doubly appropriate.
Big shot is the translation of the word Tyee, and with the Tyees riding along at the top of the W.I.L. standings, Garriott has a good claim to the name.
Percy Ross, chief of the Songhees Indians, officiated at the ceremony, aided by Chief Thunderbird, well-known Indian wrestler of the Saanich Tribe, and Mike Underwood and Abraham Joe of the Cowichan Tribe.
The quartet also officiated in tossing out the first ball with Thunderbird fanning completely on a high, hard one, inside, delivered with good form by Ross. Underwood did the catching and Joe was the umpire.
Garriott was presented with a totem pole and each of the Tyees received a small totem pole, stopping in front of their manager, and greeting him in accepted Indian fashion as they received their mementos from Laurie Wallace, treasurer of the Victoria Baseball and Athletic Co. Ltd. and the Athletic Booster Club, who acted as master of ceremonies.
Players were introduced by their managers prior to the ceremony which made a chief out of Garriott.
DIAMOND DUST: The Chiefs didn’t take kindly ton the decisions of plate-umpire Russ Kimpel and base-umpire George Behringer. They protested often, particularly when Vic Solari was called out trying to steal second with what would have been the tying run in the sixth and when Kimpel called Norm Ridgeway’s drive down the third base line foul in the seventh. Kimpel, umpiring his seventh season in pro ball and his first in the W.I.L., spent the past four seasons in the Western League. . . Behringer spent part of last season in the W.I.L. and the previous two seasons in the Arizona-Texas League. . . More than 300 fans were seated an hour before game time and the crowd in view of conditions was amazing. With good weather, Victoria would undoubtedly have surpassed Spokane’s opening crowd of 4,500, highest of the season. . . Gusts of wind several times almost carried the press box right off the grandstand roof and occupants didn’t feel safe until Fred Barnes, Colonist managing editor, showed up. A father for the first time yesterday, he managed to stay until the last out. . .The game opened auspiciously with Chuck Abernathy making a good catch of a foul fly near the first-base stands . . . Chief Thunderbird’s gravely voice is probably the result of too many strangleholds in 18 years of big-time wrestling . . . Fans who clamored for the game to start before the chief-making ceremonies were over could stand a lesson in manners . . . Cal McIrvin, the southpaw optioned to Portland by Victoria, reported yesterday afternoon. Catcher Lilio Marcucci is expected today and tomorrow . . . Outfielder Ben Jeffey and pitcher John Tierney of last season’s clubs are both reported in Korea with the U.S. armed forces . . . John Treece played for Ed Henry’s Vancouver Arrows about seven years ago . . . Almost a dozen light bulbs broke with a bang as the wind blew in the rain and bleachers fans must have had an uncomfortable time with hot glass flying about . . . Charlie Stroulger, one-time V.M.D. shortstop, was noticed among the Up-Island fans who showed up . . . Judging from last night’s display, the Tyees won’t have any stop lights at third base. They just keep on coming and the Chiefs looked weak defensively several times in failing to cut down Garriott’s speedsters.