Friday, July 25, 1952

W L Pct GB
Victoria .... 64 31 .674 —
Vancouver ... 47 42 .528 14
Spokane ..... 51 47 .520 14½
Salem ....... 46 47 .495 17
Lewiston .... 46 48 .489 17½
Yakima ...... 44 53 .454 20
Tri-City .... 40 55 .421 24
Wenatchee ... 40 55 .421 24

VICTORIA [Colonist, July 26]—Knowing they were about to lose Cal McIrvin to the Portland Beavers, Victoria did the best they could about it there weeks ago by buying the contract of Carl Gunnarson from the Vancouver Capilanos, hoping that the veteran southpaw would at least partially compensate for the loss of McIrvin.
McIrvin left the club with a 13-4 record and wound up his W.I.L. hitch with two consecutive shutouts over the Caps but the Tyees kept on rolling. Last night at Royal Athletic Park they marked up their 11th win in 13 games without McIrvin by defeating the Spokane Indians for the third straight time, 5-3.
PERFECT CONTROL
It was Gunnarson who stopped the Tribe this time. The veteran, pitching cleverly and with perfect control, survived one bad inning to record his fourth win in five decisions since joining the Tyees and gave himself a 6-2 performance record for the season.
His victory was the 16th in the last 19 games for the W.I.L. leaders and his nine-inning chore was the 57th route-going performance by the Victoria staff in 95 games.
It also extended the Tyees’ lead to a discouraging—to other clubs—14 games as Lewiston Broncs picked on the Caps for the third straight time, 7-3. The loss dropped Spokane far enough back that their first-division status is being seriously threatened. Salem is only 2½ games behind in fourth spot and Lewiston is pressing, half a game behind Salem.
ONE INNING ENOUGH
The Tyees had trouble with knuckle-balling Dick Bishop last night. Easy to hit but hard to score on, Bishop scattered eight hits in the first six innings so judiciously that only Granny Gladstone’s 10th home run hurt. He was leading, 2-1, going into the eighth, but he never survived that disastrous frame as the Tyees drove him to cover and treated Bob Roberts, Spokane relief ace, roughly for the second time in the series.
A leadoff single by Bob Moniz, Cec Garriott’s double and a walk to Don Pries loaded the bags with no one out and brought on Bishop, who walked Gladstone to force in the tying run. John Treece, who hit the ball hard last night but in tough luck, scored a second runner with a long fly ball. Jim Clark followed by playing what proved to be the winning run with a solid two-base wallop to left-centre.
GREAT DEFENSE
The game was probably won in the fourth, when the Indians could do no better than two runs on two long doubles and three well-tagged singles. An accurate throw by Garriott and Milt Martin’s blocking a home plate cut down the speedy Ed Murphy trying to score from second on a single to help Gunnarson out of his only trouble. A second-inning double and two ninth-inning singles were the only other Spokane hits as Gunnarson regained mastery and faced only 17 hitters in the last five frames.
Spokane ….. 000 200 001—3 8 0
Victoria …... 000 010 04x—5 11 2
Bishop, Roberts (8) and Sheets; Gunnarson and Martin.

VANCOUVER, [Keith Matthews, News-Herald, July 26]—A rather old baseball bugaboo called ‘depth’ has jumped up and bitten the Capilanos.
It cost them their third straight loss to Lewiston Friday night as they fell before Bill Brenner’s knuckleball and an awful lot of Bronco basehits, 7-3.
The alarming thing about it all is not the three consecutive losses. Rather, it’s the Capilano pitching, which in the past two days has taken a turn for the worse.
SHORT ON MOUND
The fact of the matter is, Edo Vanni has used up so much of his pitching talent that he has left himself thin in the game’s most important department—the mound.
Including last night’s game, Vanni has used eight pitchers in the last three ball games.
Lewiston certainly found Vancouver pitching to their liking last night as they pounded 16 hits to all corners of the field.
HAD ROUGH START
Brenner got off to a rough start, giving up two runs in the first inning and another in the second. From there on, however, he put his knuckler where he wanted and the Caps could do little about it. Meanwhile, neither Bud Guldborg, Bob Snyder nor Billy Whyte could keep any semblance of peace in the ball park while Lewiston was at bat.
Tonight the Caps face the Broncs twice more in a double header starting at 7 o’clock. Ed Locke goes in game one for Vancouver and either Van Fletcher or Tom Lovrich in the other.
DIAMOND DUST—A distinguished visitor walked into the park last night, Bob Howsam, the general manager of the Western League Denver Bears … Bob and his promotions are responsible for making Denver a near record-breaker in minor league attendance this year … They’ve attracted 315,000 people in 43 games so far … They’re the ones, incidentally, who brought the “strike zone” uniforms into vogue … They are uniforms with a batter’s strike zone clearly marked on the chest and knees … Bob Brown announced that the rush seat sale for Monday’s extra special attraction aganst Seattle would open at 6:30 … He’s sold out of reserved seats, but there are 5000 rush seats still awaiting first comers Monday.
Lewiston …... 001 131 100—7 16 2
Vancouver … 210 000 000—3 9 2
Brenner and Lundberg; Guldborg, Snyder (5), Whyte (8) and Ritchey.

SALEM, July 25 — Bob Collins held Wenatchee to three hits as Salem won a Western International League baseball game 2-0 here Friday night.
Manager Dick Adams collected two of the Wenatcbee hits—one in the second inning and the other in the ninth. Walt Pocekay got a single in the fourth.
A double by Bill White and a single by Dick Bartle in the second inning accounted for Salem's first run. In the eighth Gene Tanselli singled and was scored on a single by Bill Spaeter after he was advanced on a sacrifice.
Wenatchee ... 000 000 000—0 3 1
Salem .......... 010 000 01x—2 8 1
Dasso and Pocekay; Collins and Nelson.

KENNEWICK, July 25 — Sparked by John Albini's two successive home runs, Yakima's Bears hammered out a 7-1 win over the Tri-City Braves Friday night in the opener of a four-game Western Interantional League series.
Albini, Yakima center fielder, drove in four runs, getting his first homer in the first inning with two mates aboard and his second round-tripper in the third with the sacks empty.
Tri-City got its only run off Pitcher Bob Savage in the second frame when Joe Scalise doubled, moved up on an infield error and scored when Don Lopes hit into a double play.
Savage went all the way for the Bears.
Yakima ….. 411 000 100—7 12 1
Tri-City …. 010 000 000—1 9 1
Savage and Donahue; Brittain, Satalich (1) and Pesut.