Sunday 20 January 2008

Friday, July 4, 1952

W L Pct GB
Victoria ..... 47 24 .662 —
Spokane ...... 41 35 .539 8½
Vancouver .... 35 31 .530 9½
Lewiston ..... 34 37 .479 13
Salem ........ 34 39 .466 14
Tri-City ..... 34 40 .459 14½
Wenatchee .... 33 42 .440 16
Yakima ....... 33 43 .434 16½


SPOKANE [Victoria Colonist, July 5]—Manager Cec Garriott, Carl Gunnarson, the veteran lefthander who joined the club only this week, and Jehosie Heard, inimitable colored southpaw, pooled their talents last night to give Victoria’s resurgent Tyees a double win over the Indians at Spokane.
The Tyees, again showing the form which carried them to a healthy W.I.L. lead, used their sensational relief pitching to win the nine-inning opener, 10-6. They coasted in, 4-0, behind Heard’s three-hit pitching in the shortened finale.
LARGEST LEAD
The double victory, combined with Vancouver’s split at Lewiston, gave the Tyees their largest lead of the season. They are eight and a half games ahead of the Indians, who are in front of the third-place Capilanos. More important, the Tyees now have an 11-game bulge on Spokane on the losing side and a seven-game edge on the Caps.
Tyees made a shambles of Spokane’s vaunted pitching staff. They knocked out John Marshall in the first game and hit John Conant, the third of third Spokane pitches, as if they owned him to hand him the setback. Dick Bishop took the loss in the last game, being unable to match Heard’s great pitching.
GET RID OF JOHN
Marshall, who blasted the Tyees, 7-0, at Victoria earlier this season, didn’t give up a hit until the fifth, when Cal McIrvin hit the first of two run-scoring doubles to plate John Treece with the game’s first run.
It was curtains for Marshall in the sixth. Singles by Granny Gladstone, Treece and Jim Clark and doubles by Chuck Abernathy and McIrvin sent him to an early shower in favor of Bob Roberts.
CAL LEAVES, TOO
It was McIrvin’s turn in the Spokane half of the sixth. The big southpaw, who had completed 12 successive starts since May 13, went out under a barrage of base hits which saw the Indians take the lead. Gunnarson finally stopped the rally after giving up a single which combined with an error to give the Indians their fifth and sixth runs.
From there Gunnarson was unbeatable. Two errors and a sacrifice put the tying run on third in the seventh with one out, but he got the next two hitters. He retired the last nine Indians in a row, gave up no bases on balls and struck out four.
Gunnarson, who pitched seven innings Thursday, received credit for his second win in as many nights. His record now stands at 4-1.
With the veteran wronghander holding the Indians, Garriott took over. He hit his sixth home run in the seventh after Bob Moniz singled to score what proved to be the tying and winning runs, then made it certain by singling after Treece had singled and Moniz doubled in the eighth to make it 9-6.
Abernathy’s single and a double by Treece plated the last Victoria run in the ninth.
18 INNINGS FOR JEHOSIE
Heard, who also pitched Thursday, had no trouble racking up his fourth shutout. The little southpaw now has a string of 18 scoreless innings. He blanked Wenatchee, 11-0, on July 1 and pitched two scoreless innings in relief Thursday.
CECE GETS ANOTHER
Garriott helped Heard to his 11th victory with his second home run of the ninth in the sixth inning. Both Garriott’s circuit blows were well hit, carrying out of the park at the 350 and 375-foot marks.
A disappointed holiday crowd of 3,455 saw the Tyees score their fifth and sixth victories in the seven games played between the two clubs this season.
First Game
Victoria ..... 000 014 221—10 15 3
Spokane .... 000 006 000—6 9 2
McIrvin, Gunnarson (6) and Marcucci; Marshall, Roberts (6), Conant (7) and Sheets.
Second Game
Victoria ..... 011 001 1—4 8 0
Spokane .... 000 000 0—0 3 0
Heard and Marcucci; Bishop and Sheets.

LEWISTON [Vancouver News-Herald, July 5]—A 22-year-old youngster won his first decision in Organized Baseball, Bob Brown received a gift on the occasion of his 78th birthday and the Capilanos broke a six-game losing streak all in the space of one, eight-inning baseball game here Friday night.
The three-way celebration was packed into the Caps’ tight 3-2 extra-inning decision in the first of an Independence Day doubleheader against the Lewiston Broncs.
In the second game, Lewiston started with a rush and then coasted to an easy 7-1 victory at the expense of Bob Snyder.
IT WENT EIGHT
The two clubs packed most of the excitement and good baseball into the first game. Scheduled for seven innings, it went eight as the Caps came off the floor in the seventh to tie it, then jumped ahead to stay and win in the eighth.
It marked young Tom Lovrich’s official entrance into Organized Baseball as a pitcher. Tom relieved John Gulborg in the seventh, and went on to pick up the victory, his first as a Capilano and his first in professional ball.
The game started out oddly enough when umpires Mickey Hanich and Ed Maslowski failed to show up. They ran into car trouble on their way from Victoria and didn’s show up in time for the complete doubleheader.
PLAYERS UMPIRED
In their absense, the clubs agreed to go along with a player from each side acting as officials. Bob Schulte called balls and strikes for the first part with the Caps’ Bill Whyte on the bases, then the two changed positions after four innings.
Lewiston broke up a hot pitchers’ battle between Guldborg and Keith Bowman when ex-Cap Jimmy Robinson singled home two runs after two were out.
It went like that until the seventh when the Caps suddenly came alive and saved Guldborg from defeat. Bill Schuster started it off by drawing a base on balls and Ray Tran followed with a single. Bill Brenner then removed Bowman and brought in veteran Larry Powell.
BRUNSWICK SINGLES
Schuster countered with Bud Isham pinch-hitting for Guldborg and Bud moved the runners up on a perfect sacrifice. Then Jesse Williams dumped a Texas Leaguer into centre field and it was a new ball game.
Vancouver won it in the eighth on Gordie Brunswick’s two-out single. Then Lovrich had his first victory and Bob Brown a much appreciated birthday present.
DIAMOND DUST—Jimmy Moore, the 1951 Capilano second baseman, is due to join the Caps here this weekend … The youngster will be placed on the roster immediately as he is a limited service player and Vancouver has one open spot in this category. … The same clubs play here again tonight and twice Sunday with Van Fletcher, Billy Whyte and probably Paul Jones the likely Vancouver starters … Vancouver opens at home Monday night against Wenatchee.
First Game
Vancouver ..... 000 000 021—3 5 1
Lewiston ....... 000 020 000—2 7 1
Guldborg, Lovich (7) and Ritchey; Bowman, Powell (7) and Helmuth, Lundberg (7)
Second Game
Vancouver ..... 000 000 010—1 8 4
Lewiston ....... 212 001 01x—7 9 0
Snyder, Locke (3), Lovrich (7) and Ritchey; Schuster (7); Brenner and Lundberg.

WENATCHEE, July 4—The Tri-City Braves continued to move ahead in the standings by downing Wenatchee's injury-riddled Chiefs, 11-6 and 1-0, for their fourth and fifth successive victories on Friday.
First Game
Tri-City ......... 620 011 010—11 14 2
Wenatchee .... 000 000 060—6 13 4
Gassaway and Pesut; Kapp, Moore (1), Palmer (4) and Robinett.
Second Game
Tri-City ......... 000 000 1—1 3 1
Wenatchee .... 000 000 0—0 4 1
Greenwood and Pesut; Stites and Robinett.

YAKIMA, July 4—Yakima's fast-moving Bears, who seem to have finally put together a winning combination, scored their seventh and eighth wins in a row by taking two from Salem's ambitious Senators, 4-3 and 5-1.
First Game
Salem …… 300 000 0—3 5 1
Yakima …. 003 000 1—4 3 1
Francis, Edmunds (3) and Thrasher; Del Sarto and Donahue.
Second Game
Salem …. 000 000 001—1 4 2
Yakima … 000 401 00x—5 6 0
Auberin, Francis (4), Collins (7) and Nelson, Thrasher (7); Shandor and Albini.

BUT LISTEN!
Alf Cottrell
[Vancouver Province, July 5, 1952]
The thing that set me to thinking about Bob Brown was a lured notation in the little old beat-up notebook that I keep in my hip pocket. The notation reads, “July 5, RPB’s birthday.”
And think of the old redhead who is the past, the present and possibly much of the future of baseball in this town, it took me back to my knee-pants days. And those were the days when kids did wear knee-pants.
There were times it took us so long to pick enough strawberries to earn the quarter that took us into the Athletic park bleachers, we didn’t have time to wash our knees.
I don’t recall worrying too much about it, though. We were worrying les we miss the sign of old Pug Bennett spearing a line drive down at second base. Or of Pug’s double-play partner, shortstop Bob Brown, getting into a battle with Tealey Raymond of the Seattle club.
Two Great Hitters
Tealey was a hammered-down midget who managed, played shortstopn and did most of the fighting for Seattle. He was even smaller than Brown, but he could holler just as loud.
When speaking of Tealey, and he speaks of him fondly now, Bob says, “We were both great hitters.” Then he grins. In their bad years they hit .229. In their good years they soared to .230.
Looking back, I wouldn’t say the years have made too many changes in Brown, though he doesn’t cut the corner so close now.
Financially he had to cut them, as all baseball bosses who have been in the game a long time have had to cut them when the sinews of war were stretched thin.
But the ups and downs and the bumps and the scars have done little to alter his enthusiasm for life. Always remembering that for him life means baseball. And vice versa.
And Who Wouldn’t?
When he talks his tone is still the tone of a man who is going for the goal ahead. He says, “See that new kid pitcher we got break that curve down around the hitter’s knees? There’s a kid we can go along with.”
Naturally he will talk about the old days at the drop of a half century. Who wouldn’t if he had mingled with the great and near great?
But you have to bring them up. When you ask, that’s when he’ll tell you how Iron Man Joe McGinnity pitched both ends of a doubleheader for his Butte team against Vancouver. And won both ends. The same Joe who was pitching baseball until he was 52.
Bob will tell you how Pug Bennett was riding on the street car that ran from Tacoma to Seattle one day when two bandits climbed aboard. When one pulled a gun, Pug grabbed it from him and gave the fellow a whale of a beating-up, while the other fellow got away, to Pug’s dismay.
Long Hack Ride
“Gosh!” Bob says. “It doesn’t seem like it was over 30 years ago since Tealey and I used to play. But the book says it was.”
The book could also say it was in 1907 that Brown won a pennant for Aberdeen in the Northwest League. It could, if it were in a mood for the truth, say also that it is 57 years since Bob played football for old Notre Dame.
Bob has been around this town a long time. The longer the hack ride, the more the folks are apt to complain. When you look at it that way, there have been few complaints about Robert P. Brown.
He says he is 76 today. As usual he is celebrating it down in Seattle with Earl Sheeley, another fellow who was bitten by baseball at a very early age.
We rather hope Bob’s Capilanos don’t do too badly while the old red top is celebrating. In fact it would be a real nice day for them to win one.

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