Monday, August 11, 1952

W L Pct. GB
Victoria .... 76 37 .673 —
Spokane ..... 65 51 .569 12½
Vancouver ... 56 51 .523 17
Salem ....... 54 58 .482 21½
Lewiston .... 54 60 .474 22½
Yakima ...... 52 63 .452 25
Tri-City .... 49 63 .437 26½
Wenatchee ... 45 68 .398 32

VANCOUVER [Keith Matthews, News-Herald, Aug. 12]—Open letter day in the old baseball forum. This, to Earl Sheely, general manager of the Seattle Baseball Club, the upstairs affiliate of our Capilanos.
Dear Earl:
GO ON HOME!
We hate to be so blunt about this thing, but it’s all in the spirit of being a good Vancouver citizen. It just seems to me that every time you come to town, the Capilanos hit the rocks. Matter of fact, it’s about the only thing they do hit.
Take that 4-1 loss Monday night to Victoria. Now you don’t think the Caps had some ulterior motive for looking as bad as that?
GORDIE IS ONE
We’ll tell you about this ulterior motive. It’s all your fault.
Last time you were here, you said you wanted to look at Gordie Brunswick. You did. While you were here, Gordie went ought-for-one million, or thereabouts, then one night you left your box seat and went out for a coffee. You were gone 30 seconds and in that absence Brunswick socked a home run.
Last night you came back for no reason at all. And what did the Caps do?
Edo Vanni dropped a fly ball in the third inning and Victoria scored two runs on account of it.
MORE and MORE and MORE
HOW ABOUT JOHN
John Ritchey, about the best-throwing catcher in the league, allowed three base runners to steal on him, and one after he called for a pitch out. His throwing was so bad we had to look twice to see if he was maybe trying out his left arm.
In all, the Caps made four errors and got only five hits off Ben Lorino, who became the WIL’s first 20-game winner this year. Now, Earl, you don’t believe these things just happen do you?
Admittedly, Lorino had pretty good stuff last night. He might have beaten any club in this league. But what was wrong with the way Snyder pitched? Bob allowed only eighth hits and but for the four errors it would have been a ball game all the way.
BOB DOOR SHUT
Victoria scored in the third times, twice on that horrible gesture Vanni made at a fly ball. After that, Bob just shut the door on them, allowing only a single run in the sixth.
You must admit, Earl, that on pitching like that the average ball club will win nine out of every 10 games. Unless there is an ulterior motive.
You’re a fine fellow, Mr. Sheely, and you’ve done a lot toward bettering baseball. Nut just for laughs, stay out of our city, huh?
DIAMOND DUST—Just under 3000 people attended this opener of a four-game set … Actually, there were 2843 paid … Vanni will shoot with Bud Guldborg, his big winner, tonight in another 8:15 classic … Carl Gunnarson is due for the Victorians Wednesday or Thursday, but Bill Bottler is scheduled to oppose Guldborg tonight … Sheely leaves for Seattle this afternoon.
- - -
VANCOUVER, B. C., Aug. 12 — The Victoria Tyees showed the kind of baseball that keeps them on top of the Western International league Monday night toppling the third place Vancouver Capilanos 4-1.
Victoria Pitcher Ben Lorino allowed only five hits.
A triple by Catcher Bill Martin, a single by Bob Moniz, two Vancouver errors and a base on balls gave the Tyees three runs in the third.
The first game of a four games series was attended by 2,600 fans.
Victoria ........ 003 001 000—4 8 0
Vancouver .... 000 000 100—1 5 4
Lorino and Martin; Snyder and Ritchey.

ONLY GAME SCHEDULED

The Sports Herald
KEITH MATTHEWS
[Vancouver News Herald, Aug, 12, 1952]
Strained Press Relations…
It grieves me to have to report this, but the relations between the press and the Capilano Baseball Club have hit a new low in the year 1952.
It would take a keen eye to notice the trend, but inch by inch in the past five years, the press has been losing more and more of its privileges.
During Bill Brenner’s heydey, relations reached their peak, then they ebbed. Frequently Bill called on the worn out bellows of the writers to pitch a turn of batting practise for him. In 1948—a bad year for all—one of the writers was so effective in his pitching turn that nobody got as much as a loud foul off him, and for fear of an inferiority complex setting in amongst his batsmen, Brenner stopped the practise.
Yes, we got along fine in those days. One series, we recall, the Capilanos visited Victoria and a writer decided to put on a baseball uniform and get a different angle of the story that night, by watching the game from the dugout.
As it happened, the umpires had a lot of hair-line decisions to call and the Caps got the worst of them all. The ‘barbering’ from the bench was something awful.
Once We Had It Pretty Good…
Carl Gunnarson, particularly, ‘got on’ Hughie Day, the base umpire, and Hughie was an umpire always noted for his quick temper.
The first time he heard Carl, he raced over to the bench and threatened to clear everybody out unless the “barber” owned up. When nobody admitted the sin, Day looked carefully up and down the bench, noted the strange face of the writer, thought he had seen him some place before but passed it off. The writer had interview day just a week before, as a matter of fact.
A couple of innings later, Gunnarson got going on Day again. This time Hughie meant business.
He came to the bench and gave us 10 seconds to tell him who was handing out the taunts. On the 9th second, the writer, realizing he might be able to save the Caps some bench strength, stick out a paw and said, “okay, it was me, ump.”
Day looked the fellow up and down carefully once more, but again his memory failed to click. “Okay, smart guy,” he yowled, “get outta the ball game.” We had our fun in those days.
Late in the 1947 season, a new baseball writer walked onto the scene. He hadn’t covered the game before and didn’t understand the many peculiar traits each ball player has.
We were allowed in the dressing room after the game then, and one night when the new writer walked in, Bob Hall, a loquacious sort of gut, popped off. Bob had lost a tough one, and, no doubt about it, he wasn’t going to play ball for the Caps any more. Not in this “lousy soandso ball park with the 275-foot right field fence anyway!”
Five minutes after he popped off, Hall was happy. He no more meant it than to fly out the window, but by this time the new writer had flown the coop with an exclusive for his paper. We were barred from the dressing rooms shortly after,
Clancy Just Isn’t Enough…
It’s been that way the past four years. We enjoyed a few moments of freedom with Bill Schuster, for he was a loveable old guy who liked to see his name in print. Long hours we spent in the dugout with William talking over this and that.
Now, with Edo Vanni the lead dog, we aren’t even allowed in the dugout. There is a big sign there which says “Players Only,” and Edo, of course, will tell you that he didn’t have a thing to do with it. It’s just another scheme to keep the gamblers away.
Lately, the writers have consoled themselves by lying in wait for certain visiting clubs. We know, for instance, that the welcome mat is out whenever Lewiston and Dr. Brenner hit town. And so it is with Spokane and Don Osborn and Yakima and Dario Lodigiani. As a result, more and more of late, we have been leaning toward the visit, and get some interesting feature stuff out of him, too.
However, as you can see, the trend has been away from the Capilanos. In another year or two, we likely won’t even know the first names of our players—and probably, we won’t care.
We have a press room, where we can sit and interview. Frankly, I find it very boring to probe into Clancy Loranger’s life story each night.