Friday 15 February 2008

Thursday, August 21, 1952

W L Pct. GB
Victoria .... 81 42 .659 —
Spokane ..... 73 56 .566 12
Vancouver ... 60 59 .504 19
Salem ....... 62 63 .496 20
Yakima ...... 58 67 .464 23
Lewiston .... 58 69 .457 25
Tri-City .... 54 69 .439 27
Wenatchee ... 52 73 .416 30

KENNEWICK [Tri-City Herald, Aug. 21]—The Tri-City Braves won the second game of a doubleheader with Victoria, 5-4, Thursday night in what turned out to be almost a private battle between the experienced manager and the younger, less experienced pitcher.
The pitcher, Dave Brittain won, but he needed his own power at the plate to pull the Braves through.
The Braves had dropped the first game 4-0.
In the nightcap the Braves were put in front 3-1 going into the top of the seventh. But Cecil Garriot, the Victoria manager, wasn't licked yet. With one man on he caught one of Brittain's pitches and sent the ball out of the park to tie up the game.
Brittain wasn't to be outdone. He caught the first pitch thrown in the bottom of the eighth for a 360-foot homer to put the Braves ahead again.
It was Garriott's turn to score again in the top of the ninth. Through a series of walks and stolen bases, the bases were loaded with Garriot on third.
The old hand played it cagey and when Brittain lapsed for a quick second, Garriot cut loose and stole home.
In ihe bottom of the ninth, Brittain came through to win his game Vic Buccola got on on a walk and moved to third when catcher Ron Bottler overthrew second.
Then Dave got a clean single that brought Buecola home.
Dave got two hits for three official times at bat. Two of Tri-City's earlier scores were partly the result of perfect sacrifices by the big pitcher.
The game was enlivened by rhubarbs with umpire Einer Sorenson. At the end of the fifth Milt Martin starting catcher for the Tyees was booted out of the game. He had to be forcibly pushed out by his teammates. An interference ruling on Granny Gladstone brought Garriot charging from the dugout and he argued, long and loud.
The Tyees touched George New for nine hits to score four in the seven-inning opener.
The Braves could garnish only three off of Bill Bottler. The longest hit ball of the game was a double by Lew Branham in the fifth.
First Game
Victoria ..... 101 110 0—4 9 0
Tri-City ..... 000 000 0—0 3 0
B. Bottler and R. Bottler; New and Pesut.
Second Game
Victoria ..... 100 000 201—4 6 1
Tri-City ..... 110 010 011—5 7 1
Han, Prior (6) and Martin, R. Bottler (6); Brittain and Lewis.

SPOKANE, Aug. 21 — The biggest crowd of the year turned out Thursday night to watch Yakima even its Western International league series wifh Spokane with a 7-4 victory over Spokane.
A crowd of 4386 saw the Indians jump into a four-run lead in the first inning which vanished when the Bears came back for single tallies in fourth and fifth, three in the seventh and two in the eighth inning to take the game in a run.
The W.I.L. game was preceded by a three-inning game between the old-timers and the Indians. Manager Don Osborn stopped the old boys cold to score a 1-0 win but the Bears were a different proposition.
Yakima ........ 000 011 320—7 10 3
Spokane ...... 400 000 000—4 6 0
Shandor and Donahue; Bishop, Roberts (7), Chase (8) and Sheets.

SALEM [Vancouver News-Herald, Aug. 22]—The Capilanos, still in the midst of one of their worst 1952 slumps, came up with some badly needed pitching held Thursday when the Seattle Rainiers optioned right-hander Dick Aubertin to them.
Aubertin won’t be eligible to play until Monday when the league’s 17-player limit becomes invalid and clubs can carry any amount of players. He will join the team, however, in Victoria tonight.
Dick is a fast-balling right hander with a world of ‘stuff.’ He has played with Spokane and Salem in this league and both times was let go because of control troubles.
WITH ST. LOUIS
Recently he has been with the St. Louis Browns chain, but Seattle signed him as a free agent after Dick had bough his outright release from the Browns.
Since then, Aubertin has been pitching batting practise in Seattle and has been under the tutelage of Bill Sweeney, Seattle manager, and his coach, Babe Herman. Both feel he has good enough stuff to reach the Majors if he was ever able to curb his wildness. And both have a hunch that they have come a long wait in solving his difficulties.
Seattle also promised additional pitching held by the end of the week. The Rainiers said they intended to send along a left-hander before the weekend, but didn’t indicate who it would be.
Caps could have used some pitching support Thursday night in the first game of a double bill with Salem Senators.
Two pitchers, which included Gordie Brunswick for five innings, gave up 11 hits and a 11-2 decision to the hometown Salem crew.
Newcomer Jim Myers started. But he lasted only until the third. Then Gordie came in and from then on Salem saw nothing.
But Salem had done its damage. Four runs came across in the first and another seven in the second. Caps got one back in the sixth and the second in the seventh.
- - -
SALEM [Vancouver Province, Aug. 22]—Hugh Luby’s Salem Senators are even, in spades, with Vancouver for a four-game series loss they suffered early in the season to the Capilanos.
When the Caps came to town Tuesday, they were six games ahead of the fourth-place Senators. Today, after their fifth straight loss, they are exactly one game up on the Solons.
MYERS BEATEN
The five-game sweep included two doubleheader victories. Second twin win came Thursday, Salem taking the first 11-2 and the second 4-2.
In the seven-inning opener Vancouver starter Rookie Jim Muers, but he was yanked in the third after the Senators jumped on him for 11 runs.
The two were scored by Vancouver and were driven in by Jim Wert and John Ritchey.
DOUBLE-PLAYS HELP
In the nine-inning finale, Pitcher Jim [sic] McNulty scored his sixteenth victory of the season for the Senators. But he had to be pulled out of a bad jam in the eighth by Ted Edmunds. He was also aided by four double-plays.
Vancouver’s runs came on a walk and a double by Bob Duretto in the fourth and singles by Ed Locke and Jim Wert in the seventh.
The Caps, who lost infielders Jesse Williams and Len Tran via injuries in the Salem series, move on to Victoria tonight for a three-game series. Bob Snyder will pitch for Vancouver tonight.
First Game
Vancouver ...... 000 001 1—2 8 1
Salem ............ 470 000 0—11 11 0
Myers, Brunswick (3) and Leavitt; DiBiasi and Thrasher.
Second Game
Vancouver .... 000 100 100—2 12 0
Salem .......... 101 011 00x—4 9 0
Locke and Ritchey; McNulty, Edmunds (8) and Nelson.

LEWISTON, Aug. 21 — The Wenatchee Chiefs got revenge for a 4-2 loss to the Lewiston Broncs in the first game of their Western International league doubleheader Thursday
night by whamming out 17 hits in the nightcap for a 13-4 victory.
Laurie Monroe hit a bases-loaded home run and drove in six runs in the finale.
First Game
Wenatchee ..... 200 000 0—2 8 0
Lewiston ........ 120 100 x—4 7 1
Dasso, Dahle (4) and Pocekay; Thomason and Lundberg.
Second Game
Wenatchee ..... 500 220 040—13 17 0
Lewiston ........ 000 120 100—4 13 2
Stites and Pocekay; Nicholas, Powell (2), Clancy (6) and Lundberg.

Pasco-Kennwick Eagles Enjoy Big Night But Someone Loses Upper Plate
[Tri-City Herald, Aug. 20, 1952]
The Pasco and Kennewick Eagles had a big night Thursday at the Tri-City-Victoria doubleheader.
They cheered the hometown boys, booed the ump, gave presents to three of the veteran ballplayers, and somebody left the upper plate of their false choppers in a mug in the tavern.
No one has asserted that those teeth came from an Eagles jaw. But on the other hand, no one ever lost an upper plate at the ball park until the Eagles had their night.
At last accounts the teeth, were still there and any baseball fan who has been having trouble eating lately might check up.
The night was set aside to honor Vic Buccola and Nick Pesut. The two players were both made members of the lodge. Nick and Mrs. Pesut were given presents by firms and members of the lodge. Mrs. Buccola was not present but flowers were wired to her.
Braves Manager, Charlie Gassaway, was on the receiving end of the gift-giving, too. The wig-wagging third base coach was given a chair so he could use his feet as well as his hands to signal steals, hit and runs, and slide, brother, slide.
All three of the players came through to give the Eagles a show. Buccola got one of the three Tri-City hits in the first game and another in the second. He also drew three walks, and scored the winning run.
Nick didn't do so well at the plate but he gave a good demonstration of why not too many steal bases on him. In the first game, Nick pegged out four would-be Victoria base-stealers.
To the cheers of the crowd, Charlie stormed over to first and engaged in a three-minute verbal hassle with Ump Russ Kimpel when a Brave was pegged out at first.
It didn't change, the unpopular decision but the crowd of 1,610 enjoyed it.

Sports Notes
By Gil Gilmore

[Tri-City Herald, Friday, Aug. 22, 1952]
Nick Pesut, the Braves’ veteran catcher, has faced many a tough pitcher in his 12years of baseball but the toughest one of all wasn’t a tobacco-chewing husky with a fast ball.
In fact, the toughest he faced was a pitcher that had curves both over the plate and elsewhere.
The matter came up the other night when Nick and pitcher George New were having some friendly verbal repartee on their relative merits at the plate and on the mound.
Nick asserted he could get a hit off George if he ever had to face him. George was equally confident that Nick would never reach first base. Just when Nick was going strong, some scoundrel in the group brought up that matter of Nick Pesut and the Portland softball pitcher back in 1948.
STRIKEOUT
Nick, it seems, was not only struck out by the softball pitcher, but the pitcher was a woman at that. She was Betty Evans, ace hurler for Erv Lind's florist team of Portland, Ore.
The deal came about like this. Softball in general and women’s softball in particular wasn’t doing so good.
An arrangement was made whereby Betty would face eight Pacific Coast League sluggers—one of them Nick—in a pre-game exhibition. Nick was then with the Sacramento Solons.
There were 8,000 people in the stadium that day—and, ah, the humiliation of it all—big Nick struck out. Betty pitched just three times to Nick. But let him tell about it.
“This gal wound up and let go with one right down the center. I saw it coming and took a swing. The ball stopped right in front of my bat, stuck out its tongue, and dropped like it was rolled off the end of the table.
“She wound up again and this time I was set. She brought her arms up in front of her, swung them back, and then let the ball go—but this,time it came from her left hand. That thing curved a foot and a half.
“I didn’t even get to swing at the third pitch. The ball just went sailing by and the ump called me out.”
HE'S NOT ALONE
Nick had the satisfaction of knowing he wasn’t disgraced alone. Betty also struck out Charlie Silvera, Herman Reich and Frankie Zak of the Beavers, and Vince Castino of the Solons.
Eddie Basinski got a weak roller to the infield and Ted Jennings hit a hot one dpwn the third base line. Roy Helger did the best of them all. He clipped out a solid double.
“She made jackasses of us all,” Nick remarked.
After Nick’s story, George was more confident than ever he didn’t have to fear Nick at the plate.
George, incidentally, is feeling better now that he has tucked a couple of wins under his belt. Up to Thursday night's game George had 14 losses chalked against him—and 11 of them were by less than three runs.
In his last seven losses, five of them were by one point. Worse yet, George has a seven-inning the game hanging fire which he wishes was settled.
TIE GAME
The game was with Vancouver and it is supposed to be played over or finished this season. However, no one seems to know just when that will happen. As things stand now, George isn’t credited with some strikeouts he racked up in the game and some of the other players have not received credit for some hits.
LEAVING
If it is your intention for George or Bob Greenwood to pitch for Tri-City again you had better make it a point to get out and see them soon. It’s pretty certain neither of the boys will be in class A ball next year and they are not on the downgrade either.
COURTS
Tonight’s the night Wanatchee comes to town both to play baseball and maybe settle the Dick Richards-Laurie Monroe fight in the Court of Charles Morebeck, justice of the peace. But the bets are in this corner that nothin’ happens.

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