Jim’s Corner
March 9, 2004
What
a mind blowing experience this!
Here
are some of the highlights:
Period
3 saw Don Maxwell’s Dawgs run out to 21 wins to grab a 2 game lead on the
Willie Jelks’ Wild Weasels. Bill Terry
hit a whopping .474 for the Dawgs as he created 43 runs over the 30 games. Herb Pennock, crafty lefthander for the
Dawgs went 5-0 to pace their pitchers.
The
Eastern race between Albany and New York stayed status quo as both the
Avalanche and Woodchoppers went 19-11.
Lou Gehrig (who else) scored 44 runs, batted in 32, hit 9 bombs and
created 40 runs to pace the Avalanche.
New York was led by their big 3 (Al Simmons, Mel Ott, and Earle Combs)
who all hit over .400. Simmons kept
pace with Gehrig with 41 RCs while knocking in 36.
Player
of the period honors though went to the Mighty Hack Wilson of Rainier. Wilson did the following: 17 homers, 1.373
OPS, .897 slugging, 34 rbi’s to pace all the hitters. Bill Dickey of Beach City hit .477 for the period.
Pitcher
of the period went to Freddie Fitzsimmons of Disney World. Fitzsimmons went 6-0 to nudge out Pennock
and Lefty Grove of McGraw (1.57 ERA (5-1)).
One
of the interesting things that is popping up during the 30’s is the number of
triples hit. Al Simmons and Woody
English are on a full-scale assault of the Mitch Webster TML record of 30 that
has stood since 1986. Several players
are now nearing paces to approach Tony Gwynn’s TML hit record of 288 that has
stood for 20 years! Wow.
The
New York Woodchoppers dominated period 3 as they won 24 times in 28 games to
take a 2 game lead over Albany, who had the 2nd best record in the
TML with a 20-8. The Woodchoppers won
12 times on the road and 12 times at home in a period where they placed no one
in the top 10 in batting, on base, hits, homeruns or rbi’s but outscored their
opponents by 81 runs in the 28 games.
In a period where hitting was dominant, the Woodchopper pitchers stopped
the opponents hitters.
The
Wild Weasels also won 20 times and stretched their lead over the The Dawgs to
3. The Rainier Rowdies climbed into the
race and sit 6 back. The Weasels put no
one in the batting leaders but scored the most runs in the TML and allowed the
fewest in the North.
Guess
who won the honors for the batters in period 4? Yeah, it was Gehrig again.
Lou continued to dominate as he hit .425, slugged .783 and was on base
55.7% of the time while creating 48 runs in the 28 games. Heinie Manush of Auburn was runner up
hitting .467 to edge out Sam Rice of The Dawgs (.459) and Hack Wilson (12 more
bombs) of Rainier.
Pitching
honors were easily the property of Wes Ferrell of New York. Ferrell went 7-0 with a 2.84 ERA to best his
teammate Ted Lyons (7-1) and Charlie Root (6-1) of North Adams.
Through
98 games, Lou Gehrig (AV), Bill Terry (DM), Joe Cronin (AB), Bill Dickey (BC),
Babe Ruth (RV) and Lefty O’Doul (NA) are all over .400 with Earle Combs of NY
sitting at .399. Cronin, Terry and
Manush are all over 180 hits. The top
ten in rbi’s are all averaging over 1 a game as are the top ten in runs
scored. Babe Ruth has walked 115 times
in 98 games. Al Simmons has 82 extra
base hits in 98 games. Lou Gehrig has
already created 170 runs. These numbers
are just unreal.
On
the other hand, the pitching has not been that bad as Lefty Grove has a 3.13
ERA while Pat Malone of Wild and Ted Lyons of New York each have 17 wins.
1940 is eerily similar to 1940 only in terms of the races as Wild is holding a 10 games lead over Richmond in the North while…..
Period 3 saw Wild stretch its lead out by winning 21 times to Richmond’s 19. Luke Appling was the story for in the 30 games as he hit .404 with 57 hits to pace the Weasels. Teammate Barney McCoskey chipped in with 49 hits while hitting .368. Player of the period honors went to Hank Greenberg of St. Louis who hit .382 and set the pace in both on base and slugging to net a leading 1.229 OPS. Greenberg also hammered 10 homers and drove in 32 runs.
Johnny Gorsica of Wild set the pace for the pitchers with 6 wins and a 1.83 ERA,
The Disney World Yanks won the battle of Cohoes in period 3 as they won 17 times to edge out the New York Woodchoppers’ 16 wins. The Yanks and Choppers were the only 2 teams in the division over .500 for the period. The Yanks only gave up 112 runs in the 30 games, which was the best in the TML. Whitlow Wyatt and Claude Passeau each won 4 times to lead Disney.
Nothing much was different in the North in period 4 as Wild won 21 times to push Richmond 6 games further back and firmly take control. The East was dominated by New York and Disney again as the Woodchoppers won 22 times and vaulted past both Albany and Disney into the Eastern lead. Last year’s champs were paced by the middle of the order trio of Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Mel Ott who all took turns in knocking in Stan Hack.
Player of period 4 was Enos Slaughter of Richmond. Country hit .400 on 48 hits while creating 40 runs to beat out Bob Elliott of Wild for the honors.
Pitcher of the period went to Clyde Shoun of New York with a perfect 7-0 record on a 1.04 ERA. He beat out Paul Derringer of Wild (6-0, 1.70) and Woodchopper teammates Red Ruffing (6-0, 1.99) and Ted Lyons (5-0, 1.98).
The final 56 games in both 1930 and 1940 should be very interesting. Luke Appling holds a .003-point lead in the batting race over Joe DiMaggio (.369 to .366). Bill Nicholson has 105 rbi’s to Bob Elliot’s 104 in the RBI race and Johnny Mize is tied with Jimmie Foxx with 29 homers for the lead in the other triple crown category. Mize has created 111 runs to Slaughter’s 100 and Williams’ 107 in the RC race.
Ageless Freddie Fitzsimmons of Disney leads in ERA with a 2.57 while Gorsica has won 18 times for Wild.
New York leads Albany by 2 and Disney by 3 as the Cohoes duo have picked up 10 games on Albany in the past 2 periods.
Hank Aaron was the first pick in the 1954 draft. The prize rookie went to the Auburn Orioles. Manager Chick Wade quickly signed the Mobile, Alabama native to a lucrative 7-year deal. 2nd pick in the draft was Al Kaline who will be joining Mickey Mantle in Matt Pertierra’s Disney World outfield Talk about Fantasyland. Bill Lanke took outfielder Wally Moon for the Wabash Rivers with the 3rd pick and George Story grabbed Bob Grim with the 4th pick.
The 1954 draft was done via email and the total draft took 2 weeks. Plans are to hold the 1970 draft in the same fashion.
TML 1954 will kick off on April 5th. It will be the 50th TML campaign as we start our Silver Anniversary.
Draft order for the first round (with trades implemented) is:
NY (from DY), TG, DW, HM, CS, MV, NH, SV, RR, NY, BC, MG, AV, BC (from NA), WW, FC
Anyone wishing a 1970 database (with the official rosters and rookie list enclosed) let me know.
No reports in on the World Series. Mike? Bryan?
After an initial IM bug, and the longest 1st round ever in the National, the draft went very quickly and smoothly. At TML Central were Rich Goldberg, Scott Lagace and Pat Barry. Everyone else was on line and the draft went according to plan.
17 of the 24 picks in the first round were traded in a typical flurry. Here is how the first round went:
1) AL Brandon Webb, 2) SV Dontrelle Willis, 3) AV Miguel Cabrera, 4) BO Jose Reyes, 5) BC Mark Teixeira, 6) NB Rich Harden, 7) DV Rocco Baldelli, 8) TG Hideki Matsui, 9) BD Edwin Jackson, 10) BD Jerome Williams, 11) MG Francisco Rodriguez, 12) BO Ryan Wagner, 13) AV Jason Bay, 14) FM Khalil Greene, 15) BC Jose Contreras, 16) ZR Jody Gerut, 17) MF Scott Podsednik, 18) RR Jason Phillips, 19) MG Miguel Olivo, 20) GC Chin-hui Tsao, 21) MG Justin Morneau, 22) MV Cliff Lee, 23) BC Alex Cintron, 24) TG Jae Weong Seo
We will look back at this 5 years from now and see who was lucky and who wasn’t. For the record, the 165th and final pick of the draft was Savannah taking Trever Miller.
TML2003 will kick off on April 5th. It will be our 25th consecutive current season.
God willing, still with us to start the Silver Anniversary are the following managers who rolled the dice using Replay back in 1980 and have been there all 25 years:
Art Albanese, Larry Alber, Rich Goldberg, Rocky Hall, Mike Mayko, Dave Pittner, Jim Schembari, Doug Zuchowski and Jim Pertierra. It is absolutely incredible to think that 9 of the original 20 are still going a quarter of a century later.
Additionally, charter member Dave Yamin returns as manager of the Boston Daschunds.
I love you guys!
Then….
Pittsburgh – May 28-30, 2004.
Thus far I have commitments from:
Pat Barry, Larry Alber, Dave Yamin, Kevin Powers, Roy Gorham, Brandon Rose, Mike Ameen, George Mowry, Matt Pertierra, Willie Jelks, Rocky Hall, Dave Pittner, Tom Ross, Richard Ross and myself. Did I miss anyone?
Although I write this every Jim’s Corner, they still come in all different forms. Here is the official form:
The standard TML series naming convention is HHRRYY (Home team initial, Road
team initial, TML Year) when reporting a series. (NYTG69)
Only 4 weeks to go!
Jim Pertierra 3/9/2004