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May 10th-12th, 1946
Baltimore Bombers (12-12) at Cincinnati Redbirds (9-14)
We go to Cincinnati for a three game series. The Redbirds, despite probably having 2-3 future hall of famers in their starting lineup, have looked just terrible so far this year and are chugging along extra slowly.
May 10th: We manage just one run on five hits. Once again our pitcher goes the distance and is rewarded with a loss. By the fifth inning I had turned off my radio out of sheer disgust. Redbirds 3, Bombers 1.
May 11th: We manage to get 12 baserunners, but only one of them crosses the plate all game. Now this, folks, is the team I thought I was taking over. Where the hell is the offense? Where the hell is the pitching? Our ****ing pitcher scored the only run of the afternoon. This is not good baseball. Sure Lonnie Brown is mediocre, but you guys aren’t giving him a chance. Redbirds 4, Bombers 1. 3B Don Ellis is 0-4 again and 1-16 in the last four games. This is something I’ll have to ask Cliff and Broadus to keep an eye on, because our best hitter declining would have serious repercussions for us.
Word comes from the Boston press that 2B Pete Ebersbacher has demanded a trade from the Trolleys due to his rapidly disappearing playing time. Ebersbacher's demand comes as a bit of surprise to the Boston fanbase, who have watched him hit more than 1600 baseballs past people in his career, and rumor has it he'd like to be traded to the Indians if at all possible. I admire the guts: demand a trade and then tell them where to send you. Still Pete might just get his wish: the Indians have a real need at every position on the diamond more or less and can you imagine the media firestorm if the Trolleys shipped him out of town forcibly?
May 12th: Finally some offense! We manage to draw eight walks and score six runs on just seven hits. Harry Margioles is still hot with the bat (.324), but Don Ellis is hitless again. Bombers 6, Redbirds 4. One of three is not ideal, but I’m beginning to think our team might be a bit worse than we looked early on so I’m okay with it. We’re back to Boston for two more next.
Mary informs me of the bad news later that evening. Apparently after the previous game apparently 3B Louis Gibsch got into it with a Cincinnati heckler outside of the ballpark and unleashed a “tirade of expletives”, as the Evening Sun puts it, and may have had to be restrained. Gibsch is probably in the right to some extent: we’re playing badly and hecklers are sad people, but when I asked Cliff about it he told me the Gibsch had a reputation as a bench jockey who had, as bench jockeys do, spent his entire career yelling epithets at the opposing team to take them off their game. In fact a newspaper description in the Sun circa 1940 I had Mary look up had said Gibsch was so vulgar to the other team that he was worth “4 or 5 wins a season based on the recollections of the pitchers he’d raddled.” What a world! A grown man who plays a children game is paid good money to shout things at other men from the bench. I’d see about fining him to get this issue to blow over.
May 13th-14th, 1946
Baltimore Bombers (13-14) at Boston Indians (7-17)
May 13th: Boston absolutely smokes us with a final line of Indians 10, Bombers 3. Apparently we can’t beat a damn team that’s 7-17 with our ace on the mound? Ron Washington in Centerfield is hitting just .134 so that’s somewhere we’ll improve when Pierre Caron returns in a couple of weeks.
May 14th: We collapse in the late innings again and give up a game we should have had in the bag. Don Ellis is 0 for 4 again and begging for a lineup demotion. Anis Brun is the goat of the game and takes the loss. Indians 7, Bombers 5. At least we can’t blame this on our starting pitcher?
In Philadelphia, Keystones fans have yet another distinction to be ashamed of as 33 year old minor-league journeyman Rich Bortz shuts them out on four hits at Northside Park. Rumor has it the Stones owner is going to have to start giving out tickets outside the stadium to get people to watch his product. Inviting the much better looking White Sox into the same part of town for some paltry rent money may have been a mistake.
With a 5-3 victory of Cincinnati the Metros are now just 1 and 1/2 games out of first place in the Federal League.
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