[italyprof]

National Baseball Association – 1947 Inaugural Season

The Binghamton Bluebirds ended up in last place in the Eastern League in our inaugural season. Very disappointing despite many bright spots.

Mainly we could not find reliable fourth and fifth starters.
Sad Sam Jones had good reason to be sad, starting out 1-11 with an ERA above 7.00. Vive Landemann went 7-19 with an ERA of 6.00. Phil Ortega 4-11 and 5.60.
We traded an AAA level backup outfielder for Fred Blanding who became our third starter, finishing 10-12 with a 4.63 ERA. Of our starters, only Robin Roberts, 11-13 with a 3.09 ERA and Don Newcombe 11-7 and 3.49 were consistent.
Joe Black was good in the bullpen, pitching 83 innings with 3.47 ERA. Hank Aguirre, also helped with 52 innings at 3.63 ERA. But they had no help until we brought Jim Konstanty up from the minor toward the end of the season giving us 28 good innings with 3.28 ERA.
Our offense had more success. Here are the results of our starting lineup:
C Yogi Berra, .289 30 HR
1B Vic Power .272 18 HR
2B Julian Javier .286 6 HR
3B Frank Baker .292 7 HR 15 stolen bases
SS Honus Wagner .324 7 HR and 29 stolen bases
RF Ben Chapman, leadoff hitter and, .251, .351 OBP, 29 steals
LF Smead Jolley .306 16 HR
CF Bill Tuttle .261 11 HR

With a rich bench of OF prospects, including Andy Pafko and Lee Magee, who both hit well in part-time roles this season, and with Smead Jolley showing up as a full time player, we traded Tuttle for pitcher Dolly Gray. We will likely bring up some pitching prospects to try to fill in the rotation, while giving Landemann and Sad Sam Jones another shot as well, and hope for the best.

Our 59-95 record will give us first pick in the first-year player draft for 1948.
Meanwhile, three young players, Jolley, Baker and Berra, showed incredible promise in their first seasons. They are a solid basis for a competitive team in the future, and they are all young enough that we have time find the missing pieces.

As for the rest of the league:
The Rochester Red Wings and Kansas City Monarchs won the Eastern and Western League pennants respectively. They will face off in the National Baseball Championship Series.

Stan Musial, the 24-year old star of the Green Bay Packers won the Western League batting title, leading both leagues with a .367 average and 48 home runs.
But Jim Greengrass was second in both batting and HRs, at .327 and 41 respectively, and Walter Holke hit .324 for third place. So I am learning about players new to me.
Socks Seybold’s 129 RBI led the league, ahead of Musial’s 110. But the West also saw a dominant pitching star: Kansas City’s Christy Mathewson won 21 games, had a 2.47 ERA and struck out 251 batters to win the pitching triple crown.
But the Eastern League saw lesser-known names rise to the fore:
George Burns of Newark hit .353 to lead the league. Moose McCormick, an even lesser well-known player hit .348 to end up in second place, with Al Kaline of Albany in third at .347.
Wally Westlake of Richmond hit 48 homers to lead the East, and he led with 136 RBI as well.
Fred Beebe (who?) of Providence won 19 games and had a 2.51 ERA to lead in both categories. Carl Weilman of Rochester won 16 and Dolly Gray, now with our team, won 15. I have never heard of any of these three league-leading pitchers.
Pat Malone and Luke Hamlin were second and third in ERA in the East.

So, just as I hoped, even though some very familiar names led batting and pitching in one league overall, players who were lesser stars showed up pretty big.
Now to the Championship Series for 1947, and the new player draft, and then on to 1948.