Note- I am not updating football this week as I think it is a little ahead of schedule in trying to keep all of the league's flowing together nicely to match up with our online baseball results. Week Six of the NFL and college football will come next update.
AUGUST 29, 1938
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
Our only hope for a pennant race remains in the National League where the Chicago Cubs did manage to gain a game this week on St Louis and now trail the first place Cardinals by 5 games with the two teams playing a pair of games next weekend. With the season about to enter it's final month the New York Giants appear to have dropped out of contention as they are now 10.5 games back of St Louis but they do have 9 games remaining with the Cardinals including 3 this week.
St Louis will open the week with 3 in Philadelphia before playing 3 games at the Polo Grounds. The Cardinals have a terrible schedule with back to back doubleheaders Saturday in New York and then Sunday against the Cubs after a long train ride back home. St Louis and Chicago will meet just two more times after the Sunday twin bill.
In the American League the New York Yankees continue to roll as they head towards their third straight Pennant. The Yankees won 8 of their last 9 games and are now 16 games ahead of the second place Boston Red Sox. Only Cleveland ace Bob Feller was able to slow New York during that time frame. Feller shut down the Yankees in a 4-1 Tribe victory but he left the game with an elbow injury, which again had Cleveland fans holding their breath. The word this time is it is not serious and the 19 year old strikeout artist will miss just 1 start. Feller missed most of the 1937 season with elbow troubles and they flared up again this June forcing him to the sidelines for a couple of weeks.
Code:
MLB STANDINGS
AMERICAN LEAGUE W L GB NATIONAL LEAGUE W L GB
New York 86 36 - St Louis 79 41 -
Boston 70 53 16.0 Chicago 75 47 5.0
Cleveland 65 57 21.0 New York 69 52 10.5
Philadelphia 57 63 28.0 Pittsburgh 64 59 16.5
Detroit 57 64 28.5 Boston 55 69 26.0
Washington 53 70 33.5 Brooklyn 53 70 27.5
St Louis 50 71 35.5 Cincinnati 49 74 31.5
Chicago 48 73 37.5 Philadelphia 45 77 35.0
HITTING LEADERS
AVERGAE AVERAGE
Travis WSH .368 Wright PHI .361
Almada BOS .362 Medwick STL .357
Stone PHA .359 Phelps BKN .357
Weatherly CLE .358 Mize STL .356
Rolfe NYY .356 Vaughan PIT .352
HOME RUNS HOME RUNS
Trosky CLE 41 Mize STL 31
DiMaggio NYY 28 Ott NYG 27
Foxx BOS 27 Medwick STL 26
Gordon SLA 26 Johnson CIN 23
Gehrig NYY 26 DiMaggio PHI 19
Solters BKN 19
RBIs RBIs
DiMaggio NYY 107 Medwick STL 108
Gordon SLA 106 Mize STL 106
Gehrig NYY 105 Suhr PIT 97
Trosky CLE 102 Ott NYG 91
Foxx BOS 101 P Waner PIT 87
Greenberg DET 96 Cavarretta CHN 86
PITCHING LEADERS
WINS WINS
Ruffing NYY 20-5 P Dean STL 17-5
Gomez NYY 17-7 Carleton STL 17-7
Feller CLE 16-6 D Dean STL 17-7
McFayden NYY 15-6 Lee CHN 17-7
Grove BOS 14-4 Castleman NYG 17-10
Broaca NYY 14-5 French CHN 16-10
Weaver DET 14-11
STRIKE OUTS STRIKE OUTS
Feller CLE 177 D Dean STL 136
Gomez NYY 149 P Dean STL 132
Allen CLE 118 Mungo BKN 126
Rowe DET 116 Blanton PIT 125
Ruffing NYY 106 Carleton CHN 118
Newson WSH 105 Melton BKN 108
ERA ERA
Broaca NYY 2.31 P Dean STL 2.16
Grove BOS 2.51 D Dean STL 2.33
Ruffing NYY 2.84 Mungo BKN 2.47
Gomez NYY 2.96 Castleman NYG 2.76
Mills CHA 3.04 French CHN 3.01
Feller CLE 3.10 Hallahan STL 3.02
McFayden NYY 3.30 Carleton CHN 3.05
MAJOR LEAGUE NOTES: Taffy Wright has taken over the National League batting average lead after going 15-for-27 (.556) last week. The 26 year old Philadelphia Phillies outfielder was named the NL Player of the Week. On the season he is hitting .361 with 5 homers and 64 rbi's. The American League weekly award went to Yankee catcher Bill Dickey, who hit .542 with a pair of homers and 8 rbi's in 7 games. It was the second time this season the 31 year old all-star catcher was named player of the week. Dickey is batting .344 with 17 homers and 87 rbi's.
Cleveland's Hal Trosky hit one homer last week, a two-run shot in a win over the White Sox last Monday, but he did not add to his total the rest of the week. With 41 on the season, Trosky is still on pace to surpass the 50 homerun mark.
Pittsburgh rookie outfielder Joe Grace came within 1 of equaling a major league record for at bats in a game. The 23 year old went five-for-10 with a homer and 4 rbi's in the Bucs 11-7 win over Boston last week that needed 17 innings to decide. The record for at bats in a game is 11 which has been accomplished 5 times, most recently by Johnny Burnett and Ed Morgan, who each did it for Cleveland in a 1932 game.
Red Ruffing became the first twenty game winner in Major League Baseball this season. The 33 year old Yankee righthander went the distance in a 4-1 win over Detroit to run his record to 20-5 on the season. Ruffing surpassed the twenty win mark each of the past two seasons, going 27-7 in 1936 and 22-10 last year.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION
Any hopes, slight as they might have been entering the week, of the Columbus Red Birds catching Kansas City for the second playoff spot were extinguished this week as the Red Birds dropped 4 of 6 games against the bottom three team teams in the American Association this week. Entering the week on a 6 game winning streak, Columbus fell to Indianapolis 10-6 on Monday. After rebounding to beat the Indians in their series finale Tuesday, Columbus then proceeded to drop two of three in Louisville before losing the opener of a 3-game set at St Paul yesterday. The Sunday win for the Saints was made possible by an all too rare outstanding outing from Satchell Paige (8-13, 4.54). The injury ravaged 32 year old tossed a 4-hit shutout to gain a 2-0 win over Columbus. Despite dropping his previous six decisions, Paige has looked much better of late but he is still a long ways from the pitcher the Saints expected - and enjoyed- for the first few months of the 1936 season before two major injuries derailed his career.
As for the Red Birds, they are now 11.5 games back of Kansas City for the wildcard berth. The Blues did not have a stellar week themselves, splitting their six games on the week. Had Columbus been able to continue their hot streak, which saw them go 15-3 before last week, perhaps next week's series between the Red Birds and Blues in Kansas City might have meant something.
Either way it will be hard to imagine anyone knocking off Toledo in a playoff series. The Mud Hens have won 10 of their last 11 after going 5-1 this week to extend their lead on second place Kansas City to 12 games. Toledo also went 5-2 against the Blues in their two series last month.
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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION STANDINS
W L GB
Toledo 88 36 -
Kansas City 76 48 12.0
Columbus 65 60 23.5
Minneapolis 61 64 27.5
Milwaukee 58 65 29.5
Louisville 52 73 36.5
St Paul 49 74 38.5
Indianapolis 48 77 40.5
LEADERS AVG
Chuck Klein MIN .363
Lonny Frey TOL .352
Martin Dihigo MIL .352
Joe Vosmik LOU .342
Roy Hughes MIL .341
Johnny Rizzo COL .338
Dale Alexander KC .336
Benny McCoy TOL .335
HOME RUNS
Benny McCoy TOL 24
Chet Laabs TOL 22
Rudy York MIL 20
Johnny Rizzo COL 19
Ted Williams MIN 19
Lin Storti MIL 18
Buzz Arlett MIN 17
Roy Cullenbine TOL 17
Clyde McCullough KC 17
RBI's
Chet Laabs TOL 105
Benny McCoy TOL 99
Roy Cullenbine TOL 95
Rudy York MIL 93
Martin Dihigo MIL 92
Phil Weintraub TOL 89
Buck Leonard LOU 88
Johnny Rizzo COL 86
PITCHING
WINS
Denny Galehouse MIN 21-11
Al Hollingsworth KC 20-4
Paul Derringer TOL 20-6
Carl Hubbell MIN 20-14
Fred Gay KC 17-9
Gene Schott TOL 16-4
Rip Schroeder COL 16-7
Archie McKain TOL 15-10
STRIKEOUTS
Dizzy Trout IND 163
Wayne LeMaster LOU 163
Carl Hubbell MIN 146
Johnny Rigney StP 145
Denny Galehouse MIN 124
Max Macon COL 121
Ken Heintzelman LOU 113
Lefty Smoll TOL 105
ERA
Gene Schott TOL 2.70
Al Hollingsworth KC 3.05
Dizzy Trout IND 3.11
Lloyd Johnson IND 3.31
Ted Kleinhans KC 3.36
Denny Galehouse MIN 3.41
Carl Hubbell MIN 3.44
Johnny Johnson TOL 3.44
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION NOTES: Despite the Red Birds slowing down this week, 22 year old Columbus outfielder Enos Slaughter did more than enough to capture player of the week honours. The second year player hit .550 last week (11-20) with a pair of homers and 9 rbi's. On the season Slaughter is batting .323 with 13 round trippers and 72 rbi's.
Another young Columbus outfielder had a big day last week. 26 year old Johnny Rizzo enjoyed a 5-hit game in the Red Birds 10-6 loss to Indianapolis to start the week. Rizzo, who is batting .338 with 19 homers and 86 rbi's, went five-for-five with all of the hits being singles.
Jimmy Wasdell of the Indians is riding a 20-game hit streak. The 24 year old is batting .311 on the season and his streak is the second longest this year. Chuck Klein of Minneapolis, who leads the league with a .363 batting average, had a 29 game streak earlier in the season. Klein's mark is the standard in the 3 year old history of the American Association as a major league.
How dominant are the first place Mud Hens? They lead the AA in just about every category including runs scored, fewest runs allowed and defensive efficiency and zone rating. Toledo's 765 runs scored are nearly 100 more than second place Columbus and their 513 runs against are nearly 100 less than any other team except second place Kansas City, which has surrendered 544 runs.