[italyprof]

Here is how things stand a little past midway through our first season, 1947.

We are doing better than expected, though early on we had real trouble with our 3-4-5 starters. Traded Culp who got us nowhere, and got Jesse Flores. Had to send Jack McDowell down to the minors, Marty Pattin too. Weirdly, our most effective starter the past couple of months has been a 46-year old Tommy John. We had to move Sid Fernandez to the rotation to take up the slack when Al Downing got injured. He is still on the injured list. But having Lilly and Fernandez in the bullpen as essentially starters, one young, Lilly, one in the twilight of his career but still effective, has been an advantage.

I also got real tired of how often my CF Granderson struck out. I traded him and Rich Dauer for Joe Pepitone, who is currently in CF but will replace the aging Tony Perez as our regular first baseman. We got Daryl Hamilton as a good fielding CF and we also have Elliott Maddox, so CF won't be too big a worry, even if it is not our strongest position. I was sorry to have to give up Dauer, as Ripken is no spring chicken at 3B and Dauer would have replaced him there. But Ripken should be good for one more full time season and is after all Iron Man so to speak.

Yaz, playing for the Milwaukee Blue Jays, leads the majors in home runs with 19, Alonzo leads the AL. Bruce Bochte for Brooklyn, and Bill Buckner for Youngstown are the batting leaders, and Buster Posey for the Baltimore Beavers leads the AL. Baltimore also has Greg Maddux, which as you can see is a great thing to have. Though Milwaukee's Kelvin Escobar is not much inferior.

More to play. Let's see how 1947 ends up. More soon.