THIS WEEK IN FIGMENT BASEBALL
June 7, 1937
KINGS EXTEND CONTINENTAL LEAD WITH 2 WINS OVER CLEVELAND
The Brooklyn Kings are riding a 5 game winning streak after beating the second place Cleveland Foresters twice over the weekend. The victories improved the Kings Continental Association leading record to 30-17 and put them 2 games up on Cleveland, which had pulled even earlier in the week after Brooklyn was swept in a 3-game set by Montreal. While still not quite on the level it was a year ago, the Brooklyn offense is starting to hit on all cylinders with Al Wheeler, who was named Player of the Month for May, leading the way with a .347 batting average and a league leading 11 homers and 44 rbi's. The Kings pitching has also been surprisingly stable this season with Joe Shaffner (7-1, 2.42) and Art White (7-3, 4.76) looking solid.
The big surprise in Brooklyn has been the emergence of Curly Jones (1-2, 3.64) as a starting pitching option once again. Jones has had more than his share of notoriety over the years starting with when he briefly quit baseball just a month after being drafted 1st overall by the New York Gothams. Fellow Georgia native Rufus Barrell is said to have been among those who convinced Jones to change his mind and 2 years later he won 12 games and a World Championship Series with the Gothams. He then fell out of favour in New York the following season amid rumours questioning his work ethic and seemingly having forgot how to throw strikes, prompting New York to trade him as part of their great purge last summer. Brooklyn brought him along slowly and had highly regarded pitching coach Bill Libby spend plenty of time with him. Jones was recently given a start and then last Monday, was asked to throw in the second game of a doubleheader with Montreal. The Kings lost that game but Jones pitched well enough to earn another start and it came Sunday against Cleveland. It was his best outing in 2 years as Jones went the distance, allowing 7 hits and walking 4, in a 5-2 victory: his first win as a King. It is clear from that performance he will get more opportunities to start in an already crowded Brooklyn pitching rotation.
BOSTON IS TRYING TO CRASH THE FED PARTY
While everyone was focused on the big three in the Federal Association all playing head to head last week the Boston Minutemen quietly snuck in and stole their thunder. First place Chicago did have a big week, taking two of three from St Louis to start and finishing the week with 2 wins over 2nd place Pittsburgh to extend their lead on the Miners to 4 and a half games. However, in between those two series the Boston Minutemen waltzed into Whitney Park and took two of three games from the defending champs. The Minutemen then continued on to St Louis and completed a 5-2 week with a pair of victories over the Pioneers, allowing them to leapfrog St Louis and climb in to third place.
It is perhaps interesting that at this point last season the Minutemen were in almost the same position. They were just coming off a big series with the Chicago Chiefs, in this case a 3-game sweep rather than the 2 of 3 that Boston claimed vs Chicago last week. The Minutemen looked like they were on the rise in early June of '36 but then disaster struck as on June 11th their ace Dick Higgins blew out his elbow and Boston finished a distant 19 games back.
Could the story be different this time for the Minutemen, a team that has suffered more than it's fair share of injuries to key players? Boston already has young first baseman Bob Donoghue (.252,2,16) back after missing most of last year and much of April but so far Donoghue has not yet reclaimed the form that had him as one of the most exciting young players in the game prior to last year's injury. Word is that Higgins is also poised to return and early indications are the injury did nothing to sap the 24 year old of his enormous potential. If Higgins can get back to his pre-injury form and Donoghue can regain his touch with the bat, who knows, the Minutemen might just have a chance to win their first pennant since 1915.
CHIEFS HAPPY WITH WEEK
For their part the Chicago Chiefs had no complaints after dropping 2 games to Boston. The Chiefs had an 8 game week with the Monday doubleheader, all against first division clubs, and came away with a 5-3 record. Even with the Association lead some changes are being contemplated by the defending champs. Second sacker Pete Layton has not regularly played shortstop since 1930, but the Chiefs are toying with the idea of sliding him over so that Len Jones can play regularly. Jones seems to have recovered from whatever batting funk he was in last season, and while Chicago loves Bob Barringer's glove at SS, it is a big offensive black hole. Rabbit Day started June off nicely with 8 strong innings in a 5-3 win over Pittsburgh on Saturday. The reigning Federal Association Allen Award winner was happy to turn the page on May after going 3-4 with a 4.59 ERA. Overall he's 5-4, 4.38 ERA. But he has a FIP of 3.78 and a FIP- of 88, so I suspect he'll be just fine.
GOTHAMS ENJOY SOME RARE WINS
The New York Gothams went 5-3 last week for their first winning week of the season. Rookie centerfielder Howard Brown Jr continues to impress with another strong week and Brown, one of the players who came over from Boston last season in the John Wicklund trade, is hitting .364 on the season, an average good enough to place him 6th in the Fed batting race.
23 year old 3B Billy Dalton had himself quite a first week at AAA. The 25th ranked prospect went 8-21 with a double, homer and 8 RBI. Coming off a .336/.466/.634/1.100 line in 35 AA games this season, Dalton may be headed for a cup of coffee in NY later this season.
HIGH SCHOOL ALL-AMERICAN TEAM ANNOUNCED AS CASSTEVENS WINS ADWELL AWARD
The FABL draft is less than a month away and one of the players vying to be selected first overall is a high school catcher with a famous father by the name of Pete Casstevens. The son of former big leaguer Clint Casstevens, who spent over a decade in the FABL with Montreal and Pittsburgh, added to his list of accomplishments by being named the winner of the 1937 Adwell Award as the best high school baseball player in the nation.
The 18 year old Pete is a power hitting catcher who played three seasons at Syracuse (NY) High School. He slashed .491/.540/.938 as a senior and led the nation with 10 homers. He also socked 10 homers last year as a junior, which was second behind only Walt Messer, who was a two time Adwell Award winner before being selected second overall by the New York Gothams in last year's draft. Casstevens was named a High School All-American all three of his seasons at Syracuse High. Nicknamed 'Peanut', he was born in Canada while his father was with the Montreal Saints organization and has committed to Grafton University but all indications are he will turn pro.
His father Clint did attend an Academia Conference school as well, playing his college ball at Dickson College, winning a National Championship at the school in 1915 and still holds several school records for the Maroons. Clint, an outfielder, was selected by Montreal 13th overall in the 1917 draft and won a World Championship Series with the Saints in 1921 before being dealt to Pittsburgh that off-season. He would win the Federal Association Whitney Award in 1924 with the Miners, interrupting a string of 5 Whitney's in 6 years for the legendary Max Morris. In all, the elder Casstevens played 1,259 big league games, batting .309 with 1,385 career hits. He retired as a player following the 1933 season, spending his final four years in AAA with the Syracuse Excelsiors, an independent club in the Union League.
Finalists who received consideration for the Adwell Award included second baseman Roosevelt Brewer, a senior out of Washington High School in Chicago, and Minneapolis High School pitcher Donnie Jones, a junior. Jones was also a finalist last year for the award and his older brother Johnnie was a first round pick of the New York Stars in last year's draft.
The Adwell Award was established in 1934 is named after Red Adwell. Adwell was the winningest pitcher in high school history under the old feeder league system, pitching for Birmingham High School from 1910 thru 1913 before going on to spend a decade in FABL with the Pittsburgh Miners, Chicago Chiefs and Philadelphia Keystones.
Here is the complete list of ADWELL AWARD WINNERS
Code:
ADWELL AWARD WINNERS
NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL PLAYER OF THE YEAR
YEAR NAME POS CL SCHOOL
1934 Walt Messer 1B SO McKinley Tech - Washington DC
1935 Rufus Barrell II P SR Macon (GA) HS
1936 Walt Messer 1B SR McKinley Tech - Washington DC
1937 Pete Casstevens C SR Syracuse (NY) HS
Casstevens is the lone player to be named to the High School All-American team for a third consecutive year but there are several players appearing on the team for the second time. They include a pair of sophomores in Cal Morgan an Wally Fuller as well as junior pitcher and Adwell Award nominee Donnie Jones. The seniors who are making their second appearance on the list are second baseman Roosevelt Brewer, also an Adwell finalist and potential first overall draft choice, as well as outfielder Roy Harris and pitchers Al Duster and Cliff Atkinson.
For the first time in the 4 year history of the All-American list there were a pair of high school teammates both named to the team. They are both outfielders from Hillsdale High School in Michigan as senior Cotton Dillon and his Hillsdale Cougars teammate John Smith, a sophomore, both made the cut. Here are the 1937 High School All-Americans.
Code:
1937 HIGH SCOOL ALL-AMERICAN SELECTIONS
NAME/CLASS SCHOOL
C Pete Casstevens – SR (3) Syracuse (NY)
C Cal Morgan – SO (2) Alexandria (IN) HS
1b-3b Maury Campbell – JR Decatur (IL) HS
1b-3b Wally Fuller – SO (2) Collegiate HS (New York City)
1b-3b Pete Giamo – FR Bristol (PA) HS
2b-SS Roosevelt Brewer – SR (2) Washington HS (Chicago, IL)
2b-SS Howard Rivers – JR Brandeis HS (New York City)
2b-SS Verlin Alexander – JR Lexington (MO) HS
OF Happy Ellison – JR Sycamore HS (Cincinnati , OH)
OF John Smith – SO Hillsdale (MI) HS
OF Gus Byrd- SO Plymouth (PA) HS
OF Roy Harris – SR (2) Fairfax HS (Los Angeles, CA)
OF Cotton Dillon – SR Hillsdale (MI) HS
P Donnie Jones – JR (2) Minneapolis (MN) HS
P Al Duster – SR (2) Council Bluffs (IA) HS
P Cliff Atkinson – SR (2) Beaver (PA) HS
P David Molina – SR Florissant (MO) HS
P Joe Standish Jr – SR Brooklyn Tech, Brooklyn, NY
HONOURABLE MENTION
P Slim Cook – SR Haddonfield (NJ) HS
P Ed Funkhouser – SR St Albans HS (Washington, DC)
P Red Hampton – FR Corning (NY) HS
C Rick York – JR Terre Haute (IN) HS
INF Eric Fiore- SR East HS (Cleveland, OH)
INF Luke Micheals- SR Santa Barbara (CA) HS
INF Herb Carey – JR West Point (VA) HS
OF Del Boggs – SO Nashua (NH) HS
OF Bill Murname – SR Stone Mountain (GA) HS
THIS WEEK AROUND THE WORLD
Baseball and all others sports in the Figment universe are, while based on real life, completely fictional in terms of both the participants and the teams. Our game does not exist in a vacuum however, as real world events of the era do have an impact on our league. One example of this is the impact the Great Depression had on the sport with one owner, Toronto's Bert Thomas, losing both his fortune and his club due to the financial crisis. Going forward all Figment GM's are bracing for the impact the second World War will have on their rosters as players rush to enlist after the US enters the war.
A new feature that is planned to become a regular part of TWIFB is a look at what is going on in the world outside of baseball. Courtesy of our Chicago bureau here are some of the key news events that are shaping our world this week:
History highlights for the week of 5/31/1937:
* In response to Spanish Loyalists bombing a Reich ship, German warships fire 300 shells onto the city of Almeria. London diplomats are racing to calm tensions, afraid that the Spanish conflict could escalate into an international war.
* Striking steelworkers and police clash in Chicago, leaving scores of striking workers dead.
* Edward, Duke of Windsor, marries Mrs. Wallis Warfield in France. In marrying Warfield, a divorced American, Edward abdicated his claim on the English crown.
* Amelia Earhart landed in Venezuela on the first leg of her flight around the world.