July 24, 1939
MCCORMICK LEADS CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION TO ALL-STAR VICTORY
There is something about Fred McCormick and winning all-star games. McCormick is not just the first to be named the Most Valuable Player in two all-star games as for the second year in a row he claimed the award following the Continental Association's 6-3 doubling of Federal stars in Cleveland last Tuesday but he has also become something of a good luck charm as well. McCormick, you see is the only player to be on the winning side for 6 all-star contests without tasting defeat. He played for the Federal side in 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1937 while with St Louis and the Feds won each of those games. He was not selected to the 1936 team and that was the first time the Federal Association came up on the losing end. Prior to the 1938 season McCormick was dealt from the Pioneers to Toronto and he has been the MVP and led the Continental stars to wins in each of the last two games.
The boxscore from the 1935 game is lost to time but in his other three all-star games for the Federal side McCormick did not enjoy much personal success. He was used as a pinch-hitter in both '33 and '34 and went 0-for-1 each game. 1937 was a 19 inning affair that saw McCormick play the entire game but went 0-for-8 with 5 strikeouts. However, once he switched to the CA his bat has been working overtime. First it was the 3-for-6 performance last year with a pair of doubles and 2 rbi's in a 5-4 victory in 14 innings. This time around he was even more impressive with a 3-for-3 game that featured a double and two triples plus he was walked twice. McCormick also drove in a pair of runs and scored once himself in a 6-3 win for his Continental Association side.
McCormick got started quickly with a 2-out triple in the bottom of the first inning but the game remained scoreless when Fed starter Frank Crawford of Detroit got Joe Watson to pop out and end the threat. It was the Fed's who actually struck first as Sal Pestilli led off the top of the third with a solo homerun off of Gus Goulding. McCormick erased that lead quickly when he hit his second triple, this one to score the Sailors Bob Smith, in the bottom of the third and the Toronto star would score on a Joe Watson ground out to give the CA the lead 2-1.
It was a brief lead as Goulding, the young Baltimore hurler, got into trouble in the fourth by allowing 2 runs on 3 hits including Sal Pestilli's second rbi of the day before CA manager Powell Slocum went to the pen and called on Lou Martino to limit the damage to a 3-2 Federal Association lead.
The game stayed 3-2 until the bottom of the 7th when, with Boston's Art Myers now on the mound for the Feds, Mel Carrol led off with a single and moved to second on a McCormick walk. A fly ball from Watson was deep enough to move Carrol to third and he raced home to tie the game on John Lawson's sacrifice fly. Myers stayed on to pitch the eighth inning and a lead-off walk to Fred Galloway led to trouble as the Continental stars took the lead on a 2-out pinch-hit double off the bat of 40 year old Dave Trowbridge. Pittsburgh's Charlie Stedman took over for Myers but he was quickly greeted by a Mel Carrol single to score Trowbridge and then McCormick ripped his third extra-base hit of the game, a double to plate Carrol and put the Continental stars up 6-3. Brooklyn's Bob Cummings closed out the game when he came on with 1 on and 1 out in the ninth but retired Sal Pestilli on a fly ball and then struck out Tom Bird to end the game. Cummings, who was the winner a year ago, earned the save while his Brooklyn teammate Art White was credited with the victory. Boston's Myers was tagged with the loss.
The Series now sits at 4 wins to three in favour of the Federal Association.
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PAST ALL STAR GAME RESULTS
YEAR LOCATION RESULT WINNING PITCHER MVP
1933 Whitney Park Federal 8 Continental 5 Ben Curtin STL Pete Asher PIT
1934 Riverside Stadium Federal 11 Continental 7 (10) Chick Stout PIT Tom Taylor Cougars
1935 Broad Street Park Federal 5 Continental 2 Art Myers Keystones Freddie Jones StL
1936 Pioneer Field Continental 6 Federal 4 Tom Barrell BKN Dick Walker Sailors
1937 Dominion Field Federal 4 Continental 2 (19) Don Attaway Keystones Don Attaway Keystones
1938 Bigsby Oval Continental 5 Federal 4 (13) Bob Cummings BKN Fred McCormick TOR
1939 Forester Stadium Continental 6 Federal 3 Art White BKN Fred McCormick TOR
DYNAMOS SWEEP MINUTEMEN BUT INJURIES DAMPEN EXCITEMENT OF WEEK
A week ago the Boston Minutemen were celebrating knocking off the Federal Association leaders when they replaced Pittsburgh in top spot with a 3-game sweep of the Miners. This week the Minutemen were on the other side of things as they looked sluggish coming out of the all-star break and were swept in a 3-game series at Thompson Field in Detroit. The three wins did not allow Detroit to overtake Boston for top spot in the Fed but when the dust settled at the end of the week Detroit was just a half game back of Boston.
The Dynamos offense is picking up steam as they scored 29 runs in 4 games since the break including outscoring Boston 12-8 and 7-4 in the first two games. The third game of the series featured much better pitching from both sides and Detroit also took that one, by a 2-1 score in 13 innings with one of the new Detroit players (although he is also an old Dynamo star as well) Frank Vance being the hero with a walk-off rbi double. That win did prove costly for Detroit as Leon Drake (.283,3,34) left the game with an injury and will miss 6 weeks.
The injury bug bit the Dynamos organization pretty hard last week as it will be 1-2 weeks for starter Sergio Gonzales and 2nd round draft pick Alfie Balcazar is done for the season with a knee injury suffered in a minor league game. Still at 16-4 in July the positives greatly outweigh the negatives in Detroit this month. Detroit has a big series starting Tuesday with Pittsburgh but before then the Dynamos have a Monday date with Philadelphia, after beating the Keystones 9-8 in 10 innings yesterday. With the injury to Gonzales there is a tough decision on who starts the game tomorrow against the Keystones. Jack Richardson has a dead arm for 3 days and Ron Coles has pitched 3 straight days in relief. Detroit had hoped to hold lefty Mike Murphy until the series opener with the Miners Tuesday but he just might have to take the hill Monday against the Keystones.
As they head to Detroit, for the first time this season the Miners appear to be in trouble. Pittsburgh dropped 4 straight games after the break, including a 3 game sweep in Chicago, before finally winning the second game in yesterday's doubleheader in St Louis. This on the heels of 5 losses in the span of seven days to Boston. Pittsburgh is just 5-11 over the past two and a half weeks with 4 of those victories coming against Washington. The Miners desperately need a big series in Detroit to turn their fortunes around and get back on track.
The Chiefs look like they may finally be showing signs of shaking out of their season long slump as only Detroit and Boston have outperformed them in July.
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JULY RECORDS
Detroit 16 4
Boston 13 6
Chicago 13 8
St Louis 10 11
Washington 9 11
Pittsburgh 8 12
New York 6 14
Philadelphia 5 14
The New York Stars hopes of claiming their first CA crown since 1932 took a bit of a blow this week when teenage star Bill Barrett (.285,10,48) suffered a sprained ankle and is expected to miss close to two months. His absence will be felt but at least the Stars have enough outfield depth that they should be able to minimize the impact. New York sits one game behind the Cleveland Foresters as the two clubs continue to surprise observers with their play this year.
Freddie Farhat of The Detroit World summed the CA up this way:
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FREDDIE FARHAT ON THE CA
The CA race is very interesting to me as the top 3 teams I had pegged to contend are all in the 2nd division. Can Cleveland come back after most thought their window had closed? Can New York continue to surprise after half a decade or being dormant? Then there is the always tough Sailors who just seem to find a way to make things interesting. Rounding out the first division at present are the Montreal Saints who few thought would be a serious contender this season.
The trade deadline is approaching will any of these teams make a bold move to push them over the top? The Stars have probably shot their wad already with the acquisition of SP William Jones. But the Chicago Cougars bare watching closely.
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QUICK HITS
- The Brooklyn Kings swept the Philadelphia Sailors to get over .500 but then lost both ends of a Sunday twin bill to Cougars and slip back below the break even mark. Good news in Brooklyn is rookie Sergio Vergara threw a shutout for his first big league win, another win for Jack Goff to improve to 3-1, two homers for Al Wheeler and newcomers fare well as Frank LeMieux goes 7-for-16 and Stumpy Beaman wins his start with a decent outing.
- Looks like Sam Orr's career in Toronto may be over has he has been waived after refusing a demotion to the minors. The 31 year old Orr was in his 9th season with the Wolves but was hitting just .235 this year and has struggled at the plate the previous two seasons as well. "Mr Versatility" Tom Frederick gets the call from Buffalo where the 23 year old pride of Hammond College was hitting .311 for the Nickels. Frederick can play any position except catcher and shortstop but the second base job is his to claim after Orr's departure.
- There is also much speculation north of the border that Hank Leitzke is on very thin ice in Toronto as well. The 62 year old is in his 5th season managing the Wolves and had previous managerial stops with the Foresters and Cougars. After the 88-66 run a year ago one would have thought Leitzke could write his own contract in Toronto but this season has been every bit the nightmare that last year was a dream for the Wolves. At 36-46 they are ahead of only traditional cellar dweller Baltimore in the CA.
- The St Louis Pioneers debut two more rookies last week. 2B Artie D'Alessandro is now the every day second baseman joining fellow rookies SS Ivan Cameron and 3B Tommy Wilson(who was pushed to 3B) on the infield. D'Alessandro hit just .176 in his first five games but he scored four runs and collected four RBI. Recently draft SP Harry Sharp made his ML debut after just two games in AAA. Sharp was not sharp allowing six runs and 11 hits in just seven innings against Pittsburgh.
- 18 year old Tommie Wagner had a day to remember. The Montreal Saints prospect set an Upper Mississippi Valley Association (Class C) record with 7 hits in helping Dubuque to a 12 inning 14-12 victory over Burlington. He capped his record breaking day with a walk off 3-run homer in the bottom of the 12th. The previous UMVA single game hit mark was 6th accomplished 5 times, most recently by Chuck Johnson who is now with the Gothams. By the way only one player ever had 7 hits in a big league game. That was Andy Stoddard who did it in 1926 while playing for Baltimore.
The Week That Was
Current events from the week ending 07/23/1939
- Despite Tokio calling for Britain to withdraw support for China, Prime Minister Chamberlain says the British government "would not and could not" reverse it's foreign policy in the Far East at "the demand of another power."
- Nazi officials reject a warlike solution of the Danzig problem and believe a peaceful return of the Free City to the Reich will be achieved soon with the indirect aid of Great Britain.
- London responds indignantly about what it called "fantastic and irresponsible talk" of an impending agreement with Germany to save European peace, adding there have been no negotiations of any kind with the Reich about Danzig.
- International spying is the cause for the greatest increase in the bureau's work according to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in meetings this week.