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DD Martin · 02-03-2020, 05:20 PM

The 1927 Cleveland Foresters - a big rebound and an even bigger Tease

During spring training and talking with our Manager Dave Adams we had hopes of hanging around. Nobody looked like a sure fire thing in the CA this season. Little did we know how right we were. The season ended up much better than the ill-fated 1926 season. We actually finished with a remarkable 25 game improvement going from 56 wins in 26 to 81 wins in 27. Was it enough to win us and Mr. Marshall that elusive CA Championship? The answer was a tease. We hung around all season and even led the thing for the first 2-3 months. But things slowly slipped away. A managerial change in Brooklyn where the Kings fired one of their all time great players Powell Slocum midway through the season. It turned out being the right call and the Kings shocked the world and won the CA by 1 game over both Philadelphia Sailors (who made a run and was about to embark on a brilliant rise in the near future) and the Toronto Wolves. How did we do? Well again I said the season was a tease and we finished 4th in the CA, 2 games behind the victors and 1 game behind the 2 teams tied for 2nd.

It was a fun finish, but the truth was it was a bit of a mediocre season for the CA teams. Taking away nothing from Brooklyn and their great run to the top, no team really stood out from the crowd. And honestly in Cleveland we were thinking what if.....what if Bob Lawrence hadn't been out the last two weeks with injury and we missed his last 3 starts. Bob won the most games in the CA that season going 22-12 with a 3.20 ERA in 36 starts and amassing 289.2 innings pitched. If he could have gotten to 310, we might have been celebrating something. Lawrence was 2nd in the Allen award that season behind former teammate Mose Smith. Personally I think Lawrence got jobbed that season but Smith was solid at 19-14 3.40 8.0 WAR in 302 IP. But if Lawrence could have stayed healthy down the stretch, I think he would have won the Allen Award and we might have ended up in the World Series.

The truth was we also lost SP Wayne Robinson for the most of the month of the August and for about 10 days in September as well. We had acquired a veteran SP right before the trade deadline that July named Carl Mellen. We traded a 3rd round pick to Pittsburgh for him and had hopes he would stabilize the bottom of the rotation for us. Of course Carl would pitch in exactly 1 game for us. On that ill-fated afternoon Mellen pitched all of 2/3 of an inning before blowing out his elbow. It looked bad and a couple of days later it was announced that Carl Mellen would never pitch again. Those 3 injuries to our SP's, a huge side note to the Forester's late 20's teams really did us in. We could have handled 1 or maybe even 2 of them, but 3 was too much for any team to handle.

By the way the 3rd round draft pick we traded for Mellen. He is a high school kid by the name of Brooks Meeks. He's a right handed hitting 2B who can play 3rd and SS and played the 29 season in both Class B Spokane and Class A Gary. He hit 382 in Spokane and a solid 328 in Gary. Brooks is currently rated the #3 prospect in the Pittsburgh system and #43 overall in all the FABL. Figures our luck with pitching.

The Brooklyn Kings went on to play the Philadelphia Keystones (no not the Sailors as Phily has 2 teams, one if each league) in the World Series that season. Of course all everything King OF Doug Lightbody disappeared in the series and the Keystones went on to win the 27 series 4 games to 1.

02-03-2020, 05:20 PM	#6
DD Martin All Star Reserve Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 830	The 1927 Cleveland Foresters - a big rebound and an even bigger Tease During spring training and talking with our Manager Dave Adams we had hopes of hanging around. Nobody looked like a sure fire thing in the CA this season. Little did we know how right we were. The season ended up much better than the ill-fated 1926 season. We actually finished with a remarkable 25 game improvement going from 56 wins in 26 to 81 wins in 27. Was it enough to win us and Mr. Marshall that elusive CA Championship? The answer was a tease. We hung around all season and even led the thing for the first 2-3 months. But things slowly slipped away. A managerial change in Brooklyn where the Kings fired one of their all time great players Powell Slocum midway through the season. It turned out being the right call and the Kings shocked the world and won the CA by 1 game over both Philadelphia Sailors (who made a run and was about to embark on a brilliant rise in the near future) and the Toronto Wolves. How did we do? Well again I said the season was a tease and we finished 4th in the CA, 2 games behind the victors and 1 game behind the 2 teams tied for 2nd. It was a fun finish, but the truth was it was a bit of a mediocre season for the CA teams. Taking away nothing from Brooklyn and their great run to the top, no team really stood out from the crowd. And honestly in Cleveland we were thinking what if.....what if Bob Lawrence hadn't been out the last two weeks with injury and we missed his last 3 starts. Bob won the most games in the CA that season going 22-12 with a 3.20 ERA in 36 starts and amassing 289.2 innings pitched. If he could have gotten to 310, we might have been celebrating something. Lawrence was 2nd in the Allen award that season behind former teammate Mose Smith. Personally I think Lawrence got jobbed that season but Smith was solid at 19-14 3.40 8.0 WAR in 302 IP. But if Lawrence could have stayed healthy down the stretch, I think he would have won the Allen Award and we might have ended up in the World Series. The truth was we also lost SP Wayne Robinson for the most of the month of the August and for about 10 days in September as well. We had acquired a veteran SP right before the trade deadline that July named Carl Mellen. We traded a 3rd round pick to Pittsburgh for him and had hopes he would stabilize the bottom of the rotation for us. Of course Carl would pitch in exactly 1 game for us. On that ill-fated afternoon Mellen pitched all of 2/3 of an inning before blowing out his elbow. It looked bad and a couple of days later it was announced that Carl Mellen would never pitch again. Those 3 injuries to our SP's, a huge side note to the Forester's late 20's teams really did us in. We could have handled 1 or maybe even 2 of them, but 3 was too much for any team to handle. By the way the 3rd round draft pick we traded for Mellen. He is a high school kid by the name of Brooks Meeks. He's a right handed hitting 2B who can play 3rd and SS and played the 29 season in both Class B Spokane and Class A Gary. He hit 382 in Spokane and a solid 328 in Gary. Brooks is currently rated the #3 prospect in the Pittsburgh system and #43 overall in all the FABL. Figures our luck with pitching. The Brooklyn Kings went on to play the Philadelphia Keystones (no not the Sailors as Phily has 2 teams, one if each league) in the World Series that season. Of course all everything King OF Doug Lightbody disappeared in the series and the Keystones went on to win the 27 series 4 games to 1. Last edited by DD Martin; 02-04-2020 at 04:42 PM.