Tiger Fan's online league dynasty

[Tiger Fan]

April 27, 1931

PITCHING LOOKS GOOD, BUT ALL NEW SET OF PROBLEMS FOR THE KINGS

Going into the season I had hoped we would have enough pitching to compete. I was not concerned about our hitting as the Kings always are among the league leaders in most offensive categories. Two weeks into the season the pitching has lived up to expectations but we are only 4-8 because our offense has been practically non-existent. I have no idea what happened as everyone has slumped at the same time after a great spring.

It is only 12 games so I expect (well, hope) it will turnaround but if so it better happen soon as we are already 6 games out of first place. 27 year old Doug Lightbody should be in the peak of his career. He is a lifetime .368 hitter entering his 6th FABL season and coming off a spring training in which he ripped the cover off the ball batting .483. However, after 12 games that count, Lightbody is batting just .208. And it is not limited to just him. It is team-wide.

Second year infielders Jake Shadoan, Bill Scott and Walt Layton are all in a terrible funk. Shadoan hit .307 in 65 games last season and even higher in his stops at each of the 4 minor league levels on his way to Brooklyn but this season he is mirred in a 10-for-51 slump (.196). Scott tied for the CA homer lead a year ago with 33 while batting .231. Getting on base was not his strong suit but he is now benched after batting just .129 with 0 homers in 38 plate appearances. I am hoping a week of pinch-hitting gets him untracked. Young shortstop Walt Layton hit .304 in a half a season in Brooklyn last year. This season he is batting just .195 but he will stay in the lineup as his defense is outstanding.

And the list goes on. 4th year catcher Mike Taylor, a .322 career hitter is batting just .222. My third baseman Phil Long, also in his fourth season, is batting just .200, like Taylor a full .100 points below his career average.

Only lead-off man Ab Thomas (.278 but a .435 obp) and second year leftfielder Art Summers (.333) seem immune to the slump so far. The disappointing thing is everyone of these guys had a very good spring but have suddenly stopped hitting.

Meanwhile, there is good news with our pitching staff. My two aces: Tommy Wilcox (1-2, 3.98) and newly acquired Milt Fritz (1-2, 2.42) have been solid despite the lack of run support while #3 starter Lyman Weigel (2-1, 3.38) has been a very nice surprise. No complaints out of my bullpen either. The only pitcher who struggled was Del Lyons (0-3, 6.86).

Lyons is a real enigma. My scout loves him. He has pitched very good in AAA (21-16, 3.39 with a 125 era+) but very bad in two stints in Brooklyn (3-4, 7.68 62 era+). He had a little more success out of the pen then starting last season but my scout says he has the pitches to be a number one starter - so I would think with Fritz and Wilcox ahead of him he should be a great #3. No such luck so far but with veteran Karl Clasby claimed off the waiver heap this week I will send Lyons down to Rochester to see if he can sort himself out. My bet is he dominates there but I have no such confidence for when I inevetiably cave and recall him back to the big leagues.

There is good news on the minor league front as my top pitching prospect Johnny Jacob threw a 6-hit complete game for Rochester in a 5-1 win over Cincinnati to open the season. Jacob will certainly be called up to Brooklyn at some point but Weigel's start has lessened the pressure I feel to bring the 22 year old up.

I also love what I am seeing so far out of my fourth round pick Ernie Scott. The 21 year old from Chicago Poly started the season 4-0 with a 0.75 era and a 502 era+ at Class C Marshalltown. He will make his Class B debut for Tampa this week.

[Tiger Fan]

1932 SPRING TRAINING

It's been a while since I updated this dynasty (lots of other things going on unfortunately plus my renewed interest in my historical dynasty writing) but here is a recap on our 1931 season and thoughts going forward as we prepare for hopefully a pennant contending 1932 season.

Last season my Kings finished right about how I hoped as we improved our record for the third straight year and got back over .500. Our 82-72 season was good enough for fourth place in a rapidly improving Continental Association. It is a moderate disappointment as we were in contention even into August but had a late slump that ended any pennant hopes, even as slight as those hopes might have been going into the year.

The positives are many however, starting with our pitching. We have generally had amongst the worst pitching in the league much of the past decade but our offense often made us a contender (and a champion in 1927). I started an aggressive plan to improve our pitching a few years ago by trading up for first overall pick Tommy Wilcox as well as several other prospects. We also made a blockbuster trade just prior to the 1930 season for then 21 year old pitcher Milt Fritz, who had a 34-17 record in two seasons with the Chicago Chiefs of the Federal League. With Fritz and Wilcox my hope was I had two aces for the next decade and it certainly looks that way a year later.

Last season in his first year in Brooklyn Fritz went 23-15 with a 3.08 era and won the CA's Allen Award as the top pitcher in the loop while Wilcox was 22-16, 3.94 and finished third in the balloting. We also got a great year out of Lyman Weigel (19-18, 4.06) and finished with 4th fewest runs allowed last season. Our offense was not quite as dominant as in past years but we still finished third in the Continental Association in runs scored, batting average, on base percentage and slugging percentages. Finally our defense was also very good, especially the middle infield.

Doug Lightbody (.358,6,85) was once again our leader and is now entering his age 28 season as the veteran of our lineup. Young Jake Shadoan, our 1929 first round pick, had a big offensive season (.337,5,90) in his first full year in the bigs while catcher Mike Taylor (.330,14,80) and centerfielder Ab Thomas (.331,4,56) where their normal steady selves. We also debuted a great defensive shortstop in Walt Layton (+22.5 zr) but we need his bat to improve a bit on the .211,4,49 he put up this year. There is some hope as he is just 23 and did hit .304 in a 72 game stint with us in 1930.

For spring training I will hopefully get a gauge on whether or not prize prospect Johnny Jacob can start the year in Brooklyn. Jacob was drafted by Baltimore in the fourth round of the 1927 draft out of high school and quickly became a highly touted prospect. I acquired him in 1929 and he has worked his way up the Kings system and now, at age 23, after an 8-6, 3.19 season in AAA I am hopeful he can step into the rotation. He is presently ranked the 10th best prospect in the game. I got a huge bonus when my first rounder this year, another high school pitcher by the name of Dixie Lee, debuted at #11 on the top prospect list. Lee is still just 18 and will make his pro debut in Class C this season. With the possibility of Jacob, plus another promising 23 year old in Heinie Bretz, who made his FABL debut last season and went 4-2 with a 3.42 era after starting the year by going 10-3, 2.08 in AAA, I really like what our rotation could look like.

I have not done a lot of research on this but a couple of years from now I think we could potentially have one of the greatest rotations from top to bottom in FABL history if everyone stays healthy. Wilcox and Fritz are already established starts and just 24 and 22 years of age right now. Add in Jacob and Dixie Lee - both top pitching prospects and very young plus Lyman Weigel, who is still just 27, as the 5th starter/swingman and we could be dominant. I know the Sailors had some great rotations a few years back but I can't imagine any would be deeper than what we potentially could have. Need to stay healthy though.

The 1932 camp looks to be the most competitive we have had in years with a lot of jockeying for position.

PITCHING

Fritz, Wilcox and Weigel are assured rotation spots and the plan is to add Jacob in to give me four quality arms. Because of their youth I believe I will run at least the first half of the season with 5 starters and there are plenty to choose from. Bretz should be the leading candidate if he is fully recovered from the bone chips he had that ended his season in mid-August. If not him I could use Lew Loiselle, a 25 year old pickup a year ago from independent club San Diego. Loiselle was named a top 100 prospect last year but I didn't really have a spot for him as he bounced between the rotation, the bullpen and AAA. If all goes according to plan he will be one of my three or four relievers. 26 year old Del Lyons (5-8, 3.89) struggled in the rotation but was very good out of the pen as was 28 year old Bill Kutz (2-0, 1.93) but the issue with using the 3 of them in relief is they are all lefthanded. As a result I will likely carry a 4th reliever (9th pitcher overall).

That is further complicated by Mickey Beavers (2-4, 4.38) and Bill Dengler (2-3, 4.75) both being out of minor league options. I like Beavers and I really hate to give up on Dengler. The 27 year old was my second round pick back in 1925 and seem on the cusp of greatness when he went 7-3, 3.59 to being the 1929 season until he blew out his UCL in July of that season and was sidelined 13 months. Dengler has not been the same pitcher since then and the reality is I may have to drop him from my 40-man and risk losing him to waivers. He is a guy I really grew attached to as part of my very first draft class so I know I am overvaluing him.

With the depth it means a few other guys I like will have to spend another season in Rochester. 23 year old Larry Brown is the 73rd best prospect in the league and 24 year old George Johnson is ranked 106th but both are likely back to the farm. Another great young arm I have not mentioned is my 1930 2nd rounder Ray Lee. He is just 19 so he, like this year's first rounder Dixie Lee (cousin's perhaps) are both a few years away. It is great to all of a sudden have such pitching depth.

CATCHER

I have a great catcher in Mike Taylor and the 25 year old will see the bulk of the action behind the plate again this season with Bill Smith as his backup. My scout feels the 28 year old Smith is an above average big league catcher but he won't take the job from Taylor, who is currently rated the 8th best player in the game.

INFIELD

A number of battles here. I am sold on keeping 23 year old light hitting shortstop Walt Layton in the lineup as long as his glove continues to be as a good as it was the last two seasons. Jake Shadoan, my 1929 first rounder, is on the cusp of being one of the best players in the league and is a fantastic second baseman. I have been playing the former college All-American at first base but the recent acquisition of 29 year old Luis Galvin in the independent team draft phase will likely force me to rethink that decision. Galvin hit 31 homers and batted .352 in AAA a year ago but will need to prove he can do it against major league pitching to force me to move Shadoan to second base.

Second base is already a logjam without adding Shadoan to the mix. Bill Scott is 26 and came over in the indy team draft phase prior to the 1930 season, and then went on to tie for the CA lead in homers with 33. He struggles with contact and was relegated to the bench last season because 23 year old SS Rabbit Mudd earned a promotion to the bigs. Mudd is a light hitter, or at least he has been so far at AAA and in the big leagues, but has provided outstanding defense with the shift to second base (Walt Layton has him blocked at SS). If Galvan struggles I will let Mudd and Scott fight it out for the second base job. If Galvan wins the first base job then Shadoan becomes my everyday second baseman -his natural position - and Mudd goes to the bench.

As for Scott, I may give him a shot to win the third base job but there is also a logjam of young talent there as well. 27 year old Phil Long has held the position for 3 years and hit .322 with 14 homers two seasons ago but he struggled last year batting just .251 with 7 homers. His defense at the hot corner, while still league average, was also down a bit. If he does not bounce back he will have plenty of competition for his job, even without a possible shift of Scott. I have two 23 year old's my scouting staff are very high on. Buck Sargent is a 1926 3rd rounder who had a breakout year at Class A Omaha in 1929, batting .360 with 30 homers and 104 rbi's. He has struggled at AAA since then and even slumped after a demotion to AA for a spell last season so I am not as sold on him as my staff. I will agree his defense in the minors has been very good. The likely scenario is I give him at least half a season in AAA to show he can hit at that level before he makes his major league debut. Nick Wallace is the other candidate, and like Sargent was a third round pick. He was taken in 1929 out of college (Wisconsin State) rather than high school like Sargent, and Wallace got a taste of big league action a year ago, batting .297 in 60 games after tearing it up at Class A and AA (and skipping AAA altogether). He struggled with the glove in Brooklyn but I am hopeful that he will improve in that area, or greatly improve his hitting to the point where I can overlook his defense.

OUTFIELD

Things are much more settled here. Doug Lightbody is one of the best players in the game and will play 140-150 games in right field. 25 year old Art Summers has the edge on the battle for left field. The 1928 3rd round pick has been the starter for two season and is slashing .299/.388/.511. His defense is below average though. I have a couple of options in the minors led by Jimmy Schlosser, a 1929 6th rounder out of college. The 24 year old split last season between AA and AAA (.299,9,69) but for the moment at least I do not have room for him on the 40 man roster and I would like him to get another half season in AAA. The other candidate is my 1929 2nd round pick, Elmer Nolde. Unfortunately he will miss most of spring training with an injury. The 24 year old hit .309 with 12 homers in AA a year ago so he also is pencilled in for AAA at least to start the season. Nolde is considered a top 100 prospect.

Ab Thomas will once again patrol centerfield. The 27 year old has held the job since his call-up midway through the 1926 season and is a career .329 hitter who consistently challenges for the league stolen base lead. His defense in center has slipped a bit so there is also the option to shift him to leftfield as I have 26 year old Jim Gentry waiting in the wings. Gentry spent all of last season in Brooklyn after bouncing between the big club and AAA the previous two years. He saw limited action but hit .335 in 188 at bats. His defense is slightly better than Thomas has been but is still barely league average.

Ideally I would love to upgrade my outfield with a better fielding centerfielder but it would be tough to take Thomas' bat out of the lineup.

GOAL FOR 1932

I mentioned a couple of years back that 1932 was the target to bring a pennant back to Brooklyn. I still feel that way, although there are some other very good young teams in our loop so it will certainly be a challenge. We took another step forward last season, getting to 10 games above .500 but this year the goal is nothing short of a pennant. I will not mortgage my future to do so, as I feel our window will be wide open for the next 5-6 years with the young talent we have amassed, which means don't expect any blockbuster deals this season (unless I panic and get stupid). We have put a process in place to build around young pitching. Nearly all of the blocks are there, now we just need to assemble a winner.

[Tiger Fan]

1932 TRADE DEADLINE

It was amazing how quickly a season with such high expectations - I figured the Kings would at least contend for the pennant- completely fell apart and became just a nightmare year. The trouble signs began late in spring training when the face of the franchise Doug Lightbody hurt his elbow and missed the first two months of the year. We started slow and by the end of April were already 7.5 games back of the front-running Chicago Cougars. It went from bad to worse and after a 13-18 start it cost manager Wally Grant his job. Grant was in the final year of his contract, and quite frankly had underperformed in my mind after his great debut midway through the 1927 campaign when he led us to a 23-14 finish and our first and so far only pennant under my stewardship of the franchise.

Walt Bailey, who had guided our AA club in Knoxville to a pair of Dixie League titles in the past three seasons and been in the organization for 7 years, was given the reigns in Brooklyn in hopes the Kings would respond to his friendly attitude, a sharp contrast from the canterkous Grant. They did not and as of this writing in late July our Kings are 15 games under .500 and seventh in the Continental Association, ahead of only the woeful Toronto Wolves, who swept us in a 4 game series last week.

I know change was needed. Youth is no longer an excuse. We have a very young lineup but they have plenty of experience yet nearly every player on the team is having a career worst year. Lightbody (.286,3,17) has struggled since his return. My catcher Mike Taylor does have 15 homers, a career high, but his average is just .285 and well below his career totals. As a team our offense ranks among the worst in the entire FABL and our pitching, especially the bullpen is dreadful. Our pitching staff was expected to be a strength but only co-aces Milt Fritz (9-10, 3.60) and Tommy Wilcox (9-9, 3.19) along with second year King Heinie Bretz (7-10,3.31) can be proud of their efforts.

So I found myself once again at a crossroads. A team that I built with the expectation it would contend is instead providing Brooklyn fans with the most disappointing season of my tenure with the organization. A manager change did not work. Bringing up some of my other young talent from Rochester did not work. I needed something to shake the team out of it's doldrums and the result was likely the biggest blockbuster trade I have made (and I have made some big ones) in my 7 years with the Kings.

A BARRELL OF BALLPLAYERS

I entered the deadline with no intentions to deal one of my 3 stud pitchers (Fritz, Wilcox or youngster Johnny Jacob) but wanted to shake things up. The defending FABL champion Chicago Cougars were a team we thought we would be this year- a club that endured some losing seasons and a massive rebuild to win the league title last season and were back in the thick of things again this year. The Cougars made it known they wanted to add as they are chasing the New York Stars for top spot. I thought it would be a fantastic story-line (anyone who has followed this knows I value good storylines for my team nearly as much as winning) to add some of Dan Barrell's brothers to the team their father all so briefly pitched for so I offered what I thought was a pretty fair deal to the Cougars. I should note that Dan - the eldest ballplaying Barrell boy - has come out of nowhere this season. Now 27 years old and signed as a free agent 6 years ago after being out of organized baseball for 3 years, Dan suddenly has discovered a hitting stroke and is hitting .300 in his first full major league season.

Anyway, back to the trade offer. I would deal my catcher Mike Taylor - who despite his batting average being lower this year was hitting a lot of homers- something I thought the Cougars could use, along with Doug Lightbody - who at 28 is coming off leading the CA in on-base percentage each of the past two years. In return I wanted the two young Barrell brothers - Brooklyn born boys who's father Rufus is considered the dean of FABL scouting. Fred is a catcher who would be expendable with the addition of Taylor while Tom, a 24 year old pitcher who looked great in brief stint in the majors including a shutout of Toronto and a win over my Kings, was a very good prospect but also back in AAA right now so he, I assumed, would be expendable if the Cougars were serious in their decision to go all-in for a chance to repeat as champs.

Chicago countered saying to deal Tom they needed one of my pitching aces in Tom Wilcox to come to the Windy City. They liked Taylor so offered me a package of the Barrell brothers - who would join their brother Dan - in Brooklyn and they would include a pair of pitching prospects in 24 year old Mike Murphy and 23 year old George DeForest. After I initially rejected the notion of dealing Wilcox I came back to the idea that something had to change in Brooklyn so after we haggled a bit over some other names we eventually agreed that would be the deal we would make.

It might be a cliche but I am thinking it helped both teams towards their goals. With Wilcox now anchoring the rotation and the booming bat of Taylor the Cougars seem much better positioned for their change of the New York Stars (they are 3 games back) and a second straight title. As for my Kings, well we gave up a 25 year old ace in Wilcox - a first overall pick in 1928 who went 51-42 for the Kings and led the league in innings pitched a year ago. We also dealt arguably the best catcher in the CA but in return we got the Barrell boys - sure to attract a lot of fan interest in Brooklyn and hopefully will be just as good as the two men they replaced. Tom, like the other Tom in the deal, was a first overall draft pick (in 1929) after an incredible college career. He was outstanding in his brief FABL debut this season and completely dominant (6-1, 1.42 with a 322 ERA+) in AAA. He is a year younger than Wilcox and hopefully quickly becomes a comparable pitcher. Fred has played nearly 3 full seasons as a catcher in Chicago (.306/.366/.434) and while he may not have the same power potential as Taylor, I think he can be a better hitter and just as good defensively. Fred also brings great playoff experience, something my Kings lack, in that he was the World Championship Series MVP a year ago.

So if those two can be close to a wash with the pair I gave up that means I moved closer to my goal of improving a dreadful bullpen because I now have two more arms full of potential in my system. Mike Murphy has been linked with Wilcox throughout his career. He was drafted second in 1928 - one spot behind Wilcox - and I believe I have written before that my initial goal in the '28 draft was to get Murphy, a Brooklyn State product. I had hoped to trade into the top 3 to select him but then I made the big deal with Washington to move up to #1 and at that point I even very briefly debated using the pick on Murphy. Since then I tried on a couple of occasions to acquire him from the Cougars before finally landing him. Murphy has pitched just 8 innings of big league ball but at 6-3, 2.83 with a 162 ERA+ in AAA this year, I think he is ready for the jump to Brooklyn. DeForest is a 23 year old former high school pitcher selected in the 6th round back in 1927. He has worked his way through the Cougars system and is presently ranked the #62nd prospect in the league, posting a 7-5, 3.73 mark for AA Mobile. With our AA affiliate Knoxville embroiled in a tight pennant race I think I will leave DeForest in AA the rest of the year to give him some pressure innings but my hope is he is ready for the jump to Brooklyn by this time next year.

So I gave up potentially the best pitcher in the game but added an arm I feel can be nearly as good plus two other solid prospects in the deal. Let's see if this one turns out.

BLOCKBUSTER DEAL HISTORY

Is this the biggest trade I have ever made? 4 players in their prime including a pair of first overall draft picks and a prospect who was taken 2nd overall in his draft year.

I have made some big deals in Brooklyn but I think this is the largest. Here is a recap of the 3 other contenders for biggest deal in modern Kings history.

1925 DRAFT - Sent the second overall pick to Toronto along with minor league OF Howie Davidson for the 6th overall and also receive pitchers Cal Williams and Topsy Moran plus a second and a fourth round pick.
My first trade was a doozy. I entered the 1925 draft - my first with the team - with 6 players I really liked but also a terrible shortage of quality pitching so I shopped my pick. Doug Lightbody was second on my draft list behind Al Wheeler, who would go first overall to Detroit. So this trade could not have worked out better for me as I still got the hitter I wanted but also added Williams and Moran, both of whom played key roles in our pennant winning 1927 season. Williams won 21 games that year and would later be traded to the Chicago Chiefs for a pitcher still in our system with some potential in George Johnson while Moran would throw a no-hitter in 1926 and provide some decent depth for us. Moran could have been much more I think - he was 12-10 in 1926 - but was not the same pitcher following serious arm injury in 1927. I used the extra second round pick on pitcher Bill Dengler, who is still with the Kings and I felt had a lot of promise until he tore his UCL in 1929. With the fourth round pick I selected catcher Tom Aiello who would later become a piece in the deal that allowed me to acquire Tommy Wilcox.

Toronto took high school pitcher Eddie Quinn second overall. Quinn spent a lot of time in the minors but has been in Toronto the past 3 years and is 3-12, 5.05 this season as a 25 year old. Davidson is still with the Wolves as a fourth outfielder. Now 30 years old, he is a .249 career hitter in 230 career FABL games.


1928 DRAFT - Acquired the first overall pick (Tommy Wilcox) from Washington. The cost was a pair of first round picks (10th and 14th overall) along with third base prospect Dave Bristol. More than enough has been written about Wilcox to know how he panned out. Bristol was a prospect I really liked and he has hit very well in the minors but for some reason at 24 years of age remains sitting in Class A with the Eagles. The two picks I parted with were used to grab Wally Flowers and Grover Carson. Flowers is a very good second year outfielder in Washington now and Carson has taken over their starting shortstop job this season.

FALL OF 1930 - Desperate, as always it seems, for pitching I landed a gem in Milt Fritz. Not yet 21 years old at the time of the deal Fritz was already 34-17 as a big leaguer with the Chicago Chiefs. He would win the Allen Award last season, his first in Brooklyn, posting a 23-15 record and will be our ace for years to come. I had built a pretty deep farm system but the cost for Fritz was huge - sending pitchers Dave Rankin, Rod Barney, Taylor Hamilton, catcher Tom Aiello, First baseman Ron Rattigan and my 1930 first round pick to the rebuilding Chiefs. The verdict is still out on Chicago's end for this deal as all of the players they received were young prospects. Rattigan is ranked 26th best in the league at this point and Rankin and Aiello have already made their big league debuts.

This trade I just made is different from the other three in that it is the first time I have dealt an established major leaguer (two in this case) rather than simply raided my prospect cupboard so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. All I know is the way this season has gone, things certainly can't get much worse for Brooklyn so hopefully with 3 Barrell brothers in the fold we can build a pennant contender and maybe some day win the first World Championship Series in franchise history - something that has eluded the Kings franchise for 40 years now.

[Tiger Fan]

1932 SEASON RECAP

1932 was really two different seasons for the Brooklyn Kings but in the end the result was yet another season without a pennant. Brooklyn last won one in 1927 and has yet to win a World Championship Series in the 40 year history of the Federally Aligned Baseball Leagues. When it was all said and done the Kings finished with a respectable 80-74 record, good for a third place tie with Cleveland, 19 games back of the front-running New York Stars. It was two wins worse then the Kings posted last year but there is great optimism going forward because of the way this season finished.

The 1932 season was essentially over by mid-May when the Kings had a dreadful 13-20 start to the year and were already 11.5 games out of first place. That start cost long-time manager Wally Grant his job. Grant had been with the Kings since midway through the 1927 season when he helped the club to a pennant. His replacement was Walt Bailey, who unlike the cantankerous Grant, was a player friendly manager who had coached most of the players on the team as he, like them, worked his way up through the Brooklyn system and won a pair of Dixie League pennants at Knoxville. The change in on-field leadership did little to turn around the Kings fortunes as by July 25 the Kings were 42-57 and sitting in 7th place in the Continental Association.

Everything changed on that day. Chicago was hotly pursuing New York for the Continental lead and the Kings needed to shake things up so Brooklyn parted with former first overall draft pick Tommy Wilcox, who won 22 games the year before and was 9-9 for Brooklyn at the time of the deal, as well as possibly the team's best player in catcher Mike Taylor - sending the two of them to the Cougars in exchange for two of the famous Barrell brothers - pitcher Tom and catcher Fred, as well as minor league pitchers George DeForest and Mike Murphy. Murphy, interestingly enough was a Brooklyn State product that the Kings briefly debated taking first overall the year they drafted Wilcox. Murphy would go second to Chicago in that draft and now the pair were traded for each other.

That immediately set the Kings on fire and the club won 11 of it's next 12 games. Brooklyn would go 39-17 the rest of the way. Here are the standings from July 26 until the end of the season.

	CONTINENTAL ASSOCIATION STANDINGS 
	      AFTER JUL 25     AS OF JULY 25   +-			
Brooklyn      39  17  .697     42  57  .424  +.273
New York      37  17  .685     62  36  .633  +.052
Chicago       39  19  .672     58  38  .604  +.068
Cleveland     29  26  .527     51  48  .515  +.012
Baltimore     22  34  .393     49  49  .500  -.107
Philadelphia  21  35  .375     55  43  .561  -.186
Montreal      20  36  .357     44  54  .424  -.067
Toronto       18  38  .321     31  67  .316  +.005

So after the trade the Kings were as good as the top two teams in the Continental - in fact slightly better. Unfortunately the terrible start to the season doomed us to another year without post-season play.

However there is a lot to be excited about for next year. Let's start with the pitching. My most pleasant surprise is not Barrell or Murphy (but more on them soon). Instead it is seeing Johnny Jacob appear to finally live up to the promise that had him ranked as one of the best pitching prospects in the game. He struggled early and missed a few weeks with a hamstring injury but was just 5-7 with a 5.64 era in mid August of his rookie season. Then something clicked and he finished the year 6-0 with an era under 3.00. My Head Scout John Spears is certain Jacob will be an ace in his career. If that time is now I will have 3 of them in the always dependable Milt Fritz, a 22 year old who already owns one Allen Award and was 16-12, 3.56 for us this year and the victim of some pretty poor run support early in the season, as well as the 24 year old Tom Barrell, who went 8-3 for us and 10-3 overall with a 2.58 era. My hope in making the deal was Barrell could come close to replicating what I felt Tommy Wilcox could give us and so far he has done that and more. Add in Jacob, who is just 23 years old and went 11-7, 4.07 in his first big league season and I am thrilled about our rotation going forward.

Then there is the 24 year old Murphy, who's big league career prior to the trade consisted of 8 innings of relief for Chicago last year. I put Murphy in the rotation and he responded by going 7-2, 2.53 for us and if he continues to pitch like that will obviously have a home in the rotation.

I also got a huge surprise this year with the emergence of Dan Barrell. The oldest baseball player among the brothers, 28 year old Dan was nearly lost - strike that - he was lost as the New York Stars claimed him in the Rule 5 draft. Because of a roster crunch they could not keep him and he was returned to us at the conclusion of spring training. I moved Barrell to first base a few years back because his outfield defense was just awful. He is not much better at first base but my thinking was he would just provide minor league depth as he has hit very well in A and AA but always struggled at the AAA level (.236 average in 136 games of AAA as opposed to .324 in AA and .343 in A). He was an afterthought, a famous name that showed good character so he could be a leader in my minors. Then he hit .467 in 4 games to start the year in AA and .350 in 5 more at AAA Rochester while my big league team was playing terrible. I decided to promote him and give him some pinch-hit at bats as I had a solid hitter in converted second baseman Jake Shadoan manning first. Barrell did not play much until mid-May when he got a start against Philadelphia. He went 4-for-5 with a couple of doubles in the win and that started a 13 game hitting streak. I put him at first, the only position I can even remotely trust him at, and with Rabbit Mudd enjoying a great year at second I decided Jake Shadoan could try and learn third base in the big leagues. That experiment had mixed results but Barrell just kept hitting and was batting .300 when the deal to acquire his brothers was made. He caught fire from there, hitting .371 in August and .402 in September to finish the year 6th in the CA with a .340 average.

We also have another Barrell brother, 19 year old shortstop Harry, who was acquired from Cleveland after being selected first overall last December. Harry will be my everyday shortstop but likely not until 1934. He probably needs another full year in the minors but did hit .304 with 20 rbi's in 28 games at AA Knoxville to end the season. His defense looks to be every bit as good as Layton's and he projects to be a world class hitter. Ideally my infield in 2 seasons is Dan Barrell at 1B, Rabbit Mudd at 2B, Harry at SS and Jake Shadoan at third base.

We have some question marks for next season. The bullpen is still a big concern but I have some pitching prospects that are hopefully ready to fill those holes. In the infield the big question is can Shadoan play third base? If not, in order to keep Dan Barrell in the lineup I have to put Shadoan at second and shift Rabbit Mudd (.296 and excellent D at 2B but a natural SS) to short. However, that means I need to take Walt Layton off the field. Layton may not be much of a hitter but he is a wizard with the glove at shortstop. There is also a big question in the outfield. Is Doug Lightbody starting to wear down because of injuries or was this just a bad season because he missed time early? The 28 year old hit just .299 (the worst season of his career) and missed half the year with elbow troubles?


Next up is to watch the New York Stars and Philadelphia Keystones square off in the World Championship Series while I prepare for the draft. I do not own a first round pick or a third, as both were dealt to Cleveland to get Harry Barrell, but I have already identified a few players I really like that hopefully at least one of which will be around when I pick midway through round two.

[mjj55409]

At least Brooklyn has a recent pennant. Montréal's last pennant is now over 10 years ago.

[Tiger Fan]

1932 DRAFT

There was certainly a lot less excitement from Brooklyn this year than in most drafts but the Kings were still quite busy. Brooklyn lacked a first and a third round pick this year because they were sent to Cleveland as part of a package to land last year's first overall draft selection in teenage shortstop Harry Barrell. That deal of course made the youngest Barrell the fourth of the siblings to join the organization after brothers Tom and Fred were acquired over the summer to join Dan - the eldest active ballplaying Barrell brother. Having to sit and watch the first 25 names getting put on the draft board without having the luxury of calling one of them yourselves can temper the draft excitement.

As a result the Kings did not make their first selection until the 26th pick of the draft. Entering the draft Brooklyn had targeted 3 players as potentially available at that spot. The first was John Langille, a Canadian born third baseman who had a very impressive career at Commonwealth Catholic. Had the Kings still had their first rounder - 10th overall - they would have selected Langille. He almost got to Brooklyn as Langille did not go until the fourth pick of the second round when Montreal snatched him up. The third player on the Brooklyn short-list for their opening pick was Lubbock University slugger Bill Moore but the first baseman, who socked 22 homers in 50 games last season was taken 13th overall by Detroit.

Brooklyn did manage to get the guy they had second on their list. Third base was a priority as there is still some concern on whether Jake Shadoan can make the switch over to play it at the major league level and, even if he does, the plan may end up being to move Shadoan back to either first base or his natural second base position should either Dan Barrell or Walt Layton stuggle. If Layton can't improve on his average, his incredible glove might not be enough to keep him in the lineup so that will force Rabbit Mudd to shift from second back to shortstop and open up second for Shadoan.

The third baseman of the future is a player by the name of Ken Mayhugh. Brooklyn was the thrilled the California native who played his college ball at Liberty (same as Jake Shadoan) and looks to be an above average hitter as well as very strong defensively. Mayhugh's final season at Liberty (.460/.523/.775 with 13 homers) compares very nicely to Shadoan's draft year (.473/.532/.779 with 16 homers) and, unlike Shadoan who finished second, Mayhugh won the Northeast Conference batting title. Once signed it is expected Mayhugh will begin his career at Class B Tampa although a strong spring may see the 21 year old debut in A ball.

Without a selection until the fourth round but seeing a pitcher the Kings really liked on the board, Brooklyn made a deal with the New York Gothams, sending promising shortstop prospect Oscar King away in return for the Gothams third round selection. King is a top 100 prospect but the 22 year old is expendable with Harry Barrell fast-tracking his way through the Brooklyn system. The deal was contingent upon one of two players being available. They were center fielder Pete Day, who played his college ball at Lincoln, and lefthanded pitcher Art White, who was with the George Fox Reds. Day was taken by Cleveland 5 picks ahead of the Gothams choice but White was available so the deal was consumated.

In Art White the Kings feel they are getting another good young arm capable of being a middle of the rotation piece. The 21 year old groundballer pitched just one season of college ball so he is a bit of a project, but Kings scout John Spears was very high on the lefthander, who went 4-4 with a 3.90 era in 10 starts but had a very good K/9 and BB/9 ratio.

The other target piece for Brooklyn was an elite centerfield prospect but 6 of them had gone off the board before the Kings scheduled 4th round pick. Brooklyn decided to make a deal with the Chicago Cougars - a frequent trading partner for the Kings of late - in order to address their CF prospect needs. The Kings shipped 3 picks: their fourth, fifth and sixth rounders to Chicago and in return added 22 year old Buck Waldrop.

Waldrop was high on the Kings list in the 1928 draft, when Chicago grabbed him early in the fourth round that year, and they have kept an eye on him ever since. Spears feels he is very good with the glove and can cover a lot of ground in centerfield. He has also shown some very good power with 24 homers in Class B in 1931 and 25 in A-ball a year ago. The concern his he has not yet proven he can hit minor league pitching and strikes out far too often. The hope is AA hitting coach George Dean, who has enjoyed some great success with Brooklyn prospects, can help Waldrop rediscover the touch with the bat he had in high school ball where he was a .356 career hitter and struck out just 37 times in 483 plate appearances.

The Kings next pick did not come up until the 7th round, when they had two selections, as they did in the 8th, courtesy of the Harry Barrell deal with Cleveland.

Here is the complete list of Brooklyn draft picks:

   1932 BROOKLYN KINGS DRAFT SELECTIONS
RD PICK  POS     NAME		SCHOOL
 2   26  3B  Ken Mayhugh	Liberty College
 3   33  P   Art White		George Fox
 7  106  C   Buster Farrar	Brooklyn State
 7  108  1B  Chuck Johnson	Boston High School
 8  122  RF  Vernon Ruch	Liberty College
 8  124  P   Mutt Clabough	Mobile High School
 9  140  SS  Jim Maggiore	Grafton College
10  156  LF  Dan Rykowski	Mississippi A&M
11  172  LF  Myrl Gilday	Boulder State
12  188  LF  Jack Olsen		Detroit City College
13  204  CF  Heinie Kuss	Frankford State
14  220  P   Joe Evans		Scranton High School
15  236  2B  Chuck Simon	Tulsa High School
16  252  3B  Le Shapiro		Dallas High School
17  268  OF  Heinie Howard	San Francisco High School
18  284  C   Ed Sala		Boulder State
19  300  P   Pat Eubanks	Syracuse High School
20  316  SS  Gene Miles		Brooklyn High School
21  332  CF  Al Sears		Brooklyn High School
22  348  C   Dud Staley		Liberty College
23  364  P   Hugh Schnieder	Swoyersville High School
24  380  C   Bill Johnson	Sadler College
25  396  P   Joe Berger		Pierpont University

QUICK FACTS
In addition to top pick Ken Mayhugh, the Kings selected two other players from Liberty College in outfielder Vernon Ruch and catcher Dud Staley. Current King Jake Shadoan is the all-time hits leader for the Bells, while Mayhugh and Ruch are second and fourth respectively.....Kings head scout John Spears had big urging the organization to draft shortstop Jim Maggiore since the 3rd round. Spears had the Grafton College star ranked #27 on his draft board and Brooklyn landed him with the 140th pick. Maggiore does look pretty good with the glove but hit just .299 for his college career and the rest of the Kings management team privately questioned whether he can advance past A ball....The Kings are trying to corner the market on the Barrell family with 4 of them plus honorary Barrell Rufus Daniels in the system. Bobby, who just finished an outstanding second season with the Philadelphia Keystones, likely will be impossible to pry away from Philly and Rufus Barrell II is still two years away from his draft year (but looked outstanding as a 15 year old at Macon High School this past year) so the Kings did the next best thing. Brooklyn drafted a player nicknamed "Beer Barrel" by selecting Jack Olsen in the 12th round out of Detroit City College. Beer Barrell Olsen hit .321 with 11 homers in 118 career games with the Knights. The Omaha native also used to be a bat boy for the Kings Class A farm club.

[Tiger Fan]

KINGS TO CELEBRATE ANNIVERSARY YEAR

1933 is a very important year both to the borough of Brooklyn and it's baseball club. Brooklyn celebrates it's 100th anniversary since it was incorporated as a city back in 1834. Originally dubbed Breukelen by Dutch settlers in the 1600s, it remained a city until 1898 when according to the Municipal Charter of Greater New York, Brooklyn was consolidated with the other cities, boroughs and counties to form the modern city of New York. Regardless if you consider it a borough of New York or a city of it's own, Brooklyn turns 100 this year.

It is also an anniversary season for Brooklyn's ball team as the Continental Association Kings will be playing their 50th season of professional baseball. The Kings were founded in 1884 and played in the long since gone Border Association. The were actually the second professional club to be based in Brooklyn as the Unions played from 1876 until 1885 in the Peerless League before they were absorbed by the Kings when FABL was created in 1892. The Kings hold the distinction of being the final champion of the Border Assocation, winning their second league title in 1891. The Kings won two Border Association pennants in their 8 years in that league but titles have been much rarer for Brooklyn in the Federally Alligned Baseball Leagues for Brooklyn as the Kings have never won the World Championship Series and own just three Continental Association pennants with the most recent one coming in 1927.

To celebrate fifty years of baseball the Kings organization will be honouring many of their all-time greats prior to select games this sesaon and have also unveiled the club's 50th Anniversary Squad, featuring the best players to ever wear the purple and gold of Brooklyn.

Here are the 11 players (3 pitchers and 8 position players) and two executives that comprise the 50th anniversay club.

Pitcher: Ferdinand Hawkins (1884-1892)- An original King, Hawkins won 191 games in a Brooklyn uniform including 28 in each of the two seasons he led the Kings to Border Association titles.

Pitcher: Phil Miller (1909-1924)- Spent his entire career with the Kings going 288-284 including 7 seasons of at least twenty victories. He led the Kings to their first Continental Association pennant in 1912 and was also around for the second one in 1923.

Pitcher: Danny Goff (1911-16, 1924-26)- While it can easily be argued Goff's greatest days came with the New York Gothams he did win 124 of his 252 career big league games in a Brooklyn uniform. Goff, who remains with the organization in a minor league managerial role, was a key piece of the 1912 pennant winner.

CATCHER: Amos Gatlin (1890-1897)- Had 1,162 hits in 1,017 career games as a King. Gatlin was the starting catcher for 8 years in Brooklyn and helped the team win the 1890 Border Association.

FIRST BASE: Paul Tattersall (1908-24)- Better known as a catcher, Tattersall started his career in Brooklyn at first base and gets the nod here instead of behind the plate because of a shortage of quality first baseman. He played 1,710 games in Brooklyn before ending his career with stops with the Gothams, Montreal and finally the Keystones. He was a key piece of both the 1912 and 1923 pennant winning clubs and his 201 career homers and 1,023 rbi's are far and away the most in either category by a Brooklyn player. Tattersall returned to the organization after his playing days and is currently the hitting coach at Class B Tampa.

SECOND BASE: John Noviello (1904-12) - Another position where there has never been an established player for a long period of time, Noviello played 898 for Brooklyn and hit .277. He was a member of the 1912 pennant winner but played sparingly as it was his final major league season.

SHORTSTOP: Albert Davis (1885-1898) - No one played more games in a Brooklyn uniform than the 1,773 that Davis suited up for. Slick with the leather, Davis would bat .254 in his career with the Kings and be a starter on both Border Association pennant winning clubs.

THIRD BASE: Jim Gerhart (1904-18)- Ranks #2 all-time in games played and hits as a member of the Kings. Spent his entire big league career wearing the crown and amassed 1.697 big league hits. He was a member of the 1912 pennant winning squad.

OUTFIELD: Ira Williams (1892-1902)- The all-time leader in hits and runs and fifth in career games played as a King, Williams jooined the squad in 1892 and spent two decades patrolling the Brooklyn outfield. Williams hit .311 as a King and his 2,022 career hits are 325 more than the next closest King.

OUTFIELD: Doug Ligthbody (1926-present)- Just 29 years old but Lightbody has already established himself as one of the greatest Kings players of all-time. He remains the only King to win a Whitney Award which he earned in 1927 when he led the Kings to their most recent pennant. In 839 career games he has 1,179 hits and is the face of the modern day Kings after being the first draft selection ever made by current management when it took over following the 1925 season. Lightbody is also one of the very few players to go straight from college to the big leagues and never played a day in the minors.

OUTFIELD: Jacob Gray: (1889-1895)- There were several other strong candidates for the final outfield spot including Jack Gilmore, Jake Hopper and current King Ab Thomas but although his time as a King was brief one could easily argue that few players captivated the city of Brooklyn like Gray did in his prime. He is 5th all-time in runs scored as a King despite playing just 916 games with the franchise. He joined Brooklyn from Toronto in 1889 and from 1892-1895 was among the best hitters in the game, winning a batting title in 1892 and hitting a career best .373 in 1894. Then he simply was gone. At the age of 30 in 1895 Gray abruptly retired from baseball despite the fact he was batting .316 in 82 games that season. He was a key piece of both the 1889 and 1891 Border Association championship squads.

EXECUTIVE: Barnabas Colson (1884-1897)- The original owner of the Kings, he guided the club from it's days as an expansion team to a pair of Border Association titles and finally to it's survival when that loop folded and became part of the FABL.

EXECUTIVE: RUFUS BARRELL (1891-1908)- The story is well known as Barrell was signed as a teenage pitching phenom but never played an official game in the major leagues, having his skull fractured by a batted ball in his preseason debut with Brooklyn. His playing days suddenly over, Barrell would join the Kings in a scouting capacity and would later go on to play a key role in creating the league's central scouting organization. Barrell was credited for discovering many future stars during his tenure as a Kings scout including Danny Goff, who he joins on the all-time Kings team. Barrell is also the father to five professional ballplayers including four currently in the Kings organization.

[Tiger Fan]

1933 SPRING TRAINING

I feel like we were saying the exact same things at this time last year as what applies to the Brooklyn Kings heading into the 1933 season. A year ago the Kings were supposed to be ready to contend for the pennant after a solid 82-72 record in 1931. There was great expectations surrounding the young pitching rotation and Brooklyn always had plenty of offense. But then everything fell apart.

Doug Lightbody, the face of the franchise since being drafted in 1925, hurt his elbow in spring training and missed the first two months of the season. Without Lightbody the offense sputtered as it seemed everyone was in a slump. Brooklyn started the season 13-18 and that was enough to cost long-time manager Wally Grant his job. Walt Bailey was promoted from AA Knoxville to take over as skipper but by late July the Kings were mirred in 7th place and spinning their wheels. Then came "The Trade" as Brooklyn parted with young stars Tommy Wilcox and Mike Taylor in a deadline deal to acquire a pair of Barrell brothers, catcher Fred and pitcher Tom, from the Chicago Cougars. The two of them would join older brother Dan who, at age 27, was having a breakout rookie season in Brooklyn and one of the few bright spots for Brooklyn on the season.

Something suddenly clicked and the Kings would win 11 of their first 12 games after the deal and were 39-17 overall since the trade after starting the year 42-57. It renewed hope and now the Kings once again find themselves in exactly the same position they were a year ago - expecting no less than to challenge for the pennant. The question is which Kings team will show up when the games start for real in mid-April?


As we sit on the eve of spring training here are some things to watch as we progress through camp.

#1- THIRD BASE

By far the biggest question is can Jake Shadoan successfully transition to third base. A natural second basemen who was forced to first base because the Kings have Rabbit Mudd (a natural SS moved to second) and Walt Layton in the middle of the infield, the Kings suddenly found themselves trying to figure out how to get Dan Barrell into the lineup. Barrell (.340,6,64) was outstanding after earning a full-time job in June. Not bad for a 27 year old career minor leaguer who was out of professional for 2 years after high school and was lost in the Rule V draft only to be returned by the team that selected him. Barrell suddenly found a sweet hitting stroke but he was still a real liability in the field so can only be trusted at first base.

Shadoan (.324,11,70) is a very good second baseman and an excellent fielding first baseman but with no previous experience at any level was suddenly told to play the hot corner. The experiment did not go well, at least not early, but it appears Shadoan has mastered the skills necessary and will play a ton at third base during camp to be ready for opening day.

If Shadoan can't play third, or if Dan Barrell suddenly crashes back to earth, then the Kings will likely rely on 24 year old Buck Sargent, who hit .233 with 8 homers in a 50 game trial in Brooklyn a year ago, or Bill Scott, who hit 33 homers in 1930 for the Kings but struggles mightily to keep his batting average above .230.

The Kings are confident Shadoan will adapt to third leaving an infield of Barrell at 1B, Rabbit Mudd (.296,6,57) at second and glove wizard Walt Layton (.217,4,36) at shortstop. Layton and Mudd are among the best defensive infielders in the league. The Kings also have another Barrell brother waiting in the wings as 19 year old Harry is pencilled in to start the season at AA Knoxville. Harry was a former first overall pick acquired from Cleveland and is the full package at shortstop.

#2- THE BULLPEN

- The second question for Brooklyn is who will comprise the bullpen? The rotation seems set with 23 year old Milt Fritz, 25 year olds Tom Barrell and Mike Murphy along with 24 year old Johnny Jacob. Fritz won an Allen Award two seasons ago and was 16-12, 3.56 a year ago. The other 3 were all rookies last season with Barrell (8-3, 2.48) and Murphy (7-2, 2.53) coming over at the deadline from the Cougars and Jacob (11-7, 4.07) making his big league debut after working his way up the system although he, like the other 3, was acquired in a trade. Jacob came from Baltimore as a 20 year old prospect in 1929.

It is the 5th starter/swingman role that is open along with the entire bullpen, which struggled a year ago. Brooklyn will likely carry 8 or 9 pitchers so the remaining four or five spots will come from the following:

DEL LYONS - The 27 year old has spent 3 seasons in the Brooklyn pen including last year when he was 8-5 with 8 saves and a 4.16 era. Once thought to be an elite reliever, his stock has soured over recent seasons and he needs big camp to keep his job.

HAL GALVAN- The 40 year old was waived by St Louis despite saving a Federal League high 21 games for the Pioneers last season. He will be looked to provide veteran leadership and stability in the pen, if he still has enough left in the tank.

MARCEL BESSON - Another waiver pickup, the 28 year old Besson joined the Kings late last season after being cut by the Philadelphia Keystones. He was 4-6 with 8 saves and a 5.63 era in Philadelphia before having two poor outings in Brooklyn. Likely a long shot to make the club.

LOU LOISELLE - The 26 year old was acquired from San Diego of the Great West League a couple of seasons ago. He split last year between Brooklyn and AAA Rochester, going 1-5 with a 3.96 era for the Kings.

FRANK PARSONS- He has had 2 brief stints in Brooklyn the past two years with mixed results after being very impressive at Rochester. Now 25 years old, there is hope the former top 100 prospect might be ready to assume a bigger role in the Brooklyn pen.

LYMAN WEIGEL- Won 19 games for the Kings two seasons ago but has been forced out of the rotation - or at best to the #5 slot. Went 6-9, 4.89 in 15 starts and 5 relief appearances last season. The bet is the 28 year old was a 1 year wonder but a good camp will certainly get him a spot in Brooklyn. Perhaps complicating things is the fact that Weigel is out of minor league options.

Beyond those six we have a collection of young talent, any one of whom could grab a spot with a big camp. They include:

George Johnson, a 25 year old who pitched briefly in Brooklyn last year.
Roy Pierce, a 23 year old rule V pickup who was 11-11, 2.79 in AA a year ago.
Art Blake, a 23 year old former 3rd round pick who was 17-9 at AA Knoxville last season.
George DeForest, a 24 year old who was acquired in the big deal with the Cougars and went 17-13 at 2 levels with two organizations last season.
Larry Brown, a highly touted 24 year old lefthander who went 4-5 with a 6.01 era in Brooklyn last season but was dominant in AAA.
Chuck Wirtz, a 24 year old former 19th round draft pick who has worked his way up the system and looked very good in doing so. He likely needs at least one more year at AAA Rochester, for whom he went 9-14 a year ago.

The expectation is 4 of the original six guys on this list will make it and perhaps the rule v pickup Pierce will stick. The rest of the younger guys likely go to AAA and depending who the two odd-men are out of the first six, they will either go to Rochester or be released.

#3 LIGHTBODY

The only other question that concerns the Kings this camp is whether or not Doug Lightbody can rebound. Lightbody (.299,8,55) was limited to just 83 games because of injury and posted the lowest slash numbers of his career. He has dealt with injury all to often before and bounced back so the Kings are hoping for the same from the player who despite being just 29 years old was recently named to the Kings 40th anniversary team.

Assuming Lightbody is good the outfield will likely once again consist of him in right, Ab Thomas (.328,0,50) as the lead-off man and centerfielder with Art Summers (.297,11,71) likely returning in left field. If Summers struggles or Lightbody can't stay healthy there are a collection of prospects like Elmer Nolde and Jimmy Schlosser and cast-offs from other organizations such as Ed Rhoden or former first overall draft pick Karl Stevens to fight it out for a spot.

Catcher is set with Fred Barrell starting and Bill Smith once again being a dependable backup although the Kings did invite 33 year old former Gotham backstop Johnny Simpson to camp but he will likely go to Rochester or be released.



Some questions for sure, but the Kings are expecting to be a pennant contender in 1933. Although we did say the same thing last year.

[Tiger Fan]

APRIL 17, 1933 - NOT AGAIN

!
Not the start the Brooklyn Kings were hoping for and it immediately brings back memories of the brutal April showing a year ago when the Kings basically buried themselves and were out of contention by mid-May. We had a fantastic second half last season, and were the best team in the Continental Association after the trade deadline. I had hoped that trend would continue but we had a bad start, going 1-3 against Baltimore.

Last year the offense was the problem, as it seemed everyone was in a slump to start the season. This year our bats were going good as we scored 20 runs in the 4 games, but the starting pitcher - which was rarely a problem last year - really let us down in the opening series against the Cannons.

Milt Fritz, the 23 year old who was 16-12 for us last season after winning the Allen Award the previous year, got the win on opening day but that was only because our offense had a huge game, with 17 hits in a 13-7 victory. The good news was Art Summers, who hit .080 in the spring, broke out in a big way with a pair of homers and 4 runs scored.

Tom Barrell, who was 8-3 with a 2.48 era for us last season, pitched well enough in game two but really could have used a few of the runs Fritz didn't require as Barrell went the distance, allowing 8 hits and fanning 7 but we lost 3-2. Manager Walt Bailey probably should have gone to the pen as Baltimore scored twice in the ninth to earn the win, with an error from outfielder Charlie Powell playing a role but the onus was really on Barrell, who allowed the Cannons to string 3 hits together.

We lost 6-2 in game three as 24 year old Johnny Jacob, who was 11-7 as a rookie, went the distance but it was not his best effort. The big cause for concern was Mike Murphy's start in the series finale. Hopefully it was just a bad day for the 25 year old former Brooklyn State lefthander. He was outstanding upon his promotion last year after he came over in the big trade that netted a pair of Barrell brothers. Murphy was 7-2 with a 2.53 era and looked good in every start. The debut this season was awful, as he lasted just 3 1/3 innings and allowed 10 runs on 11 hits.

Some positives are shortstop Walt Layton was on fire, going 7 for 13 while first baseman Dan Barrell, second baseman Rabbit Mudd and outfielder Art Summers all had outstanding starts. At the other end of the spectrum is catcher Fred Barrell, who was just 2-for-11 but I am confident he will rebound.

MINOR LEAGUES

Only Class A Omaha and C level Marshalltown have started their seasons. The Cowboys are off to a 6-4 start led by middle infielder John David, who was named player of the week in the Western League and is hitting .450 with 3 homers and 14 rbi's so far, tops in his loop in all 3 of those categories. The other guy that continues to force me to keep a close eye upon him is Jim Ferro. The 24 year old reliever never played high school ball but after a brief stint with independent Hollywood of the Great Western League, the Louisiana native attended an open tryout in 1929 when the Kings were looking for players for their new Class C affiliate in the Upper Mississippi Valley League. Ferro, a flame throwing right hander who struggles with control, caught on with the club and has been in our system ever since. He split last season between Class B Tampa and A Omaha, fanning 145 batters in 131 innings of relief work. He is 1-1 with 2 saves and a 1.23 era through 7 relief appearances this season and leads the Western League with 11 strikeouts. My scouting staff has never thought that highly of Ferro but he has impressed me and if he keeps it up I will be promoting him to AA Knoxville soon.


The big news in Class C Marshalltown is catcher Buster Farrar. A first team All-American last season at Brooklyn State, Farrar was the Kings 7th round pick. Our scouting staff had him ranked third among catchers but we felt the position was pretty deep so we did not grab one earlier in the draft. The Maples started slow, losing their first 5 games of the season but have rebounded and now sit at 5-6. Farrar, on the other hand, had anything but a slow start in his pro debut, going 5-for-5 with a pair of extra base hits. He has also enjoyed a 4-hit game in his first week and a half as a professional ballplayer. On the season, he leads the UMVA with a .515 batting average through 9 games. Class B Tampa's season does not start for another 9 days but I expect Farrar will be promoted shortly thereafter and he can join another All-American from last seasons college crop as our top pick, second rounder Ken Mayhugh from Liberty College, will be the starting third baseman for the Cigar Kings.

[Tiger Fan]

MAY 15, 1933: HERE WE GO AGAIN

The 1933 season, like 1932, looked to have plenty of promise for the Brooklyn Kings, but just as 1932 this season has quickly unraveled. The Kings are 11-19 and tied with Toronto for the worst record in either league. Last season it was an injury to Doug Lightbody and the inability to hit the ball, despite very good starting pitching, that haunted the Kings. This time around Lightbody is healthy but can't hit, but the rest of the lineup is producing. Unfortunately the starting pitching, and in particular co-aces Tom Barrell and Milt Fritz, are struggling and out team defense is absymal.



Rabbit Mudd, who was one of the better defensive second basemen in the league a year ago, is now channelling his inner Doctor Strangeglove and has seen his error total balloon.

YEAR  POS  G  E  PCT   RF    ZR     EFF
1932   2B 92  9 .983  5.68  +11.8  1.109
1933   2B 20 10 .917  6.01   +1.2  1.070

Meanwhile, Milt Fritz and Tom Barrell have both seen their walks skyrocket.

PLAYER   YEAR  GS  WHIP  BB/9 K/9  BABIP   ERA+
Barrell  1932  15  1.02  1.7  4.9  .248    173
Barrell  1933   7  1.47  4.1  4.1  .293    100

Fritz	 1931  39  1.27  2.5  3.7  .276    133
Fritz    1932  32  1.26  2.3  4.1  .280    120
Fritz    1933   7  1.57  4.1  4.2  .305     93

Yes, Mudd's fielding and the pitching of Barrell and Fritz are small samples but things are looking very bad. The pair are supposed to be two of top pitchers in the league and clearly were a year ago but they have each experienced a huge drop-off in the early part of this season. Our other two starters also struggled early but are showing signs of coming around. 25 year old Mike Murphy, who was outstanding as a rookie last year going 7-2, 2.53, got shelled early in the season but has put together two very good starts and is now 2-4 with a 6.15 era.

Meanwhile, Johnny Jacob, the 24 year old who was 11-7 for us as a rookie, has had some great outings this season including a 1-hit shutout of Toronto last week but has also struggled in some of his starts.

The offense, aside from Lightbody's struggles, has been pretty good and out bulpen, which killed us last year, has been solid but is showing signs of slowing down after a very strong start.



BOTTOM LINE - TIME FOR A CHANGE AT THE TOP?
I have to think I am on thin ice as my job is clearly on the line. There is no firing of GM's in this online league but if things don't improve I should be fired.

Here are the blunt facts:

-Average attendance is down from two years ago but up slightly from last season due primarily to a ticket price reduction. It is also still early in the season so the average number is artificially inflated a bit because of opening day still having a bigger factor in the numbers but that will decline as we play more games. The Kings are just 2-6 at Kings County Ballpark.

-Our season ticket holder base is down substantially, over 23% from a year ago so clearly fans are losing patience with this version of the Kings.

-It is the 50th anniversary of the team and after our outstanding second half last season this was supposed to be a pennant contending year for the Kings. Instead, fans of the franchise that has never won a World Championship Series, are once again forced to endure an awful stretch of baseball watching their pitchers walk batter after batter and their fielders continue to embarrass with errors.

-I made the call to trade Tommy Wilcox (5-2, 2.63 this year) to the Cougars and I expect I am hearing about it daily from the owner.

-I fired my manager a year ago after the terrible start so I am not sure we can go that route again.

-The owner who hired me and I had a great relationship with - Malcolm Presley- died in the off-season before the 1932 season so the new man in charge Daniel Prescott has little allegiance to me. He is considered to be somewhat patient but also likes to meddle in the team's day to day affairs. His expectation is we achieve a winning record this season and it is looking more and more like we would need a second half like we had a year ago to do so, and I am not sure if that is realistic to expect.

If I was Prescott, I would be starting to quietly interview replacements for me now and if there are not some positive signs before the beginning of July I would be making a change.

[mjj55409]

Don't make a snap judgment on Mudd's defense just based on the errors. His overall numbers still look good; he has a positive ZR and EFF and his range is even slightly better.

[Tiger Fan]

My Kings do seem to be the Boston Red Sox or Chicago Cubs of this era and apparently they have a curse of their own to contend with. While many erroneously believe the Kings curse is traced back to the Bigsby family when they were forced to fold their Brooklyn Bigsbys franchise from the Peerless League when the 3 leagues amalgamated to form FABL but there is no such record of Miles Bigsby uttering anything in resemblance of a curse. Curse words? Absolutely. But Bigsby never put a hex on the franchise. Instead that legacy belongs to perhaps the greatest pitcher in Brooklyn history. Here are the details.

THE CURSE OF FERDINAND HAWKINS

Ferdinand Hawkins was the ace of the 2 Brooklyn championship teams in the Border Association. He went 28-10 when they won their first title in 1889 and was 28-19 two years later when they claimed their second title in the final year of the old Border Association. 1892 brought us the birth of FABL and Hawkins, then 27 years old had a bit of an off year, winning just 14 games while losing 16 but in his defense he was hampered by a sore hamstring for a good portion of the campaign.

The Kings, who finished second to the Chicago Cougars that season, decided that despite a 191-135 record for Brooklyn and being just 28 year old, they had no further need for Hawkins and released him that off-season. Perhaps they felt the hamstring injury was more serious than it turned out to be but regardless, after 9 years with the team - every year the franchise existed - Hawkins was discarded.

Hawkins was so incensed he walked away from the game and instead of trying to catch on with another FABL club he took a factory job in his hometown of Westfield, Massachusetts while also pitching for the local semi-pro team, but not before threatening Kings owner Barnabas Colson for cutting him. The details are unclear but the consensus according to the pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was that Hawkins claimed to have cursed Colson and his club, saying they would never win a title without him.

Hawkins eventually returned to FABL three years later and won 22 games for the Philadelphia Sailors in 1895. That would be his last hurrah as he did spend a couple more seasons in the league with the Sailors, New York Gothams and Cleveland but started just 3 more games. He would retire with a 217-157 career record.

Meanwhile the Kings would win pennants in 1912, 1923 and 1927 but would lose in the World Championship Series on each of those occasions. To this day Brooklyn remains one of just two FABL franchises never to win a World Championship Series.

Now under new ownership and no longer aligned with the Colson-Presley families there had been hopes that the decision to name Hawkins to the All-Time Century Kings team in celebration of the club's 50th anniversary season this year might mend the fences but as of yet Hawkins, now 68 years old and in failing health, has refused to acknowledge invitations to come to Kings County Park and be recognized as one of the franchise greats in a day in his honour.

While the Kings publicly state they do not believe in any curse, a team insider has revealed that Albert Davis, who has also been named to the 50th anniversary team and was a teammate of Hawkins, has been dispatched by the club to visit Hawkins in hopes of convincing him to put the matter behind him and embrace the franchise once again.

The Kings still say there is no curse, but I guess they are hedging their bets in hopes that a reunion with the franchises original star might reinvigorate their struggling club. Anything is worth a shot in Brooklyn at this point I suppose.

[Tiger Fan]

MAY 15, 1933
KINGS ARE AT IT AGAIN

It seems like every year the Brooklyn Kings are good for two things. One is a prolonged losing skid and for the second year in a row the Kings decided to get that out of the way in the first couple of months of the season. The second thing Brooklyn has become famous for is blockbuster deals involving pitchers.

It started in the days leading up to the draft following the 1928 season when Brooklyn packaged a bunch of picks and players to acquire the number one overall pick which they used on can't miss pitching phenom Tommy Wilcox. Next came a huge deal with the Chicago Chiefs announced during the 1930 World Championship Series that brought Milt Fritz to Brooklyn. The Wilcox and Fritz era was supposed to last a decade and lead to many pennants for the Kings. Instead it yielded none and less than 3 years later both were gone. Wilcox in a big deal last season that suddenly turned the Kings fortunes around after a dismal first half of the 1932 season and now Fritz just over two months into the 1933 campaign in yet another huge deal announced today.

Milt Fritz is now a Montreal Saint, joining a rising team of the type Brooklyn fans thought the Kings were becoming when they acquired him less than 3 years ago. The Saints are suddenly relevant after nearly a decade of struggles and made the move to try and keep pace with the talent rich Chicago Cougars - led by the other former Brooklyn ace in Tommy Wilcox. Fritz has struggled with his control this year and is 1-5 with a 4.23 era but he is just 23 years old and two years removed from an Allen Award winning season when he went 23-15 for the Kings. In all, Fritz has won 74 FABL games and seems well on his way to becoming one of the great pitchers of his era.

Brooklyn, mirred in another terrible start, may have over-reacted this time but it is clear GM Tiger Fan feels he is on the hot seat and needed to do something to shake up his struggling team. It worked a season ago as the Kings were the hottest team in baseball after dealing Wilcox. The difference this year is there will be no Tom or Fred Barrell quality player coming back in the deal. At least not immediately.

In this deal the Kings shipped Fritz and a third round pick to Montreal for the Saints first rounder in the 1933 draft and three top fifty prospects in outfielder Bill May, third baseman John Langille and pitcher Chuck Murphy.

MURPHY'S LAW
Brooklyn did add a ton of talent in the trade but only pitcher Chuck Murphy appears potentially ready to join the big league club this season. Murphy, a 24 year old first round pick out of Ellery College in 1930, had a brief but unsuccessful stint in Montreal last summer and has spent this season at AAA Minnesota, posting a 1-4 record with a 5.05 era. Now last year the Kings did add another 24 year old Murphy in lefthander Mike, and he paid immediate dividends by going 7-2 down the stretch for Brooklyn after a brief but unsuccessful stint with the Chicago Cougars in the year prior to the deal. Chuck Murphy is ranked the 33rd prospect in the league and will likely be in Brooklyn soon.

THE ART OF THE LANGILLE
Langille was high on the Kings draft list this past winter and was the player they targeted for their first pick, which came in the second round because they dealt their first rounder away in another deal of the large variety, bringing in teenage SS Harry Barrell from Cleveland. Langille went 6 picks ahead of the Kings turn when Montreal called his name at 20th overall. He is a Canadian who seemed a perfect fit for the Saints after an outstanding career at Commonwealth Catholic that saw him hit .366 with 28 homers in 152 career games in the AIAA. He started the season at Class A where he is batting .250 but is ranked the #46 prospect in the game at the moment.

MAY DAY
The final player the Kings added was Montreal's top prospect (#14 overall) in 20 year old outfielder Bill May. A 1931 fifth overall pick out of Greensboro High School, he split his rookie pro season between Class C and B, batting .305 with 11 homers. He has been playing right field this season for Montreal but is a natural centerfielder with a very bright future.

SUMMARY
The first round pick will yield another top prospect to a rapidly improving Brooklyn farm system. The Kings felt they could make this deal without too much of a step back because of the emergence of Johnny Jacob this season and the presence of three very good pitching prospects in 19 year old Dixie Lee (26th ranked), 21 year old Art White (66th ranked) and 24 year old George DeForest (103rd ranked). The hope is Jacob continues his development and joins Tom Barrell, as long as he can regain his control, as the pair of aces with some combination of the two Murphy's, the three pitchers mentioned above and veteran Lyman Weigel (a 19 game winner two seasons ago) filling out the rest of the rotation.

The move certainly seems to indicate the Kings are taking another step back into the rebuild this season but the club still has loads of talent. The challenge is, as it has been the past two years, getting that talent to compete for a full a season.

[Tiger Fan]

GOOD BYE BILL DENGLER. WE HARDLY KNEW YOU

Here is a great, but for me ultimately tragic example of why OOTP is such a great game. We all have our own universe's we have created, teams we lived and died with and players that to us, at least for a brief period of time, became as real in our minds and as important to us as any real athlete we ever admired or looked up to even though in a large number of cases they are fictional players in a fictional league in a fictional world we have either created or in the case of an online league become a part of. OOTP is just a collection of code, but every so often for us it creates a player who becomes one we follow for his entire OOTP career. For me, Bill Dengler was one such player.

I just did a quick search of this thread and there are 51 posts in which Dengler's name is mentioned. As it would turn out those 51 posts would be 31 more than the number of victories Dengler would amass for my Brooklyn Kings over his career. A career that was so full of promise when this happened in July of 1929 (4 years ago)

Dengler did eventually come back from the injury but was clearly not the same pitcher. He had lost something from that golden arm and would win just 6 more games as a King, spending the bulk of his time in the minors. Until this sim (early June 1933) when I received news he had suffered another arm injury and this one would mean the end of his career.


I would say Dengler was my very first favourite player in FABL, right up there with Doug Lightbody after both were drafted in the opening two rounds of my very first online league draft. Dengler was taken in the second round, 18th overall in the draft that followed the 1925 season. He went 19-7 at Maryland State for his college career and made his Kings debut 2 years later. In 1929 at the age of 24 he started the season 7-3 for me but was lost for the year in July with his first torn UCL as described above. Prior to the injury, my scouting director at the time Rube Carter really liked him and Dengler was pencilled in as a mid-rotation guy for the next half dozen years. Unfortunately it never happened as Dengler was not the same pitcher after the injury. He would win just 6 more big league games and split this season between AA and AAA with mediocre results until last week when he threw his final pitch doing mop up duty out of the pen in a meaningless 9th inning of a 9-2 loss for AAA Rochester. His shoulder gave out and he left the game. Diagnosis another torn UCL and this one is career ending.

Dengler will live on in FABL. He will take the rest of the summer to heal and will be hired as a pitching coach somewhere in my organization for next season and beyond.



It is a great testament to this game, and to the commissioner and league GM's of FABL that a player like this can feel so real to me, even to the point that I felt just a brief moment of sadness upon reading the news, as if Bill Dengler was actually a real player.

Had he stayed healthy I envisioned Dengler as a key piece of the Kings for years but instead he won only one more game as a King then he did in his college days as a Bengal. Final career FABL mark for Dengler is 20-21 with a 4.03 era. But I will always have the first half of the 1929 season to remember him by.

[mjj55409]

You look at that 1932 season in Rochester and you think--maybe he can come back and work out of the pen. But alas, not to be.

[Tiger Fan]

KINGS STRUGGLES AND SHAKE-UPS CONTINUE

As June comes to an end the 1933 season remains a bitter disappointment for my Brooklyn Kings. Our pitching continues to be terrible as Tom Barrell (4-10, 3.75) continues to be up and down while prize youngster Johnny Jacob (8-7, 3.85) has cooled after a strong start. The offense has been acceptable, well except when Barrell is on the mound as Tom's run support is practically non-existent.

The Kings presently sport a 31-39 record, 14.5 games back of the Chicago Cougars who are led by ex-King Tommy Wilcox (10-5, 2.52) and Brooklyn's big trade last season to acquire Tom Barrell and his brother Fred looks worse and worse every day. Unlike last season when the Kings caught fire following the trade after a similar awful start, there seems to be no end to the suffering for the long-suffering fans of the Brooklyn Kings ballclub. This season is a milestone one - the 50th anniversary of the franchise - and was supposed to be a year of celebration when the Kings, riding high after being the hottest team in baseball down the stretch a year ago, were to challenge for the pennant and perhaps cap a dream season with the franchise's first ever Wold Championship Series victory. Instead, the dream has for the second straight year, started off as a nightmare as the Kings bumble through another season with poor pitching and dreadful defense.




The latest scapegoat is bench coach Hugh Luckey as the long-time King was relieved of his duties this week. It has been no secret that Luckey, a former infielder, never interacted much with the pitchers on the roster and was rumoured to have butted heads a few times with young pitcher Tom Barrell. With the pitching staff, and Barrell in particular, struggling to find consistency it was decided that AA Knoxville manager Danny Goff, a former King pitching ace and a selection on the franchise's 50th anniversary all-time team, would swap jobs with Luckey. However, the cantankerous infielder, who had been with the Kings first as a player and later as a coach since he was drafted in 1914, apparently wanted no part of minor league life again even if it meant a promotion to manager. Luckey refused to go to Knoxville so he was dismissed and Goff promoted. No official word on who will take over as the AA skipper but rumblings are that another former Kings pitcher in the recently retired Harvey Rodgers, will get the job. As for Goff joining the Kings staff, he built a rapport with pitchers Tom Barrell and Mike Murphy in spring training and was instrumental in the development of Johnny Jacob so he seemed to be an ideal fit for the promotion, and even more so when you consider the Kings are grooming him to eventually be their manager.

UNCHARTED TERRITORY FOR LIGHTBODY

Doug Lightbody is going somewhere he has never been. The minors. The struggling outfielder will do a stint in Rochester after a terrible month of June that saw his average plummet to .277 on the season. The 29 year old who went straight from the campus of Mississippi A&M to the big leagues after being drafted 6th overall in 1925, hit a career low .299 last season and continues to trend in the wrong direction. He has played 900 career FABL games and owns a .356 batting average during that time as well as a Whitney Award he won in 1927.

Brooklyn has called up 22 year old Buck Waldrop to replace Lightbody in right field. Waldrop, a former 4th round pick out of Hartford HS, was acquired from the Cougars last year in exchange for 3 mid-level draft picks. He has split his season between AA and AAA, batting .283 with 8 homers and 40 rbi's in 54 games. A natural centerfielder he will be a big upgrade defensively on the lumbering Lightbody, who's mobility has been greatly hampered by numerous injuries through the years. It is hoped that Lightbody's stay in AAA will be brief with the focus on him getting his hitting stroke back quickly and then returning to Brooklyn.

Meanwhile 20 year old centerfielder Bill May, recently acquired from Montreal in the controversial Milt Fritz trade, has been promoted to AAA Rochester after hitting .323 with 5 stolen bases in his month at AA Knoxville. He joins 3B John Langille and P Chuck Murphy, the other two players involved in that deal, in Rochester. Langille, a second round pick out of Commonwealth Catholic this past December, is batting .289 in his 20 games with the Rooks after being promoted from Knoxville. Murphy was just recently returned to Rochester after a brief stint in Brooklyn. He was sent down, ironically, to make room for another ex-Saint - waiver wire pickup Tony Martinez who is expected to join the struggling Kings today as their series in Montreal resumes.

[Tiger Fan]

1933 IN REVIEW

The Brooklyn Kings golden anniversary season ended like so many before it, as another year full of disappointment for the franchise which is one of only two active teams to never win a World Championship Series. There was great promise heading into the 50th anniversary of Brooklyn Kings baseball, especially after the incredible finish to the 1932 campaign. However, just as in 1932, the Kings got off to a terrible start that destroyed any hope of a pennant before spring had turned to summer and, despite a strong finish, Brooklyn once again finished in the middle of the pack in the Continental Association.

Brooklyn was just 33-43 at the end of June and only a second half that saw the Kings go 43-34 saved my job. Had the team continued to underperform in the second half of the season as they did in the first half I was fully prepared to resign and wait for a new team to become open. I had already fired my manager and made a blockbuster deal the previous season to shake things up and then made a major deal in the midst of the slump this season so I figured with a new owner (Daniel Prescott purchased the team a couple of years ago from the Presley family) who had little allegiance to me it only made sense the GM should be the next to go. The solid finish did give me a reprieve but another terrible start will surely mean the end of my days in Brooklyn.

Note - there are no rules about firing GM's in the Figment online league but to me it only makes sense if the team underperforms again I should be next in line to be relieved of his duties.

As for the just concluded 1933 season, it was the pitching that let us down. Tom Barrell (13-16, 3.86), the former first overall pick I acquired along with his brother Fred, a catcher, from the Chicago Cougars, and was so good down the stretch a year ago was terrible at times this season and had trouble finding the strike zone. He showed some signs of improvement with a strong July but struggled in September and is really making me regret the deal that sent Tommy Wilcox and Mike Taylor to Chicago - where they won a CA pennant this season.

Mike Murphy, another piece acquired in that Chicago deal, had a decent season at 15-16, 4.13 but was a shadow of the pitcher who joined us last July and went 7-2, 2.53 down the stretch. We also have a big question mark around 24 year old Johnny Jacob (9-8,3.59). Jacob was my best pitcher this year and had been tabbed as a future ace of the team but after missing the final 3 months of the season with a knee injury my scouting director John Spears is far less bullish on Jacob than he had been. We do have 3 good arms in AAA with hopefully at least one of Chuck Murphy, Art White and George DeForest ready to make the jump into the Kings rotation next spring but there are certainly a lot of question marks around a pitching staff that was amongst the worst in the league this season.


Our offense was actually very good as we led the CA in runs scored, batting average and on base percentage. Fourth year King Jake Shadoan (.364,5,79) won the Association batting title, a first for the organization since Doug Lightbody's 1927 Whitney Award winning season. I feel bad the way I have had to bounce Shadoan around the infield but it became out of necessity to keep his bat in the line-up. A natural second baseman, my plan was to play him at first base because I had up and coming prospect Rabbit Mudd at second but then Dan Barrell emerged as a hitting machine so I installed him at first and forced Shadoan to learn third base - a position that has been notoriously weak for Brooklyn over the years. However, Mudd - who was so good with the glove and decent at the plate in 1932, suddenly channelled his inner Steve Sax and committed 22 errors in 60 starts at second base so I was forced to move Shadoan back to second.

The acquisition of John Langille in the trade that sent pitcher Milt Fritz to Montreal hopefully addresses third base for years to come. Langille, just 22 years old, hit .315 in a late season call-up to Brooklyn and should greatly improve our defense at the hot corner. The other big piece on out defense is the addition of rookie Harry Barrell at shortstop. The 19 year old will get some votes in the Whitney Award race this year after hitting .318 in 127 games with the Kings and being the best defensive shortstop in either league. With Langille and Harry Barrell the left side of the infield is set and Fred Barrell gives us one of the best defensive catchers in the league. Harry's play makes the deal with Chicago for his brother Tom and Fred almost palatable as I would not have acquired Harry from Cleveland had I not already added the other two brothers.

Despite Harry's glove our team defense was the worst in the CA as Shadoan was not a great improvement at second base on the butter fingered Rabbit Mudd and Dan Barrell is a man way ahead of his time - only in the fact he would make an ideal designated hitter but is a terrible fielder. What might happen in the near future is Dan will be relegated to pinch-hitting duties allowing me to move Shadoan to first base if either I can find a decent defensive second sacker or Rabbit Mudd can somehow regain his form with the glove. Dan's offensive production in a breakthrough 1932 season at age 27 were outstanding and allowed me to easily overlook his terrible defense at first base. However, this season Dan was merely ordinary, slashing .295/.369/.409 so a move to the bench seems likely.

The other area I need to greatly improve my defense is in the outfield. All of my outfielders are below average defensively but leftfielder Art Summers (.297,13,80) provides a lot of offense and I am not yet ready to give up on rightfielder Doug Lightbody despite the impact injuries have had on his 29 year old frame. With those two on the corners I need a much better fielder in center than either Jim Gentry or Ab Thomas have proven to be. The answer I hope will come in the form of 20 year old Bill May, another piece of the deal that sent Milt Fritz to Montreal. May progressed from A to AAA this season and in 81 games at centerfield with Rochester he had a +12.7 zone rating and a 1.065 efficiency number. May has plus speed as well - he swiped 44 bases while batting .331 in Class B in 1932 and stole 13 while hitting .258 at Rochester. He is currently rated the 6th best prospect in the game and I will be giving him a chance to win the starting centerfield job next spring.

[

There are some positives in Brooklyn. Our minor league system, even with Harry Barrell no longer qualifying as a prospect, is ranked second to only the Washington Eagles and we have 7 players rated in the current top 100 prospect list including:

BILL MAY : 20 year old CF. Ranked 6th overall acquired in trade with Montreal May 1933
I talked about May earlier. He will be in Brooklyn at some point next year and possibly our opening day starter.

DIXIE LEE - 20 year old RHP. Ranked 10th overall. Acquired in 1931 draft, first round pick #9
Lee was 13-10 with a 4.08 era primarily at Class A Omaha. He will likely start next season in AA with a 1935 eta.

JOHN LANGILLE - 22 year old 3B. Ranked 22nd overall. Acquired in trade with Montreal May 1933.
Langille looked good in his Brooklyn debut in September and will be the everyday third baseman for the Kings next season.

CHUCK MURPHY - 24 year old RHP. Ranked 23rd overall. Acquired in trade with Montreal May 1933.
Murphy struggled a bit at AAA, going 9-10 but I am hoping it was just the stress of being traded for the former Ellery College Bruin who was a first round pick of the Saints in 1930. He is 0-4 with a 6.55 era in two brief FABL call-ups but the hope is he can fill out the back end of our rotation perhaps as early as next season.

ART WHITE - 22 year old LHP. Ranked 34th overall. Acquired in 1932 draft, round 3.
A late bloomer, White pitched just one season for George Fox University before being drafted by the Kings. He progressed through 5 levels of minors for his in 1933, completely dominating in Classes C, B and A before a promotion to AA Knoxville, where he was 6-9 with a 3.63 era. Injuries opened a spot in Rochester for him late in the year so he got a brief taste of AAA as well. He likely will spend 1934 in Rochester but will be given a shot to show what he can do at the major league camp in the spring.

KEN MAYHUGH -21 year old 3B. Ranked 65th overall. Acquired in 1932 draft, round 2.
Mayhugh beat out John Langille for first team All-America status in 1932 and then was taken by the Kings 6 picks after Montreal grabbed Langille. Originally thought of as the Kings third baseman of the future, the former Liberty College star's future in Brooklyn is uncertain after the deal that brought Langille to the Kings. He spent most of the 1933 season at Class A Omaha, batting .261 with 9 homers in 106 games for the Cowboys. With Langille now blocking his path to Brooklyn, Mayhugh is likely a candidate to be moved at some point.

GEORGE DEFOREST - 24 year old RHP. Ranked 70th overall. Acquired in 1932 trade with Chicago Cougars.
The forgotten about piece in the big Wilcox/Barrell deal with the Cougars, DeForest was like two different pitchers this season. In AA he was 10-3 with a 3.49 era but at AAA Rochester he went 3-9, 5.01. The Kings still have high expectations for the 1927 6th round draft pick out of San Antonio High School.

In addition the Kings have a pair of first round picks in the December draft. The team will select 5th with the pick acquired from Montreal in the Milt Fritz deal as well as their own seventh selection. The original line of thinking was to try and package the two picks and move up towards the top of the draft but Scouting Director John Spears has identified 7 players that the Kings would be glad to have any two of them so a trade involving either of their first round picks appears very unlikely.


SUMMARY - So there seem to be a lot of positives to look forward to in Brooklyn and the hope is the strong finish to the season was much more indicative of the team's ability then the terrible start was. Of course, I wrote basically the exact same thing a year ago and look how this season turned out. One thing is certain. I will not be writing about a terrible start next season - or if I am I will be doing it as either the General Manager of a different team or from the unemployment line.

[Tiger Fan]

May 28, 1934

KINGS OFF TO OUTSTANDING START

It has been a while since I updated you on the exploits of my Brooklyn Kings. We are now reaching the end of May and I am happy to say my job is secure, at least for the time being. You might recall we had just an awful start each of the past two seasons, a start that took us out of contention by this time of year and even a pair of outstanding second halves of the season did little to redeem us. A third consecutive terrible start and I had vowed to resign, but 1934 has been different - at least so far.

The Kings sit in second place in the Continental Association with a 24-15 record, trailing the Cleveland Foresters by 4 games. Long-time followers will know this is rare air for both franchises as Brooklyn and Cleveland are the only two FABL teams to have never won a World Championship Series. While we got off to a great start, the defending CA champion Chicago Cougars began the season similar to how my Kings did each of the past two years. The Cougars, led by ex-King Tommy Wilcox, seemed to have straightened things out recently and are now a team to be worried about as are the always dangerous New York Stars and young Montreal Saints.



It is also nice seeing so many Kings on the leaderboards. Our offense has been outstanding even with reigning CA batting champ Jake Shadoan (.264,3,12) in a slump, hitting exactly 100 points below his league leading average of a year ago. Shadoan had a rough April but seems to be slowly coming around. Meanwhile 30 year old Doug Lightbody (.386,1,29), who I had almost written off after a pair of injury plagued seasons in which he really struggled at the plate when healthy, is now looking like the 23 year old who won the 1927 Whitney Award as league MVP. Rookie third baseman John Langille (.385,2,24), who came over from Montreal in the deal that saw us part with pitching star Milt Fritz, is off to an incredible start as well.

The Barrell boys have lived up to their billing in the early going as well as Tom is 7-0 with a 3.25 era while catcher Fred (.318,2,24) and shortstop Harry (.295,0,22) have been very good as well. Even Dan (.333,1,8), who struggled a little last season and started slow, has regained his job at first base as Lightbody was shifted back to his natural right field position.

The hitting has been outstanding but there are a lot of worries on the mound thanks primarily due to the devastating season ending injury suffered by Johnny Jacob. The former top ten prospect was once considered a future ace but now after the latest and most serious in a series of injuries may end up struggling just to come back from his impending elbow surgery.

Injuries have really hurt us pitching-wise through the years and this season is no different. In the span of less than a week we not only lost Jacob but also our two first-round draft picks. 5th overall selection, 18 year old Earle Robinson, who was 2-1, 2.86 and on a strict pitch count at Class C Marshallown suffered a back injury in his 6th pro start and will miss 3 months. 7th overall pick Bob Cummings, a 22 year old out of College of San Diego, had 3 solid starts before straining his arm and missing 3 weeks. Cummings is back now and had a decent outing for Class A Omaha last week but he will also remain on a strict pitch count.

To help address the shortage of pitching we decided to part with a couple of pieces from our very deep farm system and acquire 36 year old Ken Carpenter from Baltimore. The Cannons are deep into a rebuild and had little use for Carpenter despite his 189-168 career record, which up until last week had been spent entirely with the Cannons. It is hoped that Carpenter can be the #2 or 3 starter we need to join Tom Barrell and Mike Murphy (3-2, 3.25) in our rotation. We had been struggling to fill the back end of the rotation but with the addition of Carpenter and hopefully continued success of rookie George DeForest (1-1, 1.66) we might be in better shape in that regard.


So in summary. Our hititng is outstanding. Our pitching is servicable and we are for a change playing like we are capable of in the first half of the season. However, part of me keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop and us to have another terrible stretch like we have seen the past couple of seasons. Hopefully those fears are ill-founded. It would have been nice to have a contender in our 50th anniversary season last year, but we will gladly take one this year

I will update our progress again in the next month or so of game time.

[Tiger Fan]

KINGS UPDATE ALLSTAR BREAK 1934

There has been plenty of excitement for my Brooklyn Kings since my last update a month and a half ago. We did spend a bit of time in first place thanks to a 19-8 month of June. However, the Cleveland Foresters are just as hot and they entered the all-star break with a 3 game lead on us. Our offense still remains the most productive in the Continental Association and our pitching, led by Tom Barrell who started the year 11-0 and recent pickup Ken Carpenter who is 7-1 since coming over from Baltimore, has been pretty good.

The All-Star break saw 7 Kings recognized for their outstanding work so far as three of the four Barrell brothers on the team made the squad along with 4 other Kings. They are starting pitchers Tom Barrell (13-1, 3.03) ) Ken Carpenter (10-3,3.48 overall), reliever Del Lyons (3-0, 1.23), catcher Fred Barrell (.327/.390/.462), second baseman Jake Shadoan (.327/.384/.452), shortstop Harry Barrell (.337/.384/.430) and outfielder Jim Gentry (.318/.374/.543). There was some indignation that the top two in batting average in the CA in rookie third baseman John Langille and veteran outfielder Doug Lightbody were bypassed for the game but it was nothing compared to the frustration and anger the Kings brass would feel after the contest.

More on that in a moment but first let's discuss some of the positives from the All-Star game. First it was a special moment to see 4 brothers on the field at the same time to start the game as Tom was pitching, Fred catching and Harry at shortstop while the only FABL playing Barrell brother not currently in Brooklyn was outfielder Bobby, who led off the game for the Federal Association. While that mark may be equalled by the brothers again in the future I am not sure that record will ever be broken - 4 brothers on the field at the same time in an all-star game, although who knows maybe the other brother in Brooklyn - first baseman Dan - might get to the all-star game someday.


As for the game itself it ended up as an 11-7 victory for the Federal Association in 10 innings- the second straight year the Feds won the game. Most of the Kings played very well. Tom pitched a scoreless first inning including retiring his brother Bobby on a fly ball. Fred and Harry each played the whole game and had 1 hit apiece. Carpenter pitched a 1-2-3 fourth inning setting down FA stars Frank Vance, Freddie Jones and Rankin Kellogg in order. Jim Gentry started in centerfield and got the scoring going with a 3-run homer in the third inning and Jake Shadoan went 3-for-4 in the game. That brings us to Del Lyons. Lyons was, for some strange reason which we will discuss shortly, forced to pitch 3 innings and toss 81 pitches - a season high for the 29 year old lefthander. He got roughed up in the 10th and was the losing pitcher.

Because he went 3 innings he was not available to Brooklyn manager Wally Grant when the Kings started an important series in Cleveland. We dropped the opener 4-3 in 10 innings and one has to wonder if the outcome would have been different had a rested Lyons - who has allowed just 4 runs in nearly 30 innings of relief work this season and has a amazing 369 ERA+ - been available. Tom Barrell got beat 6-1 the next day and then after an off day Saturday the Kings lost a heartbreaking 2-1 duel as Murphy's Law reared it's head in a pitching battle between our Mike Murphy and their Walter Murphy. All of a sudden we are 6 games out of first place and really must win tomorrow in the series finale against the Foresters.

Counting tomorrow we still have 8 games remaining with Cleveland and reinforcements are coming in on both sides. They added another bat - like they need it - in a deal with Boston to acquire all-star 3B Charlie Berry (.342,7,54) while we added an all-star of our own in former St Louis lefthander Joe Shaffner, who is 12-7, 3.17 on the season and pitched a scoreless inning in the all-star game.

SHAFFNER TRADE

The Shaffner deal cost us a pretty penny as we were forced to part with arguably the best of our deep crop of pitching prospects in 21 year old Dixie Lee, a top 20 prospect according to OSA, who was 7-5 with a 4.56 era in 17 starts at AA Knoxville. We also sent a pair of outfield prospects in Hal Sharp and Al Sears but we will have an opportunity to add to our deep minor league system with the inclusion of a second round pick coming to us from St Louis in the trade.

I like this draft class as it looks very deep and I am confident we will get a quality prospect with that pick. However, it was a very hard decision to part with Lee, who I drafted 9th overall out of Little Rock High School in 1931. I am still fairly comfortable with the pitching depth we have as Art White, Bob Cummings, Earle Robinson and George DeForest are all listed among the league's top 75 prospects. Plus I think Shaffner is a huge get and if we want any chance at catching the Foresters this season my pitching needed an upgrade and at 30 years old Shaffner should be effective for several more years. I have also had notoriously bad luck with young pitchers suffering injuries so there is no guarantee Lee would have panned out but if he does I will likely regret this trade as it might draw comparisons to a real life Doyle Alexander for a young John Smoltz type deal. If Shaffner can help us win our first World Championship Series in franchise history it will be worth it though, no matter how good Lee might become.

ALL STAR GAME CONTROVERSY

Now back to the story of the day and how the Kings organization has taken exception to the decision by former Chicago Cougars manager Dick Pozza to leave Lyons in for 3 innings when he still had rested arms in the pen. I say former because he was recently let go by the defending CA champs but was still in the dugout for the all-star showcase.

Here are the details and rumours that have come to light in the days following the game. Lyons pitched a scoreless 8th but was sent out back for the ninth inning where he allowed the tying run. No other CA pitcher went more than an inning and a third but Pozza inexplicably sent Lyons back out for the 10th inning despite the fact he had 3 other pitchers still available. Lyons ended up losing the game and facing a season high 20 batters while throwing 81 pitches - also a highwater mark for the year and was then unavailable for the Kings series opener in Cleveland two days later.

Brooklyn Manager Walt Bailey is normally a pretty easy going guy but the Kings skipper lost it with a reporter in his office on Sunday. Perhaps it is the stress of dropping 3 straight to the Cleveland Foresters but Bailey took his frustrations out on the league office and he made it quite clear that he feels the All-Star game is something that should not be played.

"It was fine to do it once to help out some of the retired guys in need and I am sure the fans liked it," said Bailey. "But to play a meaningless exhibition game in the middle of the season, well I'm not sure that is a good idea. And then that jackass managing the club forces Del to throw 80 something pitches. It's not fair to the kid and not fair to our team as we really only had 22 guys available the first day or two in Cleveland. And don't get me started on the fact that Fred (Barrell) had to play the entire game. Don't get me wrong. Fred is young and wants to catch every day but that does put a little stress on the body. I'm just not sure it's worth it when we are in a pennant race and trying to focus on winning games not some meaningless showcase."


A Cleveland source is quoted as saying "it was a stroke of brilliance to leave the Kings players in the game," and added "Killing the Kings top RP and forcing the catcher to play all 9 in a meaningless game was brilliant right before a big series in Cleveland."

That led to rumours running rampant that Pozza may have been given a payment from Foresters owner Elmer Marshall. Brooklyn owner Daniel Prescott is threatening to withhold Kings players from any future all-star game although sources suggest the brewing magnate might be appeased if the league were to offer him exclusive rights to distribute beer in all 14 American based FABL ballparks.

Either way it does seem suspicious that Manager Pozza left Lyons in when he had 2 pitchers who did not throw in the game. One was Tommy Wilcox and the other- Cleveland's Eddie Quinn. Plus he had another Forester arm in Roger Perry, who came on to relieve Lyons after the damage had been done in the 10th. Clearly adding fuel to the fire that all was not on the up and up with that game. Some feel that the decision, which cost the CA the game, is further signs of Pozza's incompetence as a manager but Kings manager Wally Grant pointed out that Pozza has quite a resume for someone so incompetent.

"3 World Championships with 3 different teams - 2 as manager and the third as bench coach. Also reached the Series two other times including once as the manager." Grant added as he walked away "Does not smell like incompetence but certainly reeks of something."


Regardless the Kings now find themselves 6 games back of Cleveland as the season crosses it's traditional midpoint. Certainly not an insurmountable deficit to make up but Brooklyn, with it's history of falling just short and disappointing the Kings faithful time and again, is in a much less enviable position then they were just 4 days ago.

[DD Martin]

That Elmer Marshall, he is always up to no good. First he wants to move the team out of Cleveland and now there are strong rumors that he indeed paid Dick Pozza to keep the King players in the game throughout and give time off to the Foresters who only had their batter get up twice in the contest.

Is there corruption in the CA?