FABL - Cleveland Foresters Mediocrity at its worst - Page 5

DD Martin · 10-01-2020, 05:48 PM

Week 3 of a very long season
Welcome to a place where a 3-4 week is a success!

Unfortunately for the Forester's major changes are about to take place. No, there are no moving vans showing up at the stadium in the middle of the night to move the team (although that is not a bad idea), but there will be some repercussions felt for the team's lack of success on the field after 3 weeks (5-12 dead last in the CA). Thankfully April is over so we can start out fresh in May. Anyway here is a review of last weeks "success" on the field.

We will finish up the Philadelphia series with 2 on the road on Monday and Tuesday, and then head off Toronto for an early season showdown of "who's on the clock" for next year's draft. Then we will come home after a long 9 game road trip to the not so friendly confines of Forester Stadium (if it holds together that long) to play the Brooklyn Kings.

Monday April 24th
Cleveland Foresters 8
Philadelphia Sailors 2

Max Morris is obviously a fan of Sailors Memorial Stadium as he smacked his 3rd homer in the last 2 days here. Today's victim was someone named Bert Small who was making his 1st career start in the big leagues. Cleveland's Ben Turner was once again very good which begged the question why he didn't make the opening day roster. Two wins in a row for the Tree Farmers.

WP - Ben Turner 1-1 2.16 LP - Bert Small 0-1 4.26
HR - Cleveland - Morris 3rd, Philadelphia - Irv Brady 2nd

Tuesday April 25th
Cleveland Foresters 2
Philadelphia Sailors 11

The Sailors were obviously furious over dropping the first two games of this series (and 11 runs) to the lowly C-Town 9. So they made up for it in a big way and punished SP Karl Johnson for 9 runs over 6.1 innings. George Baldwin not seeming to understand that his job is on the line gave up 2 more runs in his 1.1 innings. The Sailors didn't hit any out of the park but did account for 6 extra base hits.

WP - Russ Real 3-0 2.33 LP - Karl Johnson 1-2 4.84
HR - None

As we run for our lives out of Phily taking 2 out of 3, we head north of the border for a 3 game brawl with the Wolves of Toronto. Both teams are 3-9 heading into this epic series to gain advantage in the #1 draft pick chase.

Wednesday April 26th
Cleveland Foresters 3
Toronto Wolves 7
Veteran SP Birdie Smith (32) look as giddy as a 25-year-old as he regained his form against the Foresters. The game gives Cleveland a leg up in the chase to the draft. Cleveland SP Jim Thompson reminded everyone why he wasn't on the 1931 or 1932 Foresters with this performance, which might be his last with the team.

WP - Birdie Smith 1-2 4.15 LP - Jim Thompson 0-2 7.45
HR - Toronto - Chuck Allison 1st, Freddie Malloy 1st

Thursday April 27th
Cleveland Foresters 1
Toronto Wolves 8

Toronto SP Dick Salten picked up his first win of the season (1-2) going the distance and lower his ERA by 2.2 runs in the process. Other than walking 5 batters, Salten completely befuddled the Foresters lineup giving up just 4 hits. SP Ed Wood looks like he had trouble making it across the border as whoever this was pitching (8 runs in 4.1 innings) did not look like the youngster at all. George Baldwin who must be manager Hank Leitzke's favorite out of the pen finally got the message that he is out of options and his job is on the line as he pitched 3.2 of shutout ball in the blowout loss. Max Morris didn't homer (which he hasn't done outside of Phily) but did get his 1st SB of the season!

WP - Dick Salten 1-2 4.56 LP - Ed Wood 0-3 6.53
HR - none

Friday April 28th
Cleveland Foresters 8
Toronto Wolves 3

The Foresters decided they had gained enough ground in the loss column and put up a fight and won today. SP Roger Perry (7 inn 3 runs) pitched well enough to get the win, and the Cleveland offense took advantage of 10 hits and 5 walks to at least escape Canada with 1 win. 2B Brooks Meeks hopefully is shaking off an early season slump to garner 3 hits, including a double and drove in 4 runs (his first 4 RBI's of the season). The Foresters will head back home after the 3-6 road trip to welcome the Brooklyn Kings to town.

WP - Roger Perry 2-2 2.83 LP - Buddy Adams 1-3 4.25
HR - None

Weekend Series (Saturday-Monday) against the Brooklyn Kings 6-9 vs the Cleveland Foresters 4-11

Saturday April 29th
Brooklyn Kings 6
Cleveland Foresters 0

SP Johnny Jacob (3-1) completed tamed the Foresters on 4 hits in pitching the shutout. Not much to say about the game but rumors were running rampant in Cleveland that things were about to change.

WP - Johnny Jacob 3-1 2.73 LP - Ben Turner 1-2 3.86
HR - none

Sunday April 30th
Brooklyn Kings 4
Cleveland Foresters 9

What a way to end the month. Who started the Fire in the Forest? The Foresters smack 11 hits and clubbed 2 home runs in a show of offense that the hometown fans hadn't seen all year. The 9 runs in this were almost as many as the team had scored (13) in their first 7 home games. Whatever was in the pre-game meal (or drink?), make sure it is served tomorrow as well.

WP - Karl Johnson 2-2 4.60 LP - Lyman Weigel 1-1 4.97
HR - Cleveland - Bobby Allen 1st, Jim Kyle 1st

Week record 3-4
Home record 2-6
Season record 5-12

Summary - SP Karl Johnson was so shocked at the support he received that he made 2 errors in Sunday's game. The usually sure-handed Johnson had only made 4 errors in his previous 71 starts.

Max Morris struggles (for him at least) are more than just a power thing in the month of April. The career 350 hitter was hitting just 15-65 231 and his OBP was 100 pts lower than last year's 395. A slow start, hopefully just that. At home so far this season Morris is hitting just 172 5-29 with 3 doubles and 1 RBI.

Power seems to be down across the CA to start the year. Morris who only has 3 home runs is tied for the league lead. The pace, is only 25 which would be Morris lowest total since he left Cleveland in 1919 when he was still pitching as well as playing the OF. It will be interesting to see if the power bats pick up in May in the CA. The 25 homers to lead the CA would be the lowest total in the league since 1927 when Baltimore's Joe Welch hit 25. Maybe it was just April's really cold extended winter that lead to the lack of pop.

On the Farm

The team we are watching the most is the Class A Reading Coal Barrons. Why Reading, well 4 of our top 10 minor league guys are there and they were all draft in our last draft. Leading the CB's is the OF group of Levi Redding, Pete Day, Al Heard along with 3B Art Spencer. These 4 along with 2B Juan Sarmiento are 5 of the best position players we had in the minors. So far the Coal Barrens have only played 3 games but as the minor league season progress we expect to hear a lot about this group.

SS George Dawson in 3 games is trying to show that he belongs on the big league team. Hitting 4-9 with 3 walks for AAA Cincinnati (3-0), he is staking his case to be recognized as not the SS of the Future, but the SS of Today. We will see when he gets the call up.

Most of the minor leagues just started this last weekend, but Class C Ottumwa is off to an 18-6 start.

News
Just as the game finished on Sunday, my best friend and son of owner Elmer Marshall said Dad wanted to have a meeting. He said to meet them downstairs when the ballpark cleared out. Was this it, after 7 years and 1 month on the job was it the pink slip for me?............To Be Continued

Next - After Hours Meeting in the basement

DD Martin · 10-01-2020, 06:13 PM

Several Hours after everyone had gone home from the stadium....

A meeting was taking place in the "basement" of the stadium. Everyone had a glass full of beer and was waiting on me to get there.

Mr. Marshall - Grab a beer DD, its going to be a long night.

Now grabbing a beer for me wasn't a problem, but since we are in the prohibition era it was highly illegal for this place to be serving anything alcoholic.

Mr. Marshall - Good now tell me about your side trip to Portland, I assume it was "profitable"?

DD Martin - Yes sir, I had a long talk with our prospect there and he is ready to assume command when we decide it is time. He figures it will be in September.

Mr. Marshall - Good, because we are thinking that its time to make a change. (DD Martin gulps). Go ahead and tell Hank we are letting him go tomorrow before the game. Hopefully our new manager will be here in time for the game.

DD Martin - (sounding relieved) You want me to fire Hank Leitzke?

Mr. Marshall - Yes, the start of this season is just unacceptable. We have Max Morris, we have a good young core and they are not performing. I'm tired of waiting and if we are going to stink this season we might as well stink with our future in place gaining experience.

DD Martin - What about the others? You think we just make a clean sweep?

Mr. Marshall - That is up to you DD, just see to it that it gets done. Oh and have you heard the rumors about what the Kings are about to do?

DD Martin - You mean with the Harry?

Mr. Marshall - Yes, Harry Barrell. Bring up our kid too since all these other guys can't hit, at least we will have a top notch fielder. I can't stand being one upped in our own ballpark!

DD Martin - I'll get George Dawson up here right away.

Mr. Marshall - Now drink up and have a good one tonight here guys. After we are done we have to have the "boys" move the stuff out, it appears some wise acre downtown is bucking for a promotion, so there will be a raid here tomorrow. Make sure the regulars know before the game that the "basement" is closed for tomorrow's game.

Summary - So we are going to make an announcement tomorrow that Manager Hank Leitzke, Hitting Coach Billy Marshall, Bench Coach Bill Harris and Pitching Coach Mark O'Rourke are all fired.

It should be an interesting day in Cleveland, but will it make a difference in the 1933 season?

DD Martin · 10-01-2020, 07:12 PM

Forest Fire in Cleveland as team does a complete organization shakeup

Foresters Fire Manager Hank Leitzke and his entire staff
When expectation are high, no matter how unreasonable they are, when you start the year 5-12 and slog through a spring training, someone is bound to be responsible. Before the rubber game against the Brooklyn Kings this afternoon, the Forester's announce that Leitzke and his staff were fired. GM DD Martin stated that ownership had lost faith in Leitzke and that the start of the year was simply unacceptable. Leitzke was a combined 214-265 (.447) in parts of 4 seasons with the big league club. He had been a very successful minor league manager winning 2 Union League titles in Cincinnati prior to his promotion in 1930 to the Foresters following the retirement of Manager Joe Johnson in 1929. Interesting to note that Johnson then took the manager job in Detroit for one season in 1930 prior to hanging them up for good after 1 year.

Also fired was pitching coach were bench coach Bill Harris, Pitching Coach Mark O'Rourke, and Hitting Coach Bill Marshall.

Some speculation as to the job security of team trainer Henry King, who just joined the club in the off-season, is also scrutiny. With the rash of injuries this spring, the club is wondering if maybe more thought into prevention than recovery might be in order.

New Manager and Staff Named
The Forester's have pulled a shocking move in replacing the veteran manager Hank Leitzke. Today the Forester's announced that former top rank pitcher and AA Pitching Coach for the Forester's AA team in Portland, Jim Wilson has been hired as the Foresters new manager. Wilson has no prior managing experience but it is noted that the club and Wilson have been in talks over the years about the idea of him starting to manage next season. The announcement of Wilson has left shock waves through the whole FABL.

Joining Wilson on his staff are veteran minor league manager Charlie Reed who was Wilson boss at AA Portland. It will be interesting to see how this role reversal will go. Joining the team as the new Pitching Coach from AAA Cincinnati is Jackie Austin. The hitting coach is also coming from AAA Cincinnati as Jack Ralls joins the big league club. Ralls specializes in patience which is something that the Foresters seem to need right now.

The organization promoted a number of coaches and managers within the minor league system to fill the roles in the upper minor leagues in Portland and Cincinnati. Class C Ottumwa whose team is off to an 18-6 start had it entire coaching staff taken and moved to different teams in the organization.

The Foresters are out looking for all 3 minor league coaches at Ottumwa plus a new pitching coach at Class B Savannah.

Further Player Movement
The blood letting in Cleveland was not just reserved for the coaches. The Foresters decided that the mess at SS this season created by the injury to SS Erv Smith in spring and likely the Brooklyn Kings rumored call up of SS Harry Barrell, has triggered the Foresters call up of #5 overall prospect SS George Dawson. The fact that Barrell was being called up to play in the game in Cleveland so infuriated the Foresters that they decided to call up Dawson so they would grab some of the headlines as well. These two players who once were both in the Forester minor leagues as their top 2 prospects will both make their debut tomorrow. Making room on the roster for Dawson's promotion was SS Pat Schurling being sent down to AAA Cincinnati. Schurling was hitting just 170 on the season, but offered a better option than since DFA SS Marty Smith.

It was also announced that 3B Johnny Turner and Jake Moore were going to see more shared time at 3B. Turner has struggled in his first taste of the big leagues hitting just 122 so far. The veteran Moore in limited early season at-bats has hit 308.

Finally, veteran SP Jim Thompson was designated for assignment and SP Carl Bragg has returned to Cleveland and will assume the #5 spot in the starting rotation.

DD Martin · 10-05-2020, 01:58 PM

Flipping the Calendar to May, will it help?

What might be the youngest manager ever (who wasn't a player manager) in FABL history (will have to refer to our league founder on that), Jim Wilson (30) had quite the first week as skipper of the Foresters. Last week the team fired it entire coaching staff as it got off to a 5-12 start. Now a lot of folks figured the "Tree-Huggers" would be a 2nd division team in 1933, but Cleveland management and ownership thought otherwise. Despite a spring training with 4 season-ending injuries, Management felt that the team should at least be in the conversation and certainly should be a first division club as they were last season. Everything changed on Sunday evening after the game, the Forester's took drastic steps and cleaned house. Many in the city wondered why Forester GM DD Martin was spared, and only his connection and friendship to owner Elmer Marshall's son made sense as to why he was canned as well.

Wilson quickly worked with the embattled Martin to make changes on the team. Called up were SS George Dawson, Cleveland's top prospect and the 5th overall in the FABL. DFA was veteran pitcher Jim Thompson who's 0-2 record and ERA approaching 8 was deemed not worthy of being in the rotation. There will likely be more changes coming, but those were the ones that got the week started. And what a week it was, Cleveland offense which couldn't find sand in a desert, suddenly erupted for its best week of the season. The Mean Green went 6-1 and found themselves out of the cellar in the CA which was being led by the brutally tough Chicago Cougars.

Week in review

Brooklyn Kings 7-10 vs Cleveland Foresters 5-12
May 1st 1933 at Forester Stadium
Rubber game of the 3 game series 1-1

Brooklyn Kings 3
Cleveland Foresters 7

Nice debut for rookie skipper Jimmy Wilson as his Foresters found an offense with new life and timely hitting to take the 3rd game in a series between them and the Kings. 3B Jake Moore hit his 1st home run of the season and SP Roger Perry went the distance. Max Morris went 3-4 with a double and drove in a couple of RBI's in a good sign for the Foresters and was named player of the game. Just called up rookie SS George Dawson was 0-3 with a walk and run scored.

WP- Roger Perry 3-2 2.87 LP - Mike Murphy 1-3 9.38
HR - Jake Moore (CL) 1st

Notes - Harry Barrell also made his debut and was kept in check until he hit a double in the 8th inning drive in a run and later scoring. Unfortunately as predicted hardly anyone saw the debut of these 2 top 5 prospects as only 4,631 "fans" showed up.

Next the Forester's continue the home stand with the Montreal Saints 11-7 coming to town for a 3-game set.

Tuesday May 2nd-Thursday May 4th
Montreal Saints 11-7 vs Cleveland Foresters 6-12
Season Series - First Matchup of the season

Tuesday May 2nd
Montreal Saints 1
Cleveland Foresters 7

Manager Jim Wilson improves to 2-0 in his career as the Foresters strike early as SS George Dawson gets his first big league hit when he tripled into the gap and scored on 2B Brooks Meeks grounder. Dawson ended the day 3-5 adding a couple of singles and a couple of more runs scored.
Max Morris hit a 3-run homer for his first home run inside Forester Stadium this season. SP Ed Wood got his first win (1-3) on the season
pitching a complete game, but walks are still an issue (5).

WP - Ed Wood 1-3 4.85 LP - Walker Moore 1-1 3.69
HR - Max Morris (4)

Wednesday May 3, 1933
Montreal Saints 2
Cleveland Foresters 10

The Forester offense exploded for 6 extra base hits (2 homers, 2 triples, 2 doubles) to humble the Saints 10-2. With a season high 17 hits, Max Morris hit his 5th on the season and struggling rookie 3B John Turner hit his 1st. SP Ben Turner help his own cause going 2-4 with a triple, run scored and RBI.

WP - Ben Turner 2-2 3.41 LP - Randy Taylor 2-2 5.40
HR - (Mon) Cliff Moss 3rd, (CL) Max Morris 5th, John Turner 1st

Thursday May 4th, 1933
Montreal Saints 7
Cleveland Foresters 6

The Foresters defense betrayed them in this game as the team had played error-less defense in manager Jim Wilson's first 3 games (all wins), but today they literally threw the game away with 4 errors. None were more costly than in the 8th inning when C Jim Kyle fumbled a bunt by PH Al Wilson allowing Bob Worley to score to tie the game. Wilson went to 2nd on the error and then scored what ended up being the game winner on Vic Crawford's RBI single. The Foresters got a lead-off walk by Johnny Turner but couldn't do anything with it as Russ Franklin popped a bunt, Max Morris struck out swinging and Brooks Meeks fly out to left to end the game.

WP - Howie Snyder 1-2 3.86 LP - Frank Phillips (0-1) 2.00 S - Earle Whitten 4 0.59
HR - (Mont) Vic Crawford 1st, Wood Armstrong 3rd

Finally the Baltimore Cannons (13-7) come riding high into Cleveland (8-13), and try to derail the winning ways of the Foresters under manager Jim Wilson.

Friday May 5th- Sunday May 7th
Baltimore Cannons vs Cleveland Foresters
Forester Stadium

Friday May 5th 1933
Baltimore Cannons 5
Cleveland Foresters 9

SP Carl Bragg made his 1933 Forester debut but lasted only 3.2 innings having to leave with a finger blister. RP George Baldwin didn't exactly light it up, but did enough and hit a home run with is bat in leading the Foresters to a surprising win over long time SP nemesis Rabbit Day. Day gave up 7 runs on 7 hits and an uncharacteristic 6 walks to help the Foresters to the win.

WP - George Baldwin 1-0 4.82 LP - Rabbit Day 4-2 4.40
HR - (Balt) Lou Kelly 3rd, (CL) George Baldwin 1st

Saturday May 6th, 1933
Baltimore Cannons 2
Cleveland Foresters 3 (10)

Baltimore SP Ken Carpenter appeared in control, but gave up a game tying solo HR to Brooks Meeks in the bottom of the 9th. Then in the bottom of the 10th, after Leon Drake was thrown out at home on C Jim Kyle's single (he took 2nd on the throw home). Johnny Turner (hitting 141 on the season) had a chance to be the hero and delivered an RBI single scoring Klye for the win. SP Roger Perry went 8 innings giving up only 5 hits and 2 runs to keep Cleveland in the game.

WP - Frank Phillips 1-1 1.64 LP - Ken Carpenter 4-2 2.98
HR - (CL) Brooks Meeks 1st

Sunday May 7th, 1933
Baltimore Cannons 3
Cleveland Foresters 4

Suddenly the Forester's who looked so terrible in the first month of the season are hot, Hot, HOT winning 6 of their 7 games under new rookie manager Jim Wilson. SP Ed Woods got his 2nd victory of the season with a complete game 3-run job against the Cannons.

WP - Ed Wood 2-3 3.96 LP - Bob Miller 3-3 2.73
HR - none

Summary - And there you have a 6-1 week that thrust the Foresters back into mediocrity and out of pathetic. The club played inspired ball this week. The pitching staff threw 64 innings this week giving up 66 hits and 2.68 ERA.

The offense which was simply embarrassing in April, came out in the first week of May and hit 298/390/833 (with 7 doubles, 4 triples and 6 HR's). The team scored 46 runs 6.57rpg compare to 49 in the first 17 games 2.88rpg.

So was this turnaround the sudden brilliance in firing a complete staff and replacing them with a new energetic group? Or is it that the first 17 games were so bad, nobody can play that bad for too long? Time will tell.

And how did top prospect George Dawson do in his first week in the majors. Well he went 7-27 with 3 walks (259/333), drove in 2 runs and scored 6. In the field he had no errors 22 PO and 10 assists while turning 3 DP's. Compared to where we were in April with the SS position, that is a positive week.

Injuries - On the injury front, SP Carl Bragg's blister was a minor irritation and he has been cleared to start his next regular spot in the rotation at home Tuesday against the New York Stars.

Next - Week 2 in the career of Manager Jim Wilson

DD Martin · 10-05-2020, 10:07 PM

Week 2 of the new regime, can the winning continue?

May has been a completely different month than what April was. So far we are 10-3 under new manager Jim Wilson and with everything wrong in April it has reversed in May. That leaves us at 15-15 tied for 4th in the CA 5 games behind the Cougars, who are not running away with things....yet.

The Week
Monday May 8th, 1993
Baltimore Cannons 1
Cleveland Foresters 5

A rare 4 game sweep against a very good Cannons team. It was the 2nd meeting of the series for us against the Cannons ace Rabbit Day. While we hit him hard in the first game of the series, this one was much closer as we clung to a 2-1 lead heading to the bottom of the 7th. In the 7th we got a double, single, walk (to the pitcher), then a single and another to plate 3 runs and give us the margin of victory. SP Ben Turner scattered 9 hits in getting the complete game.

WP - Ben Turner 3-2 2.88 LP - Rabbit Day 4-3 4.41
HR - (CL) Jim Kyle 2nd

Tuesday May 9th-Thursday May 11th
3-game home series against the New York Stars 11-13

Tuesday May 9th,1933
New York Stars 4
Cleveland Foresters 5

The Foresters evened their record at 13-13 on the season with the LF Bobby Allen hitting a run scoring double in the bottom of the 8th for the go ahead run. Leon Drake also hit his 1st homer of the season in the 3rd (2-run homer) to give the Foresters a 3-1 lead after 3. SP Karl Johnson got the win despite giving up 10 hits and 5 walks, in going the distance.

Summary - 4-2 on the week as we finished a 4-game sweep against Baltimore at home. Then we took 2 out of 3 against the New York Stars and split the first two games of 3 at 2nd place Montreal.

WP - Karl Johnson 3-2 4.72 LP Boyd Harper 1-4 1.74
HR - (CL) Leon Drake 1st

Wednesday May 10th, 1933
New York Stars 8
Cleveland Foresters 6

A frustrated Stars team exploded out to a 8-0 and then survived a 6-run Forester uprising in the 8th to hang onto the win. Both teams made 3 errors each in the game but SP Carl Bragg struggled to over his teams blunders in the field giving up 8 runs but only 3 were earned.

WP - Dick Richards 2-3 6.45 LP - Carl Bragg 0-1 3.60
HR - (NY) Speed Davis 2nd, Dave Throwbridge 1st, (CL) Moxie Pidgeon 1st

Thursday May 11th, 1933
New York Stars 2
Cleveland Foresters 6

The Foresters took the rubber game of the 3-game set and ended their home stand 11-4. With the win the Foresters now have a winning record at home 11-8. SP Roger Perry earned his 4th win (4-2) in holding down the Stars.

WP - Roger Perry 4-2 2.67 LP - Lou Martino 0-1 2.60
HR - none

Cleveland Foresters 14-14 @ Montreal Saints 17-11
3-game series Saturday May 13th-Monday May 15th

Saturday May 13th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 3
Montreal Saints 2

Big win for the Foresters taking game 1 of this road series against the 2nd place Saints. SP Ed Wood has rebounded from an 0-3 start to the season to even his record and in this one it was his best game of the season. Wood went the distance giving up only 6 hits and more importantly only 1 walk.

WP - Ed Wood 3-3 3.40 LP - Walker Moore 2-2 3.59
HR - (CL) Bobby Allen 2nd

Sunday May 14th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 2
Montreal Saints 6

Montreal's Earle Whitten making only his 2nd start of the season after serving as the team stopper with 4 saves, handcuffed the Foresters all night giving up just 4 hits in 8 innings of work. Whitten has been brilliant in whatever role the Saints have thrown him in with his league leading 0.79 ERA in 34 innings this season.

WP - Earle Whitten 5-1 0.79 LP - Ben Turner 3-3 3.40
HR - None

Movement
Montreal is sitting just 2 games out of first after taking 2 out of 3 against the Cougars this last week. Brooklyn in what is becoming an annual slow start is at 11-19 and made available one of its good young SP in Milt Fritz. Montreal feeling this might be the season they have been waiting for made a statement move that they intend to contend. Montreal package 3 solid minor league guys and their 1st round pick in exchange for Fritz and the Kings 3rd round pick. Were we interested in Fritz, perhaps but while we were looking at things, something seems wrong with him. His walks per 9 innings is up over 4 while he has been in the mid 2's most of his career. For only being only 23, he has some mileage already on his arm throwing over 1100 in a career that started in 1929 at the age of 19.

So in passing on Fritz, what are we looking for? We continue to look for a power bat to plug into the middle of our lineup. When you look at the current lineup, you might say that the power spots are all filled (1B Morris, LF Bobby Allen, RF Moxie Pidegon). Well if we can find the right man we do have a plan that would allow us to move things around a bit and yes it would likely involve Allen moving back to CF. So we would definitely give up some defense for a big offensive improvement. The other spot is 3B where Johnny Turner got off to a dreadful start in April but has hit much better in May at 321. Turner and Jake Moore are now basically splitting time at 3B and Moore is hitting 306 on the season. But the search continues for a power bat.

Changes - I sat down and discussed the team after Saturday's game in Montreal and we decided that we would make a couple of changes.

We activated LF/1B/3B Ray Cochran from his rehab assignment. Cochran sprained his elbow sliding into 2B during a game in the spring and missed several weeks. He then went down to AAA Cincinnati to get some at-bats in and also work out at 1B some. Cochran who is a 300+ hitter at AAA only hit 242 in 16 games. Not exactly tearing the cover off the ball but he spent 20 games there so it was time to activate him. Heading down to Cincinnati to make space for Cochran is OF Mike "all or nothing" Williams who continues to live up to his name. A huge power hitter at AAA, Williams (hitting just 143 in 21 AB's) just hasn't figured it out at the major league level and his time with the Foresters might be on a short leash.

Also we made a waiver claim (from Brooklyn, from Phily) in picking up veteran RHP Bert Henggeler (31). Henggeler had some success with Philadelphia Keystones in the bullpen and he will get a shot to help us in some middle innings. Right now I am fairly happy with the late game situation with "stopper" Frank Phillips, and MR Lou "Proctor, where's is Proctor" Proctor. The two have combined in 16.2 innings to yield just a 1.08 ERA. With Jim Cavender holding his own with a 3.00 ERA, we are feeling much more secure handing things over to the bullpen.

To make room for Henggeler, we had to DFA George Baldwin who was up and down so far this season. Baldwin is an out of options 28 year old RH, who doesn't appear to be a fit in our plans any longer.

Finally in another move that will helpfully help our bench, we optioned CF Jake Matteson to Cincinnati and brought up CF Amos LeBlanc who had a great spring and had a very good start to the season in Cincinnati hitting 347. Matheson was hitting just 185 in 28 PA's with the Foresters and has been a complete bust in managements eyes. He too could be on a very short leash on the Foresters 40-man roster.

Cause for Concern???
I had a long conversation with Jim Wilson who has spent his entire playing career (which was very short) and his coaching career with our organization. When he had a career ending injury in 1929, we made the decision to hire him as a pitching coach for class B Savannah for the 1930 season. He then moved to Reading (A) in 1931 and then to AA Portland in 1932. The concern is that he is in the final year of his contract and I wanted to get that behind us. The fact that he is underpaid to be a big league manager is something that I wanted to correct and I also wanted to give him the security of a longer term deal. When he started here a couple of weeks ago he declined to get into the discussion saying he wanted to spend the time getting to know the team. So now that he is settled in I figured I would see if I could address it again, but again Jim said no, he didn't want to get into that right now. I am not sure what to make of it and while I won't make too much of a big deal out of it, I am glad that I got bench coach Charlie Reed (who was the manager at Portland) under contract for 4 more seasons.

Next - We will see if we can keep it going

DD Martin · 10-12-2020, 06:00 PM

Finding Several Bumps on the Road

May 15th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 2 @ Montreal Saints 5
Cleveland SP Karl Johnson threw a gem for 5 innings allowing only 1 hit and 1 walk. Unfortunately baseball games are not 5 innings and the 6th inning was Johnson undoing as the 2nd place Saints (19-12) scored 4 in the 6th and added an insurance run in the 7th.

WP - Dave Paynter 1-1 8.64 LP - Karl Johnson 3-3 4.85 S - Randy Taylor 4 4.28
HR - None

Next up the team head to Baltimore after going 1-2 versus the Saints. The Cannons were 16-15 heading into this game and the Foresters were 15-16. We were sending up our #2 prospect in his first big league start as 23-year-old Dean Astle (1-1 2.73 AAA Cincinnati) was making his big league debut.

Cleveland Foresters @ Baltimore Cannons
May 16th-18th at Banner Field Baltimore

Tuesday May 16th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 4
Baltimore Cannons 0

Quite a debut for the rookie SP as Dean Astle went the whole way giving up 7 hits in getting the shutout in his first game. After this outing, it is certainly understood why the Foresters (16-16) wouldn't trade away this kid in the off-season.

WP - Dean Astle 1-0 0.00 LP - Rabbit Day 4-4 4.14
HR - None

Wednesday May 17th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 7
Baltimore Cannons 3

RF Moxie Pidgeon went 3-5 with 2 singles and a 2-run homer in the 3rd inning, as the Foresters exploded for 7 runs in the inning. Cleveland never looked back and got above the 500 mark for the first time this season at 17-16.

WP - Roger Perry 5-2 2.71 LP - Clay Jackson 1-3 4.28
HR - (CL) Pidgeon 2nd

Thursday May 18th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 2
Baltimore Cannons 3

After the Foresters scratched out a 2nd run against SP Ken Carpenter in the 8th, the Cannons came back. With 2 outs C Tom Clevenger (.235) hit an RBI single that scored 2B Moe Davis with the go-ahead and game winning run. RP Lee Drouillard flirted with trouble in the 8th with 2 walks but in the end stayed perfect picking up his 6th save of the season.

WP - Ken Carpenter 8-2 2.56 LP - Ed Wood 3-4 3.23 S- Lee Drouillard 6 0.00

Notes - So we take 2 out of 3 in Baltimore and are off to a 3-3 start to this road trip. We head to NY to take on the defending CA champion Stars who are sputtering a bit a 16-18 on the season. Last season the Stars won 99 games and the World Series, so what a difference a year makes. Can they get it turned around in time to catch the run-away train that is the Chicago Cougars?

Cleveland Foresters 17-17 @ New York Stars 16-18
3-game Series May 19th-21st
In New York at Riverside Stadium

Friday May 19th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 0
New York Stars 5

Stars SP Les Zoller silenced the road-weary travelers from Cleveland to 3 hits.

WP - Les Zoller 3-1 2.55 LP - Ben Turner 3-4 3.72
HR - None

Saturday May 20th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 3
NY Stars 4

Manager Jim Wilson, who was a former SP himself, has a tendency to his SP's battle through and sometimes leaves them in too long. That was the case on Saturday. After tying the game in the top of the 9th on Max Morris 6th homer of the season, Johnson prompted gave up a run in the bottom half of the inning and the Foresters lost 4-3

WP - Boyd Harper 3-4 5.17 LP - Karl Johnson 3-4 4.78
HR - (CL) Bobby Allen 3rd, Moxie Pidgeon 3rd, Max Morris 6th

Sunday May 21st, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 1
NY Stars 3

And the Stars completed the sweep as their pitchers stifled the Foresters again. In the 3 game series, the Foresters managed only 4 runs. Today it was SP Lou Martino who pitched a 4-hitter and struck out 10 in 6.2 innings. Rookie SP sensation Dean Astle took the tough luck loss.

WP - Lou Martino 1-1 2.31 LP - Dean Astle 1-1 1.06
Forester season record 17-20
Current road trip 3-6

Notes - We finish up the road trip going across town to Brooklyn to take on the Kings. It's tough to figure out these King's who are celebrating their 50th season this year. They have once again started the season terribly coming into this series with a 15-22 record. This from the same team that had played 500 ball in the first half last year would have been in serious contention last season with the Stars and Cougars.

As we head into this series we made several moves, the first of which was to DFA George Baldwin who's roller coaster ride looks to have ended. Baldwin was sent packing to make room for veteran RP Bert Henggeler who was picked up off waivers from these vary same Kings club. We also claimed RP Bob Boyd, but we haven't assigned him yet. All these moves are in a continuing attempt to forget our bullpen of last season. Will these moves off the waiver dumpster help?

We also said goodbye to Jim Thompson who started the year with us but after 3 horrible starts he was exiled. He was promptly picked up by the independent Richmond Rebels (Union League AAA).

OF Mike Williams was sent to AAA Cincinnati to make room for LF/1B Ray Cochran. Williams has probably seen his last chance go up in flames with the Foresters as he hit 143/143/286 0-4.

Cleveland Foresters 17-20 @ Brooklyn Kings 15-22
3-game series May 22nd-24th
at Kings County Park II

Monday May 22nd, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 4
Brooklyn Kings 3

Foresters snapped their 4 game losing streak with a 9th inning win over the Kings. In the 9th Ray Cochran singled and stole 2B. SS George Dawson failed to bunt him to 3rd and ended up popping out to 3B. CF Leon Drake grounded out to 2nd, but Cochran moved to 3B. Moxie Pidgeon then hit a hard shot to the hole that SS Harry Barrell bobbled and Cochran scored the un-earned run with 2 outs.

WP - Roger Perry 6-2 2.79 LP - Lyman Weigel 2-3 3.93 S- Frank Phillips 1 1.42
HR - (CL) Max Morris 7th, Moxie Pidgeon 4th

Tuesday May 23rd, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 4
Brooklyn Kings 3

C Jim Kyle hit a HR in the top of the 6th breaking a 1-1 and leading the Foresters to the win at Brooklyn. SP Ed Wood (4-4) pitched well and picked up the win.

WP - Ed Wood 4-4 3.20 LP - Tom Barrell 2-6 4.22
HR - (CL) Jim Kyle 3rd

Wednesday May 24th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 1
Brooklyn Kings 4

Kings SP Johnny Jacobs pitched a gem giving up 8 hits and only 1 run in stopping the King's losing streak and getting at least 1 win in the series.

WP - Johnny Jacobs 6-3 3.01 LP - Ben Turner 3-5 3.68
HR - None

Notes - So we get 2 out of 3 and end the trip 5-7. At 19-21 on the season, club is still searching for consistent offense. We have an off-day on Thursday before starting a 3-game series with Toronto with a double header on Friday. Then we welcome the Chicago Cougars who have had our number so far this year, which is to be expected.

Toronto Wolves 15-25 @ Cleveland Foresters 19-21
Saturday May 26th-27th
At Cleveland City Forester Garbage Dump (aka Forester Stadium)

Friday May 26th - Game 1
Toronto Wolves 4
Cleveland Foresters 5

Game 2 of the DH
Toronto Wolves 8
Cleveland Foresters 3

In game 1 Dean Astle picked up his 2nd win (2-1) as the Foresters walked off the the Wolves in the 9th CF Leon Drake's RBI single.

Game 1 -
WP - Dean Astle 2-1 2.08 LP - Birdie Smith 3-6 4.86
HR - (Tor) Frank Huddleson 2nd

In game 2 of the DH, it was one of the worst played Forester games of the season, the Wolves bombed SP Karl Johnson for 8 runs.

Game 2
WP - Bob Wood 1-1 2.00 LP - Karl Johnson 3-5 5.27
HR -none

Saturday May 27th, 1933
Toronto Wolves 7
Cleveland Foresters 6

The first 6 innings of this was a pitching clinic with the Foresters leading 1-0. Then Toronto scored 4 in the 7th and 2 more in the top of the 8th to take a 6-1 lead. The Foresters woke up and scored 5 in the bottom of the 8th to tie the game at 6. In the top of the 9th, Toronto LF Chuck Allison coaxed an 11-pitch walk after falling behind 0-2. He moved to 3rd on 2B Sam Orr's single and scored with 3B Luke Flemming's 1 out sac fly to win the game.

WP - Eddie Quinn 5-5 2.62 LP - Frank Phillips 1-2 1.98 S - John Reimers 1 2.31
HR - (CL) Max Morris 8th, Moxie Pidgeon 5th

Notes - Really a disappointing series against the last place Wolves. We've dropped 3 of our last 4 and now have the Cougars coming to town to end the month.

We decided to option SP Karl Johnson to AAA Cincinnati after his last outing. He has decent stuff but has been so up and down this season. The plan is to go with a 4-man rotation to end May and start June with a couple of off-days. Once he is back from the AAA DL, we will bring Carl Bragg back up and resume our 5-man rotation. Replacing Johnson on the roster is Bob Boyd who was activated after being picked up off waivers from Phily. George Baldwin who was DFA stayed with the organization and was assigned to class A Reading.

Minor league P Mickey Flanders was placed on the 60-day DL after herniating a disk in his back. Flanders was 2-2 with 1 saves with a 2.12 ERA.

Sunday May 28th-May 30th, 1933
Chicago Cougars 29-14 @ Cleveland Foresters 20-23
3-games series at Forester Stadium

Sunday May 28th, 1933
Chicago Cougars 4
Cleveland Foresters 2

SP Tommy Wilcox outpitched Ed Wood and the Cougars won the opener. P Ed Wood aided his cause by hitting a shocking solo HR against Wilcox.

WP - Tommy Wilcox 8-2 2.70 LP - Ed Wood 4-5 3.30
HR - (CL) Ed Wood 1st

Monday May 29th, 1933
Chicago Cougars 4
Cleveland Foresters 1

Really a game the Foresters wanted to forget. SP Jim Crawford scattered 12 hits but only gave up 1 run. The Foresters are seriously concerned about their SP Dean Astle who went 8.2 innings but was injured when a line drive went off his elbow. The diagnosis is pending.

WP - James Crawford 5-3 2.81 LP - Dean Astle 2-2 2.60
HR - none

Tuesday May 30th, 1933
Chicago Cougars 7
Cleveland Foresters 1

Ugh......nice start from Cougar SP Dick Luedtke administered another game and the Cougs completed another 3-game sweep of the Foresters. The Cougars are 8-1 on the season against the Foresters.

Notes - So we end the month on a real low losing 6 out of the last 7 and ended up 20-26 on the season. All the early month promise came crashing down.

The bad news on SP Dean Astle is he has bone chips in his pitching elbow. The good news is that he will only be out 6 weeks and then should make a full recovery. We will see where we are at the time, but we will likely pitch him some the last half of the season, but will likely not over work him. He pitched 160-163 innings in both of the last 2 minor league seasons. We will likely limit his innings this season to around 120.

We ended up May with a 15-14 record, but the first half of the month was much better than the last half.

Below are the pitching and batting stats for the month of May for the Foresters.

DD Martin · 10-12-2020, 10:45 PM

Moving into June - Searching for Direction

So May was an improvement as we went 15-14 for the month. We are sitting right now in tied for 6th right now with the Philadelphia Sailors (a team that generally give us fits on the field). We will start June at home for 3 games against the Sailors who we are 2-4 against this season. Then the week really gets tough as Chicago has just been brutal against us all season going 8-1 (including 5-1 in Cleveland).

Philadelphia Sailors @ Cleveland Foresters
3-game series in the Cleveland City Dump
Thursday June 1st- Saturday June 3rd
Phily leads season series 4-2

Thursday June 1st, 1933
Philadelphia Sailors 3
Cleveland Foresters 0

Sailors SP Oscar Morse was brilliant in pitching the 1-hut shutout of the Foresters. Max Morris broke up the no-hit bid with a leadoff single in the 8th inning.

WP - Oscar Morse 3-6 3.21 LP - Roger Perry 6-3 2.80
HR - none

Friday June 2nd, 1933
Philadelphia Sailors 3
Cleveland Foresters 6

LF Bobby Allen went 3-3 with a home run and SP Ed Wood hit his 2nd home run of the season as well. Wood evened his season record at 5-5

WP - Ed Wood 5-5 3.27 LP - Doc Newell 2-6 3.87
HR (PHLY) Jim Stevens 1st, (CL) Ed Wood 2nd, Bobby Allen 4th

Saturday June 3rd, 1933
Philadelphia Sailors 5
Cleveland Foresters 4

In the rubber game of the series, the Sailors did what they have done all year against Cleveland and took 2 out of 3. LF Ray Cochran hit his 1st home run of the season for Cleveland but it was not enough.

WP - Russ Real 6-2 3.05 LP - Bert Henggeler 0-1 0.00 S - Merritt Thomas 1 0.00
HR - (CL) Ray Cochran 1st

Chicago Series
Sunday June 4th- Tuesday June 6th
Cleveland Foresters @ Chicago Cougars
Chicago leads season series 8-1

So the numbers in our 9 games against Chicago this season have been down right ugly. The Cougars have outscored us in those 9 games by a 40-14 count.

Batting Numbers vs Cougars
vs CH overall season
Batting Avg .226 .257
On-Base Pct .290 .315
OBSP .581 .679
Runs per game 1.56 4.30 (vs all other teams)

Pitching Numbers vs Chicago
ERA 4.04 3.30
HA/9 10.50 8.52
Runs per game 4.45 3.78
WHIP 1.423 1.293

BB/9
K/9

Doesn't look good for us.....but let's get to it.

Sunday June 4th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 4
Chicago Cougars 2

SP Roger Perry gave the Foresters the type of game they needed to get this victory. Perry gave up only 2 runs over 6.2 and veteran RP Bob Boyd went 2.1 innings of no-run 3-hit relief to earn the save. Moxie Pidgeon hit his 6th home run of the season.

WP - Roger Perry 7-3 2.80 LP - Dick Luedtke 8-2 2.48 S - Bob Boyd 1 0.00
HR - (CL) Moxie Pidgeon 6th

Monday June 5th 1933
Cleveland Foresters 2
Chicago Cougars 5

This is more the normal outcome versus the Cougars. Timely hitting as 1B Bill Ashbaugh hit his 5th home run and great starting pitching from Max Wilder (8 innings 1 earned run). About the only thing the Cougars didn't do well in this game was well fielding. 2B Slim Bloom made 3 errors but the Foresters couldn't do much even with that.

WP - Max Wilder 4-6 3.43 LP - Ed Wood 5-6 3.28
HR - (CH) Bill Ashbaugh 5th

Tuesday June 6th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 3
Chicago Cougars 2

The reporters can't say that SP Karl Johnson outdueled Tommy Wilcox but he certainly hung with him and gave the Foresters a chance. The clutch hit came from SS George Dawson (hitting 282 on the season) slicing an RBI single in the 7th for the winning run as the Foresters surprised the Cougs taking 2 out of 3 in Chicago.

WP - Karl Johnson 4-5 4.91 LP - Tommy Wilcox 9-3 2.41
HR - None

Weekly Summary - A 3-3 week but considering the teams we were playing (and have struggled against) all season, we will take it.

Moves - With Dean Astle going on the DL, we brought back up Karl Johnson. We will look forward to Astle getting back on the hill for us after the All-Star game. We also moved our stopper Frank Phillips to AAA Cincinnati as we activated SP Carl Bragg from the DL. Phillips didn't pitch badly for us, but with all the veterans we have acquired and who are also pitching well, we didn't want to DFA anyone. So while he didn't deserve it, Phillips will go down.

We made a minor trade as well this week. We sent 2B/OF Russ Franklin who has been a solid bench contributor and 300 plus hitter to Chicago for a 5th round pick. Franklin had really struggled with us this season and was kind of a man without position as he was backing up both the 2B (Meeks) and CF (Drake). His defense wasn't the best in the infield and he was hitting 184 this season. The pick helps make up for the 4th and 6th rounders we traded in the off-season.

Key minor league move - We promoted OF Pete Day from Class A Reading to Class AA Portland. In 35 games at Reading Day was hitting (358/466/973) with 1 homer and 20 RBI's. Day is one of 4 top prospects that was at Class A Reading.

DD Martin · 10-13-2020, 01:40 PM

The Start of a Very Long Home Stand

As we get ready to start this very long 19-game homestand, the team is sitting at 23-29 and in 7th place in the CA. We are 13 games behind the Chicago Cougars, who have a 4 1/2 game lead over the surprising Montreal Saints. Realistically to get back to 500 we would have to go 13-6 on this home stand which would likely get us back into the middle of the CA. It is time for this club to either show what they can do, or get ready to make plans for next season.

After this homestand we will have played 47 of our 71 games to that point of the season at home. That means we will likely have to improve significantly on our 10-14 road record if we want to make any noise this season. Not impossible but it starts now, with the first 4 of those 19 games at home against the 2nd place Montreal Saints.

So far this season we have split our 6 games against the Saints. We won 2 out of 3 here in Manager Jim Wilson's first full series against a team (he won his debut game against Brooklyn the day before the start of this series). Montreal came back and took 2 out of 3 at their home. After this 4-game series with the Saints we won't see them again until after the All-Star Game when we head to Montreal for a 4-game series July 15-18.

Max Morris is just 4 RBI's away from 1900 in his career. He is already the all-time leader in this category, but we expect him to maybe get those 4 RBI's in this 4-game series, but definitely on this monster home stand.

Montreal Saints (32-21) @ Cleveland Foresters (23-29)
4-game series at Cleveland's Garbage Dump Stadium
June 8th - June 11th

Pitching Matchups
Montreal vs Cleveland
George Thomas 5-1 4.24 vs Carl Bragg 0-1 3.60
Johnny Douglas 3-1 3.06 vs Ben Turner 3-6 4.11
Walker Moore 4-2 3.09 vs Roger Perry 7-3 2.80
Milt Fritz 4-6 3.60 vs Ed Wood 5-6 3.28

Thursday June 8th, 1933
Montreal Saints 1
Cleveland Foresters 8

A sterling performance by SP Carl Bragg going 7 1/3 innings and surviving 4 Forester errors. Bragg only gave up 3 hits and 1 unearned run with the effort. While Bragg was the pitching star of the game, there was no question who the Star of the Game was. Max Morris hit a 3-run home run (9th) in the first inning. In the 3rd inning after a triple by CF Amos LeBlanc, Morris got his 1900th RBI with a ground out with the speedy LeBlanc easily scampering home.

After the game the quiet and humble legend simply stated "I've been fortunate enough to have stayed healthy most of my career which has allowed me the opportunity to have do some pretty great things. It takes teamwork to score runs and without guys getting on base ahead of me, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to drive them in.

WP - Carl Bragg 1-1 2.08 LP - George Thomas 5-2 4.62
HR - (CL) Max Morris 9th

Friday June 9th, 1933
Montreal Saints 0
Cleveland Foresters 2

The Foresters have started this 19-game home stand on the right foot as they move to 2-0 with the shutout win today. SP Ben Turner gave up just 5 hits with no walks in the game where he was obviously voted POTG. Max Morris who appears to be finally heating up hit another home run after his historic game the night before, and Moxie Pidgeon also homer for the Clevelanders.

WP - Ben Turner 4-6 3.81 LP - Johnny Douglas 3-2 2.98
HR - (CL) Max Morris 10th, Moxie Pidgeon 7th

Saturday June 10th, 1933
Montreal Saints 5
Cleveland Foresters 2

The Saints came back after being shut out yesterday and show everyone why they are a contending team in the CA this season. Great SP and clutch timely hitting along with a solid defense has been the Saints secret all year, today was no different. Vic Crawford who was a player that the Forester's really coveted back when he was drafted, and also was a player that they had brief discussions about adding in the off-season, hit his 21st double of the season and is now hitting 300 for the year.

WP - Walker Moore 5-2 2.84 LP - Roger Perry 7-4 3.05
HR - (Mont) Hank Barnett 7th

Sunday June 11th, 1933
Montreal Saints 7
Cleveland Foresters 4

The Saints jumped all over SP Ed Wood for 7 runs in the first 5 innings. While the bullpen pitched 4 innings of scoreless ball to give the Foresters a chance to comeback, they just couldn't overcome the early deficit. Vic Crawford hit his 3rd homer for the Saints as they evened the series at 2 games apiece. SP Milt Fritz improved his record with the Saints to 4-1 since the trade with an ERA of 2.89.

WP - Milt Fritz 5-6 3.64 LP - Ed Wood 5-7 3.76
HR - (Mont) Vic Crawford 3rd

Summary - So that was thoroughly a disappointing start to the home stand. After winning the first 2 games and getting things off to a great start, we sputtered in the last 2. I was really hoping to get 3 out of 4 to start us off here, but we can't let the disappointment of the last 2 set the tone for the rest of this stand. While before the series I talked about how a great home stand would vault us back into the middle of the CA. A truly poor home stand would cement us into contention for a likely top 5 draft pick.

C Al Howell who hit 304 last season continues to struggle with the bat this year hitting just 211. He was positioned early to get about 40% of the starts this year, but his bat is pushing his appearances down. We need to get him going, but if he doesn't there is someone who is knocking on the door to get called up. C Ben Richardson is hitting 324 at AAA Cincinnati and is pushing to get his opportunity at the big league level. Richardson has long been thought of as the clubs heir apparent at C, but the team decided to trade for Jim Kyle in the off-season to replace Josh Fry. Richardson who is only 23, could be making a push to claim that his now is now.

The continuing issue in CF has been going on for several years. Bobby Allen certainly hit, but didn't field the position as well as Cleveland brass wanted. Allen has been a very solid LF for the Foresters since moving there last season. In CF the team has tried a number of players including this year's starter Leon Drake, last year's starter Jake Matheson, and also seen Amos LeBlanc, Frank Moseby, Russ Franklin, Mickey Crawford, and Dick Wilson all get shots. The team has a young pipeline of potential players in the minors that we will focus on in a bit, and also will have the return next spring of Leo Clark. But if the team is going to improve this season in CF, it is likely going to be by way of a trade.

Next - The Home Stand Continues......

DD Martin · 10-13-2020, 04:36 PM

The Home Stand Continues - Can the Foresters get it in gear?

The countdown for Max Morris and his career hit number 3000 is fast approaching. He enters the week 11 hits away from becoming the 10th player in FABL history of cracking the magical number.

We enter the week with a 25-31 record and still firmly in 7th place in the CA.

The week ahead

We have a 4-game series (Monday-Thursday) against the Brooklyn Kings (26-31) and then we follow with a 4-game set against the New York Stars (27-29). So two teams that are directly ahead of us in the standings and both teams that aren't playing up to their potential. Seems to be the story in the CA as we aren't playing up to our potential either.

Brooklyn Series Pitching Match-ups
Brooklyn Kings vs Cleveland Foresters
Johnny Jacob 7-5 3.49 Ben Turner 4-6 3.81
Tom Barrell 3-8 3.86 Karl Johnson 4-5 4.91
Mike Murphy 6-5 4.43 Carl Bragg 1-1 2.08
Lyman Weigel 5-3 3.31 Roger Perry 7-4 3.05

Monday June 12th, 1933
Brooklyn Kings 3
Cleveland Foresters 7

Things were not looking good for the Foresters through the 7th inning stretch as they trailed the Kings 3-1. After the stretch, Max Morris hit a home run to cut the deficit to 3-2. In the 8th the Foresters offense finally awoke from its slumber to erupt for 5 runs in the inning highlighted by Moxie Pidgeon's GW double that made the score 4-3.

WP - Ben Turner 5-6 3.68 LP - Johnny Jacob 7-6 3.82
HR - (CL) Max Morris 11th

Tuesday June 13th, 1933
Brooklyn Kings 2
Cleveland Foresters 5

The Foresters launched 11 hits, 3 doubles and even stole 3 bases against SP Tom Barrell in winning their 2nd in a row. The ups and downs of Karl Johnson continue but today was an UP as he went 9 innings giving up 8 hits (7 singles and a homer) and 2 runs. CF Jim Gentry's 5th inning 2-run homer was the only real mistake that Johnson made.

WP - Karl Johnson 5-5 4.62 LP - Tom Barrell 3-9 3.86
HR - (Brk) Jim Gentry 1st

Wednesday June 14th, 1933
Brooklyn Kings 4
Cleveland Foresters 5

SP Carl Bragg is definitely making a case for him to keep a spot in the rotation when Dean Astle return in July. Bragg went 7 innings, scattering 8 hits and gave up 2 earned runs. 2B Brooks Meeks 2-run single in the bottom of the 6th gave the Foresters a secure 5-1 lead.

WP - Carl Bragg 2-1 2.22 LP - Mike Murphy 6-6 4.39 S - Ben Henggeler 1 2.25
HR - none

Thursday June 15th, 1933
Brooklyn Kings 3
Cleveland Foresters 11

The Foresters sweep the 4-game series against the Kings at the City Dump Ballpark. SP Roger Perry was 2 for 3 with a double and drove in run as he notched his 8th win of the season. Offensive stars for the Foresters were 2B Brooks Meeks and RF Moxie Pidgeon both collecting 3 hits. The Foresters have won 4 straight and are now 6-2 on their 19-game home stand. With the sweep the Foresters (29-31) have moved past the stumbling Kings and into a 3-way tie with the Sailors and Stars for 4th.

WP - Roger Perry 8-4 3.10 LP - Lyman Weigel 5-4 4.04
HR - None

Next the New York Stars 29-31 come to town to take on the Foresters 29-31.

New York Stars vs Cleveland Foresters
Friday June 16th - Monday June 19th
@ the Cleveland City Dump Ballpark

New York Stars Series Pitching Matchups (Friday-Sunday games)
New York Stars vs Cleveland Foresters
Dick Richards 4-5 5.94 Ed Wood 5-7 3.76
Lou Martino 2-3 2.51 Ben Turner 5-6 3.68
Charlie Steadman 5-5 3.30 Karl Johnson 5-5 4.62

Friday June 16th, 1933
New York Stars 0
Cleveland Foresters 7

The Foresters routed the Stars to move into a tie for 3rd place with their 5th straight win. 1B Max Morris led the Foresters with 3 hits including 2 home runs (13) and drove in 4 RBI's (40). Morris is now 2 hits short of the magical 3000 number. SP Ed Wood was brilliant in pitching a 5-hit shutout to pick up his 6th win of the season.

WP - Ed Wood 6-7 3.44 LP - Dick Richards 4-6 5.74
HR - Max Morris 12th and 13th

Saturday June 17th, 1933
New York Stars 4
Cleveland Foresters 5

The Foresters 6th straight win evened their season record at 31-31, in a 3rd place tie with the Baltimore Cannons. Max Morris become the 10th man in FABL history with his 2nd hit of the night in the 5th inning. The single was Morris's 3000 career hit as the records and milestones keep falling to the legend. The hit raised Morris average on the season to a season high 289.

WP - Ben Turner 6-6 3.62 LP - Bennie Conover 4-3 2.45
HR - (NY) Pete Layton 6th

Sunday June 18th, 1933
New York Stars 2
Cleveland Foresters 3 (10)

Break up the Foresters as they won their 7th straight game. This one took 10 innings to finish off. In the bottom of the 9th the Foresters went in trailing 2-1 but a leadoff walk to 3B Johnny Turner and a single by RF Moxie Pidgeon moved Turner to 3rd. SP Charlie Steadman then balked in Turner. Unfortunately with a runner on 2nd and no one out, the Foresters couldn't end the game there.

In the 10th C Jim Kyle singled and was sacrificed to 2nd by the outgoing Art Wells. SS George Dawson grounded out to 3rd for the 2nd out moving Kyle to 3rd who then came around and scored on 3B Jake Moore's walk off RBI single. Both SP's went the distance in this game.

WP - Karl Johnson 6-5 4.33 LP - Charlie Steadman 5-6 3.25
HR - (CL) Leon Drake 2nd

Summary - With that the Foresters are won 7 straight game and have moved from 7th to sole position of 3rd place in the CA. They have picked up 5 games on this home stand and now are back to within 9 games of the lead in the CA. With 9-2 record on the home stand we are finally over 500 again, hopefully for good.

Moves - Despite the winning streak, we continue to tinker with the major league roster. First off the waiver claim we had for 1B/IF Steve O'Bannon was accepted but then we never moved him onto the roster so he was released. We have reached out to Steve to see if he would like to sign a minor league deal.

We picked back up the contract of 2B Bob Baker and added him to the major league roster. Baker at one time was the starting 2B for the Foresters last appearing in 120 games in the 1931 season. He was hitting 315 at AAA Cincinnati and with the departure of both (Traded) Russ Franklin and the DFA of Art Wells opened the door. Wells was just not very effective in the very few appearances he made. He was just 2-16 in the 8 games he appeared in.

After hitting just 231, 3B Johnny Turner was optioned to AAA and SS Joe Dougherty was brought up to be the backup to George Dawson. Dougherty was hitting 225 so he is maybe a step above Wells. We thought about bringing back up SS Pat Schurling, but decided we wanted him to continue to play everyday at AAA.

Perhaps the biggest move was when we called up C Ben Richardson for the first time. To make room we optioned occasional RP and C Al Howell down to AAA. Howell was just not hitting this season sitting at 223 after last season 304. He will move into the rotation in Cincinnati and play part time C. The call up of Richardson is perhaps the dawning of the Ben Richardson era. He and Jim Kyle will share time behind the plate.

DD Martin · 10-13-2020, 10:22 PM

The (so far) 9-2 home stand continues.....

We are rolling with a 7 game win streak and have the New York Stars in for 1 more game this week, before welcoming the Baltimore Cannons for 4 games and then Toronto for the last 3 of the home stand. We are playing some really good baseball right now and I hope it can continue. We have address a lot of areas so far this year, the biggest priority was fixing last years GasHouse Gang in the bullpen and I feel that so far with bullpen ERA of 2.29 that we have accomplished that. The starting rotation despite the injuries to Heinie Bretz and Dean Astle has been very solid.

Where we are struggling still in my mind is on the offensive side of the game. Yes RF Moxie Pidgeon (323/398/870 8-34), LF Bobby Allen (314/373/821 5-38), 1B Max Morris (284/332/844 15-42) are the anchors. 3B Jake Moore who didn't start the season as the everyday 3B has once again taken hold of that spot and while not hitting for power he has hit well (319/327/795 1-20). SS George Dawson has been really good defensively (ZR +12.3, RF 5.29 Eff 1.203) although he has made a few mistake (15 errors) which we would like to see him cut down on. With the bat, which was the major concern he is hitting 273 and I can't really ask for anything more from him in his rookie season. 2B Brooks Meeks is following up on his solid rookie season with an equally solid sophomore campaign hitting 282 with 3 HR's and 26 RBI's. I'd like to see him get his OBP up to around 340 but he also has played really good defense and hep solidify our middle lineup.

That leaves us with C and CF positions. C Jim Kyle was brought in to be the 1st team C and Kyle is ranked right in the middle of the pack (#8). But with his hitting this season (247/297/702 3-15) it feels worse. He has been good defensively throwing out 56.5% of all base runners and has a positive ZR. The pitchers also seem to be responding well to him. We shipped out to AAA backup C Al Howell who was simply not showing us the same hitting approach that he had last year. Howell's disappointment, led us to really take a strong look at the "Catcher of the Future" Ben Richardson now as he was hitting really well at AAA. While the "experts" haven't been crazy about Richardson, we have remained high on him and it has been paying off. He will get a shot now to see what he can do.

The CF spot was an open competition in spring training between Leo Clark and Leon Drake. In early spring Clark had won the job and Drake would come to Cleveland as the 4th OF since he can play the corners as well as CF. But then Clark went down with a torn PCL and Drake was inserted as the starter. Drake was backed up by both Russ Franklin (since traded to Chicago) and Jake Matteson (since demoted to AAA Cincinnati). Currently the backup CF is rookie Amos LeBlanc.

CF Production
Leon Drake 52G-45GS 222/328/656 2-14 84 OPS+ 1.2 WAR
Amos LeBlanc 19G-19GS 145/167/351 0-3 -2 OPS+ -0.7 WAR
Jake Matheson 9G-8GS 185/353/538 0-1 54 OPS+ 0.1 WAR
Russ Franklin 13G-8GS 184/244/454 0-1 28 OPS+ -0.1 WAR

Collectively 195/270/536 2HR 19 RBI 41R

Drake is still only 24 and both our scout and BNN/OSA feel that he could become one of the top CF in the league. The league experts have Drake pegged as the #5 CF in baseball, he has not lived up to that high praise. So far we haven't seen it and right now it is a glaring hole in our lineup. Leo Clark is also not a guarantee to make it, he is a good power bat but we haven't had the opportunity to see if that power plays in the big leagues. We are looking to make a move to find a worst a quality backup and at best a top flight CF both defensively and offensively. Ideally the power would be a leadoff type hitter. Oh to wish and dream.

Monday June 19th, 1933
New York Stars 2
Cleveland Foresters 0

NY SP Les Zoller pitched a gem for 7.2 innings giving up just 6 hits and Boyd Harper got the last for outs for his 8th save. The loss snapping the Foresters 7-game win streak and salvaged a game for the Stars in the 4-game set. SP Roger Perry pitched well for the Foresters but picked up the loss.

WP - Les Zoller 6-2 3.01 LP - Roger Perry 8-5 3.03 S- Boyd Harper 8 2.09
HR - None

Baltimore Cannons 31-33 @ Cleveland Foresters 32-32
June 20th-23rd 4-games
@ Cleveland Forester Stadium (aka the City Dump)

So the Cannons have come to town and by the sounds of the Baltimore press, it appears the team might be conceding that its window of opportunity might be closing. Rumors are running rampant that SP Rabbit Day (who we once made a huge push for many seasons ago) and OF/1B Lou Kelly might be available. Both players are the type of quality that a contending team would love to add. While Kelly is not a CF, he is the power hitting corner OF/1B that we could have interest in.

Pitching Matchups
Baltimore Cannons vs Cleveland Foresters
Rabbit Day 8-4 3.42 Carl Bragg 2-1 2.22
Clay Jackson 3-7 5.40 Ed Wood 6-7 3.44
Bob Miller 5-9 3.95 Ben Turner 6-6 3.62

Tuesday June 20th, 1933
Baltimore Cannons 2
Cleveland Foresters 3

SP Rabbit Day is 8-1 against everyone else, but with today's tight loss moves to 0-4 against the 1933 Foresters. Day struck out 9 Foresters but has nicked around for 11 hits, and was outpitched by Cleveland SP Carl Bragg.

WP - Carl Bragg 3-1 2.23 LP - Rabbit Day 8-5 3.42 S - Lou Proctor 2 0.00
HR - none

Wednesday June 21st, 1933
Baltimore Cannons 5
Cleveland Foresters 6

Another 1-run game and another 1-run win for the Foresters. With the win the Foresters move to 15-5 in 1-run games this season. The Foresters scored 2 in the 8th to tie the game and then walked off on 3B Jake Moore's 1-out single to drive in SP Ed Wood who walked to lead off the 9th inning. Interesting that manager Jim Wilson didn't pinch hit for Wood but the SP has been a very solid hitter for the Foresters with a 375 average and 3 HR's. Maybe the team should make him a 2-way player to be eligible to pinch hit.

WP - Ed Wood 7-7 3.56 LP - clay Jackson 3-8 5.52
HR - (CL) Ed Wood 3rd, Bobby Allen 5th, Max Morris 14th, (Balt) none

Thursday June 22nd, 1933
Baltimore Cannons 3
Cleveland Foresters 6

Bobby Allen went 3-3 and Moxie Pidgeon hit his 8th home run of the season powering the Foresters past the Cannons and winning for the 10th time in the last 11 games.

WP - Ben Turner 7-6 3.49 LP - Bob Miller 5-10 4.06
HR - (CL) Moxie Pidgeon 8th

Friday June 23rd, 1933
Baltimore Cannons 4
Cleveland Foresters 5

The Foresters finish the 4-game series sweep with another 1-run game. SP Roger Perry pitched well enough to get the win but a key error in the 8th took the win away from him and gave it to Lou "where is" Proctor.

WP - Lou Proctor 1-0 0.00 LP - Paul Vandenburg 2-3 1.73
HR - none

Series notes - Forester pitchers did not surrender a homer to Lou Kelly and the rest of the Cannons. Over the years Cannon hitters have laid waste to Cleveland pitching. As we have started a new streak of 4 straight and 11 out of 12, we look forward to the Toronto Wolves coming to town to finish off the 19 game homestand. The first game is Sunday and the other 2 games will be (next week) Monday and Tuesday.

Sunday June 25th, 1933
Toronto Wolves 2
Cleveland Foresters 4

2B Brooks Meeks went 4-4 and hit a key home run driving in 2 runs and helping the Foresters win their 5th straight. SP Karl Johnson continued their solid pitching after going down to AAA Cincinnati going 4-0 and lowering his ERA in those 4 starts by over a full run.

WP - Karl Johnson 7-5 4.14 LP - Buddy Adams 4-11 4.66
HR - Brooks Meeks 3rd, Max Morris 15th

Summary - After the Stars ended our 7 game win streak we started a new one that is up to 5 games now. 5-1 for the week and now 14-3 on the home stand. I hate to say it but we are now flirting with 2nd with the Saints who hold a 2.5 game edge on us.

Moves - After the game Sunday we optioned CF Amos LeBlanc to AAA as he has just been over-matched at the big league level. We don't have really any other options right now so we will bring back OF Jake Matheson to be the designated "Last Resort" CF. Matheson has hit 258 at AAA so I am not expecting him to greatly improve on his 185 batting average, but he has proven that he can take a walk.

We make a waiver claim on DFA Bill Littlefield (St. Louis). No not to solve the CF situation since he can field a ball to save his life. He is a solid hitter and in 50 years might be an asset to someone. If we get him we will then figure out where his future lies (maybe 1B?).

The other option is to find another corner OF bat if we can't find a solid CF. In that scenario depending on who the acquired player was we would likely move LF Bobby Allen back to CF, but the defense takes a hit with that move.

Next - The finish of one hellofa home stand

DD Martin · 10-14-2020, 05:44 PM

Home Stand Over 16-3

So we finish up our 19-game home stand up and it has been a great stretch for this Cleveland Club. Despite the fact that the hot water doesn't work in the home locker room (fortunately for the visitors its does in their locker room), the Foresters completed probably the best home stretch over 12 games in my history with the club. We are sitting 39-32 after Tuesday game against game against Toronto.

Monday June 26, 1933
Toronto Wolves 6
Cleveland Foresters 7 (10)

Tied going into the bottom of the 10th, CF Leon Drake reached base on an error by SS Frank Huddleston. Ray Cochran single and Jim Kyle popped up a sacrifice bunt. That brought up 2B Bob Baker fresh up to the big league team, and he ripped the first pitch he saw for a game winning single scoring Drake.

WP - Jim Cavender 1-0 1.93 LP - Eddie Quinn 6-10 3.12
HR - (CL) Max Morris 16th, (Tor) Bill Eastep 2nd

Tuesday June 27, 1933
Toronto Wolves 4
Cleveland Foresters 5

The Foresters ran their 1-run record to 18-5 as SS George Dawson singled in the game winning run in the 7th inning. SP Ed Wood won his 3rd straight decision.

WP - Ed Wood 8-7 3.60 LP - Birdie Smith 4-10 4.82
HR - (CL) Max Morris 17th, (Tor) Frank Huddleston 5th

Home stand record 16-3 Home record 29-18
Season record 39-32 3rd place in the CA 7.5 GB

Summary - So now that the long home stand is over, we have played 47 of our 71 games at home. So that means we have a likely long road trip coming up, and its true the Foresters will go on a 23 game road trip wrapped around the All-Star Game on July 6th. The last game against Toronto was on June 27th and we will not return to Cleveland for a game until July 24th.

Next up - We start on the long and winding road.....

DD Martin · 10-14-2020, 10:08 PM

Let the Travel's Begin - Time to see if this team is for Real!

We start our 23-game road trip and start in Philadelphia for a single game on Thursday and a DH on Friday. The Sailors 35-36 started out the season pretty good, but have struggled in May (10-19) and now are starting to play better again in June (15-10).

Thursday June 29th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 1
Philadelphia Sailors 8

SP Ben Turner had a night to forget as he was bombed by the Sailors. Jack Cleaves went 3-3 with a double, triple and added a walk and Dick Walker hit his 6th home run of the season in the rout. The Foresters came out looking like they spent their off-day all day on a slow moving bus and never got untracked.

WP - Rollie Beal 11-4 2.77 LP - Ben Turner 7-7 3.90
HR - (PH) Dick Walker 6th

Friday June 30, 1933
Game 1
Cleveland Foresters 10
Philadelphia Sailors 2

SP Carl Bragg was the beneficiary of the team getting a good night sleep as the Foresters put up a 10 spot in game 1. The Foresters have 12 hits and half of them were for extra bases. Leon Drake hit his 3rd homer.

WP - Carl Bragg 4-1 2.25 LP - Oscar Morse 5-9 3.44 S- Lou Proctor 3 1.38
HR - (CL) Leon Drake 3rd

Game 2
Cleveland Foresters 5
Philadelphia Sailors 3

The nightcap was closer but Moxie Pidgeon continued his hot hitting as he drove in 3 runs (39 now on the season) by hitting his 9th homer of the season. Lou Proctor saved both halves of the double header.

WP - Karl Johnson 8-5 4.09 LP - Williams 6-8 3.28 S - Lou Proctor 4 1.29
HR -(CL) Moxie Pidgeon 9th

Summary - So after a sleepy effort on Thursday the bats came alive for 15 runs over the 2 games on Saturday. Carl Bragg (4-0 1.80) and Karl Johnson (5-0 2.20) have really been good since they have been recalled at the beginning of June. Speaking of Johnson, he was awarded the CA pitcher of the month for his efforts.

The season started off slow for baseball legend Max Morris. While he hit his 600th home run in early April, his bat appeared sluggish for both April and May. But as the weather warmed up in June, so did Max Morris and the 38-year-old superstar started to hit like he has been for over 15 years. Morris was named the runaway CA Hitter of the month for June with the following stats. Morris hit 379 with a 445 OBP with 9 homers and 27 RBI's with 23 runs scored. His season stats are still lower than what he would normally expect through the halfway point but Morris is now at 293 17-50.

Next - Onto Toronto to start the month of July.

DD Martin · 10-15-2020, 06:12 PM

Last Stop Before the First Ever All-Star Game

We arrive in Toronto to take on the last-place 25-50 Wolves. It seems to be a familiar position for the Toronto club, but we have been there many times ourselves so it can and will turn around for them. But right now we are on opposite ends of the rebuilding spectrum. We end the series having taken 2 out of 3 against the Sailors in Phily to start our long journey so only 20 games left before coming home. A realistic expectation is that if we really are a good club, then we should roll to 3 or 4 wins here, but baseball isn't normally that easy. Coming into this series we are 5-4 against which suggest that they tend to play us tough. While I'd love to take 3, even getting a split on the road would make me happy. But in the pit of my stomach I am dreading this long road trip, but let's see where it takes us. I do have to admit though I hate spending the 4th of July out of the country, but we do get to see how the Canadian fans spend their "1st of July" Independence Day.

Cleveland Foresters 41-33 @ Toronto Wolves 25-50
Saturday July 1st through Tuesday July 4th
Toronto's Dominion Stadium

Pitching Matchups
Cleveland Foresters vs Toronto Wolves
Roger Perry 8-5 3.10 Birdie Smith 4-10 4.82
Ed Wood 8-7 3.60 Kevin Cole 1-2 3.60
Ben Turner 7-7 3.90 Eddie Quinn 6-11 3.06
Karl Johnson 8-5 4.09 Bill Anderson 7-7 3.12

Saturday July 1st, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 4
Toronto Wolves 6

Happy Independence Day Canada, the Wolves scored 4 in the bottom of the 6th putting them ahead 6-4 and made it stood up for the win. The big blow against SP Roger Perry was from now 1B Frank Huddleston (who has played a lot of SS this year which is an odd position combo) hit his 2nd double of the game that drove in the deciding runs for the Wolves. Perry who was once thought to be on pace for the All-Star game has slumped a bit this last month.

WP - Birdie Smith 5-10 4.63 LP - Roger Perry 8-6 3.36
HR - (CL) Moxie Pidgeon 10th

Sunday July 2nd, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 8
Toronto Wolves 6

After yesterday's Canada Day fireworks, the Foresters woke up on the grumpy side. Young Wolves SP Chuck "Don't Call Me Kevin" Cole gave up 7 runs. RF Moxie Pidgeon had a huge day hitting 2 triples and a homer going 3-4 and driving in 2 runs. 5 other Foresters had 2 hits apiece in the onslaught. SP Ed Wood didn't have his best stuff, but benefitted from the hit parade to get the win.

WP - Ed Wood 9-7 3.69 LP - Chuck Cole 1-3 4.50
HR - Moxie Pidgeon 11th

Monday July 3rd, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 4
Toronto Wolves 3

Continuing their winning ways in 1-run games, the Foresters scored 3 in the top of the 9th to come from behind and get the win. Moxie Pidgeon hit his 3rd triple in 2 days and LF Bill Littlefield got his 1st start as a Forester and hit 2 doubles. In the top of the 9th, Jake Matheson drew a walk, followed by 2B Brooks Meeks single to put runners on 1st and 2nd. CF Leon Drake was then hit by a pitch to load the bases. Bases loaded and nobody out until Jake Moore hit a shallow fly ball to left. Ray Cochran hit a groundout to the 1B that moved the runners up and scored Matheson. 2 outs so of course Max Morris was intentionally walked to re-load the bases. That brought up the hottest Forester going, RF Moxie Pidgeon who hit a single that scored both Meeks and Drake to give the Foresters the 4-3 lead. RP Ben Proctor pitched the 9th for the save

WP - Ben Turner 8-7 3.87 LP - Eddie Quinn 6-121 3.12 S - L Proctor 5 1.13
HR - none

Tuesday July 4th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 1
Toronto Wolves 3

The Wolves pick up the win in a tight pitchers duel between Bill Anderson (Tor) and Karl Johnson (CL). For Johnson it was his first loss since being recalled from AAA Cincinnati and winning the CA Pitcher of the Month award in June. The lone Forester run came on Max Morris 18th homer of the season.

WP - Bill Anderson 8-7 3.09 LP - Karl Johnson 8-6 3.97
HR - (CL) Max Morris 18th

Summary - And there you have it, a split against the struggling Wolves. Not completely unexpected but rather disappointing. Still we start out this long road trip at 5-4 and get a few days off for the All-Star Break.

Injury Report - SP Dean Astle will be coming off the DL after the All-Star game and will report to AAA Cincinnati for at least 1 start before being looked at to come back to Cleveland. Right now our SP's have been performing really well so it will not be an easy choice who we will bump out of the rotation. Despite pitching well the early money is on SP Carl Bragg to go down to Cincinnati because he has already used his option this season and we do not want to mess with the bullpen right now.

The All-Star Game Voting

I really felt about 2 weeks ago that we would end up with 3 All-Stars, but the recent slide of SP Roger Perry (who doesn't seem to get a lot of respect anyway around the league) will likely mean that only 1B Max Morris and RF Moxie Pidgeon will be elected.

Below are the announced All-Star Game representative from both leagues for the game that will be played at the home field of Chicago Chiefs, Whitney Park.

Also below is the ballot of Cleveland sports editor Lou Shelby.

Next - All Star game recap

DD Martin · 10-15-2020, 06:28 PM

First Ever FABL All-Star Game
July 6th, 1933
Chicago's Whitney Field

A record crowd of 32,250 fans crammed into Whitney Field to witness a historic night for the FABL as All-Star teams from the Federal Association and Continental Association were selected to do battle. The fans wouldn't have to wait long as in the Top of the 1st inning, the Cleveland Forester duo of 1B Max Morris (who singled) and RF Moxie Pidgeon (homer) put the CA All-Stars up early 2-0. The Cleveland duo will go down in history as the hitters who got the 1st hit in an All-Star game (Morris), first homer hit in an All-Star (Pidgeon) and first run scored (Morris).

After the early 1st inning fireworks by the Cleveland duo, the Federal Association All-Stars took control of the game scoring runs in the 1st and 2nd innings and then three more in the 3rd. In the 3rd inning SS Pete Asher (a former Forester) hit a 2-run single to put the FA out in front for good. SS Asher (Pittsburgh) won the game's MVP award by going 3-4 with the double, 3 RBI's and a run scored.

Lots of pitchers were used in this game as most saw only an inning of work. St. Louis RP Ben Curtin got the win and Pittsburgh RP Ben Morrill got a 3-inning save for the FA.

The All-Star Game certainly seems to be a success with the fans and the players so look for this new tradition to continue. Most likely it will not be held in Cleveland though anytime soon with the condition of Forester Stadium (see picture at the bottom).

Next - We return from the brief All-Star Break and go back on the Road

DD Martin · 10-16-2020, 09:17 PM

The All-Star Break was nice, but on the road to Brooklyn

So what does a GM of a team that is 8-12 games out at the mid-way point in a season do? Look for upgrades, and by reports GM Martin has been busy on the phones and telegraph machines looking for deals to upgrade this team. Why, go all out with the Cougars likely running away from the rest of the CA in 1933? To go all in for what might be Max Morris's last season next year. While the legendary slugger has offered no hints, and he is still swatting baseballs out of the ballpark at a good clip. The old saying "father time waits for nobody" is likely lurking in the future. So the Foresters who have never won a World Series and have only won the CA 3 times in their 40+ year history are looking to make bold moves. Will they get to make one of those moves, or two? Stay tuned.....the rumors are flying.

So we head to a 4-game series in Brooklyn against a King's team that is beginning to once again find their 2nd half wind. It is too bad for Brooklyn fans that the team has a penchant for digging such big holes early that they are out of it by Memorial Day (this year everyone was likely out of it by the 4th with Chicago). Heading into this series the Kings are 37-43 and in 7th place.

Cleveland Foresters 43-35 @ Brooklyn Kings 37-43
July 7-9 1933 4-game series (DH on Saturday)
At Kings County Park II (which looks like a palace compared to the city dump in Cleveland)
Season Series 4-4

Pitching Matchups
Cleveland Foresters vs Brooklyn Kings
Roger Perry 8-6 3.36 Lyman Weigel 7-4 4.20
Ed Wood 9-7 3.69 Hal Galvan 1-1 1.80
Ben Turner 8-7 3.87 Tom Barrell 5-10 3.70
Carl Bragg 4-1 2.25 Roy Pierce 3-3 3.97

Friday July 7th 1933
Cleveland Foresters 17
Brooklyn Kings 12

Yes you read that score right and no it wasn't a football game. It appears both teams hitters were eager to get the 2nd half of the season going as both teams ripped the pitching staffs of the other. A total of 29 runs, 34 hits and a very unimpressive 15 walks were doled out in this game. CF Leon Drake was named POTG hitting a homer and double driving in 6 runs. Former Forester farm hand RF Charlie Powell hit his 3rd home run of the season.

WP - Roger Perry 9-6 3.45 LP - Lyman Weigel 7-5 4.69
HR - (CL) Leon Drake 4th, (BRK) Charlie Powell 3rd

Saturday July 8 - Double-Header
Game 1
Cleveland Foresters 4
Brooklyn Kings 11

Overall an ugly game for the Foresters. 40-year-old RP Hal Galvan got the start in this game. The veteran who is still a quality reliever pitched surprisingly well and his teammates gave him lots of support. Is this a new role for Galvan going forward?

WP - Hal Galvan 2-1 2.57 LP - Ed Wood 9-8 4.00
HR - (CL) Leon Drake 5th and 6th, (BRK) Buck Sargent 3rd, Art Summers 8th

Saturday July 8 - Double-Header
Game 2
Cleveland Foresters 11
Brooklyn Kings 3

This game was the complete opposite of the earlier game as the Foresters laid the lumber to struggling SP Tom Barrell. Leon Drake is loving Kings Ballpark as he hit his 4th homer in the series. Unfortunately he appears to be suffering from an strained oblique muscle late in the game.

WP - Ben Turner 9-7 3.81 LP - Tom Barrell 5-11 4.06
HR - (CL) Leon Drake 7th, (BRK) Art Summers 9th

Sunday July 9th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 2
Brooklyn Kings 10

There were no close games in this series as the Kings even this one and the season series with the blowout. 70 runs were scored in the 4-game set as pitching was scarce after the All-Star Break.

WP - Roy Pierce 4-3 3.73 LP - Carl Bragg 4-2 3.40
HR - None

Summary - So another split and we move to 6-5 on the current road trip. Two more weeks on the road and 12 more games.

The injury to CF Leon Drake couldn't have come at a worse time as the kid was showing flashes of all that talent the scouts drool over. We will not DL him yet, but will adjust the starting lineup for next week's game and see where he is. LF Bobby Allen will move back to his former CF position and Ray Cochran will take over in LF.

One thing we need to watch is our bullpen. During the first 3 months we were ranked 2nd in ERA in the mid/low 2's, now we are 3rd but the ERA has creped up to 3.40 on the season. RP Bob Boyd had a real rough outing here in Brooklyn and while he is wildly popular with the home fans, not enough of them show up to really matter. But who can blame them for not showing up, even if the team is playing solid ball.

Activation Rehab Assignment - SP Dean Astle comes off the DL and will head to Cincinnati for probably 2 starts next week. Hopefully the kid will shake off the rust and get back to Cleveland quickly.

Next - The Road Trip Continues - Can the Foresters hold up?

DD Martin · 10-19-2020, 11:00 PM

Long Trip Blues - (and no not the KC Blues)

We continued our long trip with a venture to New York to face the Stars (43-40) who have not followed up on their World Series win this season. Why are the Stars not playing like they did last year? Is it injuries, well not really although they are missing 3B Dave Throwbridge who had a great season last year. He wasn't quite on the same pace before his injury this year but now that he is out for 6 weeks he will be missed. The Stars still have 2B Pete Layton and John Lawson, who has moved over to 3B with Throwbridge's absence. The pitching though is not quite as sharp as it was a year ago and SP Dick Richards used all his mojo in last years 17-7 season.

It would be nice to get out of our split slog that we have been on this trip. We have 4 in New York on Monday-Tuesday, then a day off in Times Square on Wednesday before continuing with games on Thursday and Friday. Then we head to Montreal with a 2nd place show down with the Saints starting on Saturday and continuing on through next Tuesday.

Monday July 10th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 7
New York Stars 3

Bobby Allen hit his 6th homer of the season and rookie C Ben Richardson reached the seats for the first time in his big league career in the victory over the Stars.

WP - Karl Johnson 9-6 3.91 LP - Les Zoller 8-3 3.26
HR - (CL) Bobby Allen 6th, Ben Richardson 1st, (NY) Gordie Loftus 2nd

Tuesday July 11th 1933
Cleveland Foresters 4
New York Stars 5

So the Forester's did something that they haven't done much and that is lose a 1-run game. With the Foresters leading 4-2 in the 8th, PH Lum Baker came up with a 3-run homer off RP Lou Proctor to give the Stars the lead and the game. It is one of the few failures of the bullpen this year.

WP - Jack Carr 2-1 3.49 LP - Lou Proctor 1-1 1.65
HR - (NY) Lum Baker 1st, (CL) Max Morris 19th

Thursday July 13th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 7
New York Stars 5

SP Ed Wood hit his 4th homer of the season and recently returning to the Foresters 2B Bob Baker hit his 1st. We go for a series win tomorrow

WP - Ed Wood 10-8 4.03 LP - Bennie Conover 5-6 3.27
HR - (CL) Bob Baker 1st, Ed Wood 4th

Friday July 14, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 0
New York Stars 4

Still on the split series treadmill as the Stars shut the Foresters out behind Lou Martino. John Lawson hit his 10th home run of the season for the Stars in the win.

WP - Lou Martino 4-5 2.71 LP - Ben Turner 9-8 3.78
HR - (NY) John Lawson 10th

So with the 2-2 split in New York we head north of the border to take on the Saints for 4-games. The trip is winding down and we have held our head above water so far.

Saturday July 15th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 7
Montreal Saints 8

A complete and total collapse in the 9th for the Cleveland team. The Saints come up with 6 runs in the 9th and win it. 1B Vic Crawford delivered the final blow with double that scored Cliff Moss with the winning run. All of the damage came against Carl Bragg who pitched a great 8 inning game, but got shelled in the 9th. Proctor tried to come in and get Crawford but gave up the double to break the tie.

WP - Leo Hall 2-1 7.27 LP - Lou Proctor 1-2 2.60
HR - (CL) Ray Cochran 2nd, (Mon) Jim Watson 4th

Sunday July 16th, 1933
Cleveland Foresters 4
Montreal Saints 5

For the 3rd time this week the Foresters lost a 1-run game and with the current 3 game losing streak have fallen out of 2nd place. Saints SP Wes Moore left without recording an out with back spasms, but the initial report is he will not miss his next start. RP Leo Hall won for the 2nd straight day with 6 innings of 2 earned run ball to bail out the Saints.

WP - Leo Hall 3-1 5.52 LP - Karl Johnson 9-7 4.00
HR - (CL) Ray Cochran 3rd, (MON) Hank Barnett 12th

Summary - With the two losses to start the Montreal series we fall to 8-9 on our 23-game trip. Two more here against the Saints on Monday and Tuesday next week and then we go to Baltimore to wrap up the long trek. Losing 3 1-run games this week drops our league best record in 1-run games to 19-8. We have been so successful this year in that type of contest.

Leon Drake injury has not responded well so we decided to put him on the DL for 2 weeks with complete rest and treatment. He had only played a minimum amount this week but he was complaining about pain even more. Ray Cochran in the OF has gone 5-22 but has hit 2 HR's and been clutch driving in 7 runs.

Trade Rumors - Honestly the trade rumors are heating up. Now some would be asking with us down by double digits with around 70 games left, why bother. The truth is I don't think we can run down Chicago, unless we change our fortunes against them or they have a slide like they did last year. So far there is no sign of that slide, but last season they lost the pennant in late July and August with a bad swoon. We have 2 key series coming up against them after this road trip ends. Chicago who is 9-3 against us will come to Cleveland for 3 games and then the following week we will go to Chicago for 4 games. If by some miracle we figure out a way to win 6 out of 7 or better, then maybe we have a slight chance.

The truth is we are really looking at next year. Some say Chicago is the dominant team in the CA and will be again next season. But in looking at them, they may be some opportunities to over take them next season and we are going to make moves that ensure we give ourselves every chance to capitalize if those opportunities materialize.

Next - The Long Trip Finally Ends

DD Martin · 10-27-2020, 02:53 PM

The rest of July

So we finished off the month of July with an 8-6 record and moved into 2nd place in the not very competitive Continental League Standings. The Chicago Cougars were running away with the pennant as just about everyone said at the beginning of the season. They were 13.5 games ahead of us and 14.5 over the Montreal Saints who for awhile there looked like they would make a race out of it. But this was the Cougars year and it all starts with their pitching. They have 4 studs at the top of the rotation and barring any injury they should easily win the CA by 15 or more games. The Philadelphia Keystones have an 11 game lead in the Federal League so it looks like a the Keys will make their 2nd straight trip to the World Series. This will be the 2nd trip for the Cougars in the last 3 years as well.

With our 500 record (14-14) in July, if we really wanted to compete we would have needed to go about 20-10, that would have kept the division deficit likely un double digits. So with the trade deadline coming up there probably won't be much action, and there wasn't except for us. We were looking to acquire as much top name talent that still had something left in the tank for a serious run in 1934. In fact we were involved with the only 2 trades in the month that were done before the deadline.

Trade #1
The Boston Minutemen trade 25-year-old CF Dan Fowler and their 4th round draft pick, to the Cleveland Foresters. In return they received SP Ed Wood (25), AAA SS John Wood (22) #113 prospect, AAA CF Pete Day (22) #59 prospect and AA 3B Art Spencer (21) 342 prospect.

So what we got - Dan Fowler is the CF I have been looking for since I started in Cleveland for the 1926 season. He is young, hits for power and has speed. He was the 6th overall pick in the 1929 draft (the same year we took CF Amos LeBlanc at #8). We had coveted Fowler since we missed out on him in that draft. At 25, he looks to man CF for us for a number of years. We also got the Minutemen's 4th round pick which looks to be the #2 pick of that round (or a late 3rd as I like to look at it).

So what we gave up - A lot but even though it was expensive and I gave up 3 of my key draft picks from the last draft, I think it was worth it. Of the 3 I really wanted to keep 3B Art Spencer as he looks like he could maybe start next year or definitely by 1935 and it is a position of need for us (although we do still have 23 year old Johnny Turner who will get another shot at the spot next spring). We also gave up SS John Wood who was a solid find in the 5th round last year and 2nd rounder Pete Day who was out performing our 1st round pick Levi Redding. Day had started at Class A with all the others and Redding but quickly moved to AA and then AAA.

Yes and I gave up a SP in Ed Wood (who might be the best hitter pitcher in the league as he had 4 home runs this season). Wood was 10-8 with an inconsistent 4-02 ERA, but had really settled down more of late. I have spent so much time trying to acquire pitching, but honestly if everyone comes back healthy I feel pretty good about the rotation still, even without Wood.

So we get the immediate impact of Fowler now and next season for what we hope is a serious run at the CA. The Minutemen have picked up 4 pieces who could all be with them early next season if things break right.

Were we done? Not quite, on the very last day before the deadline we made another deal. This one took longer because I had to really think about it and we were in discussions with another team for a younger player.

Trade #2 -
The Washington Eagles trade 32-year-old all-star C T.R. Goins (32) to the Cleveland Foresters for the Foresters 1st round pick in the 1933 draft (December) and SP Karl Johnson (25) and C Ben Richardson (23).

What we got - The C that I had been after for 4-5 seasons through various GM's in Washington. It was a deal that almost didn't happen though as I was also in conversations with Pittsburgh for their starting C (and another player I had tried to get before) in Jim Pool (28). Goins is clearly the better player and has had a great career, but Pool has been solid and is younger by 4 years. I was also trying to get a veteran SP in the Pittsburgh deal to offset the loss of Johnson and Wood. We just couldn't come to terms with it after I had traded so much to Boston for Fowler. Still we got a catcher who should still have several more good seasons and fits into what I think is our 2 year window next starting next season.

What we gave up - Our 1st round pick which is looking like the #13 or at best #11 pick. Washington will clearly be hoping that we have a lousy August and September with Montreal and likely Philadelphia chasing us for 2nd place. We also surrendered "our catcher of the future" Ben Richardson. The OSA scouts were not nearly as enamored with Richardson as I had been. He finally got a shot to come up and platoon with Jim Kyle and hit 247 in his 73 AB's with the team. Not bad for a kid, but again I was focused on trying to improve this team for next season.

The next piece hurt though as we also coughed up SP Karl Johnson who had been sort of a pet project of mine since he was drafted out of high school in the 6th round of the 1925 draft. This was Johnson's 3rd season with the big league team and he was really starting to show what he could do. He was briefly demoted early in the season as some mechanical issues flared up, but the demotion was brief. He came back and won the CA pitcher of the month award for June going 5-0 and was 11-8 on the season with a 3.52 ERA.

Final thoughts - So we picked up two pieces to our puzzle for next season. While I know that we do not have the pitching staff to compete with Chicago this season, it was our offense that had let us down the last two seasons. Even with Max Morris we are trending towards the bottom in runs scored which has been a concern. We have been averaging just 4.4 rpg and that is good for 6th in the CA. Our pitching has been in the top 2-3 below Chicago. Hopefully we haven't given up too much pitching, but with SP Heinie Bretz progressing towards a return next season and the core we still have, I am hoping it is enough to combine with an improved offense.

DD Martin · 10-27-2020, 04:25 PM

Month of August

As we churn towards the end of the season our tragic number is down to 6. Chicago will likely officially wrap up the CA title this coming week. The Cougars do have incentive though to keep trying to win to gain home field advantage in the World Series. The FA soon to be officially declared winners, the Philadelphia Keystones are 89-45 while the Cougs are 88-45. The two teams have been atop the power rankings and win-loss ranking all season trading it back and forth. 3 weeks to go to see the race to the top.

We were 14-13 in August to continue our decidedly 500 trudge through the remainder of the season. 28-27 since July 1st was just not enough to make a serious threat. I feel like we should be doing a bit better but we are middle of the pack.

So in looking at things for August who really was struggling with the bat? LF Bobby Allen who was hitting well in the 1st half has hit bottom in the 2nd half with August he hit only 153. That meant it was time to give Leon Drake the September AB's in LF since he is back from injury but lost his CF job to Dan Fowler.

On the pitching side of the equation, SP Roger Perry had a lack luster August. Last season he was having a great year but seemed to have worn down in September. This year Perry isn't quite as sharp as he was through last season, but August was rough for him going 2-1 in 5 starts with a 4.17 ERA. Ben Turner was 1-4 with a 4.37 ERA. The surprise was the forced move to put RP Bert Henggeler into the starting rotation. And Henggeler has responded in his 6 starts with a 2-1 record and a team leading 2.10 ERA since he move to the rotation. I'll be honest I was looking at cutting loose either Henggeler or Bob Boyd but decided to give Henggeler a shot. Boyd has stayed as well as we don't need to make a 40-man roster move during the season. Can Henggeler who has now 25 career starts in the majors emerge as a contender for the #5 spot next season? He certainly is increasing his odds of staying with the Foresters with this late season move.

Moves - With the injury to 2B Brooks Meeks we have brought back up Johnny Turner. I am going to give Turner a run at 2B and just see if he has some solid fielding skills there as well. He is still young so we need to get him lots of playing time. He will come back next season and try once again to unseat 3B Jake Moore. While Moore has been ok, 3B is really a spot that I would like to see more production from next season. I don't know if that is Turner or it is someone not on the roster. We did make a run early in the season at Chicago Chief veteran 3B Joe Masters, but the price was too high. Master's who is 34 is hitting 272 with 15 homers and 87 RBI's for the Chiefs so he is having another very good season but is slowing down a bit.

SP Dean Astle returned to the rotation in late August after a minor injury. In 8 games started he is 3-3 with solid 2.38 ERA. He looks like to settle into the rotation next season behind Roger Perry in the rotation.

The Future - With the pennant race this season, we really begin to turn our attention to next season. We will be without our likely late 1st round draft choice and there are a few positions that I would like to shore up. I have pretty much gutted our minor league system that was fairly strong over the last 2 seasons with trades. We will begin rebuilding that with what we have in the draft for this year and also try to supplement with a few key acquisitions. I have my eye on a SP and a few other position players. Our efforts to resolve the bullpen have not panned out although I believe it is better we are likely not going to make any outside moves unless it is via Rule 5, Indy draft or the waiver wire. I have a few options that will be finally given their chance.

Below are the team stats for August. I am fairly pleased with our late July trade acquisitions as both Goins and Fowler haven't made me regret my choice.

DD Martin · 10-27-2020, 04:50 PM

Morris Does it Again

September 3, 1933
Once again Cleveland Forester 1B Max "Mighty Mo" Morris has etched his name into the record books. With the Foresters trailing 6-2 entering the 9th inning of a game that had been a pretty ho-hum affair, the Forester bats came alive. Coming up 5th in the inning, Morris lined a double to left and moved Moxie Pidgeon to 3rd with the Foresters now trailing 6-4. C TR Goins came up and delivered a single that score both Pidgeon and Morris to tie the game up at 6-6. The run scored by Morris, the 1941st of his career, broke the all-time record that was held by John Dibblee of 1940. With that mark Morris is now the all-time leader in the following categories in the FABL. He is now the all time triple crown leaders in Home runs, RBI's and Runs scored.

Home Runs - 632
RBI's - 1972
Runs scored -1941
Career Slugging % .6391

He is also now just 92 total bases away from breaking Dibblee's career mark in that category as well. That milestone will likely drop sometime early next season.

Another honor for the slugger was the August 1933 CA Batter of the Month Award. While there have been whispers about Morris slowing down, the fact is he is now hitting 309 on the season with 33 homeruns and 100 RBI's. This is the 2nd batter of the Month award Morris has received this season (June and August). There has been some discussion about Morris not being one of the top players anymore, likely because of his WAR being only 4.0 this season. Because of his position played is not a premium defensive position and likely his age slowing him down a bit, his WAR is not in the top 7 in the CA. But here is what he is doing in the CA in his age 38 season.

The 1933 season Stats (and stats don't lie)
Leading the CA in home runs with 33 (Mike Taylor is 2nd with 18), Leading the CA in RBI's with 100 (John Lawson is 2nd with 82). Leading the CA in slugging % at 558, which is down for him, but still ahead of #2 in the CA of Jack Cleaves 496. Leading the CA in OPS at 930 (John Lawson is 2nd at 899, and Pete Payton is 3rd at 898. Morris is tied for 1st in runs scored at 84 with Hank Jones. He leads the CA in total bases at 278 ( Jake Shadoan is 2nd at 262).

The Vote and Argument is ON
So for those that don't think he is putting up Whitney Award stats, the numbers clearly beg to differ with you. This is not a career achievement award for Morris because by the numbers that count (as we all know WAR is meaningless), Max Morris, at least through September 3rd, is your Whitney Award leader in the CA.

DD Martin · 10-28-2020, 07:00 PM

What a Week!!! 7-0

For the first time in a couple of months the Foresters put together what was truly an amazing week.

It started with the Forester finishing off taking 3 out of 4 at home against the NY Stars 8-6.

Then the team (72-61) headed off to Brooklyn (66-69) for a 4-game series against the Kings. The Foresters had done pretty well against the Kings this season with a 13-5 lead in the season series. The first two games of the series were shutout wins for the Foresters 4-0 and then 7-0. Ben Turner pitched a 6-hit shutout in the first game and George Coleman made his major league debut in pitching a 6-hit shutout in the 2nd game of the series.

The 3rd game of the series was a game the Foresters were losing 5-3 after a Kings 4 run spot in the 7th. But not to be outdone, Cleveland plated 4 in the top of the 9th and then hung on (Barely) in the bottom half to win 7-6. The win improved our record (at one time it was 16-5) to 26-16 on the season in 1-run games.

The 4th and last game of the series was won by the Foresters 8-5 with CF Dan Fowler going 4-5 and scoring 3 runs while driving in 2. We ended the season series against Brooklyn at 17-5 on the season. While Chicago had our number this season, we certainly had Brooklyn's for a change.

Next was a visit for 4-games to Baltimore (57-80) to take on the struggling Cannons. At one time it looked like the Toronto Wolves had a lock on the #1 overall pick in the draft, but the Cannons are trying to giving them a run for their money. Our week will end with games on Saturday and Sunday in Baltimore (the last 2 will be Monday and Tuesday of next week).

The first game was a 9-5 decision that wasn't as close as the final score indicated. Manager Jim Wilson likely forgot that SP Bert Henggler hadn't started too many games this season, but he was up 9-2 and had pitched well. Unfortunately it was an inning too long when he came out for the 9th, but Frank Phillips at least finished off the win.

The Sunday game saw the Foresters complete the perfect week with SP Carl Bragg continuing his really surprisingly good 1933 season upping his record to 10-2 with a 3.56 ERA. Bragg didn't make his Forester debut until June, so he has been really effective and produced his best season for the Foresters. Bragg started the year as the #8 guy in the spring rotation, but with injuries to Heinie Bretz in spring and another to Dean Astle in early June, he found his way to the big league team.

With the win the Foresters are now 78-61 on the season and trailing the Cougars by 11.5 games with 15 to go. Chicago who we figured would have wrapped up the CA by now reduced its magic number to just 4.

Summary - What a week for 1B Max Morris and CF Dan Fowler. For Morris it was another player of the week award, the 52nd time in his career he has been given such an honor. Morris hit 500 (16-32) with 5 more home runs (38) and driving in 9 (109) and scoring 9. With his home runs this week Morris set the all-time Forester record for home runs in a season with 38 and counting. The old record was 35 that were hit in 1925 by retired 2B Carl Martin. CF Dan Fowler was likely 2nd in the weekly award voting with a 485 2-12 line for the week.

SS George Dawson hit a nice 423 for the week and ended up with his 17th stolen base of the season. Swiping bases has not been a strength of the Foresters and still isn't, but Dawson and Fowler will make a nice full time addition next season together.

P George Coleman who in spring was fighting for a bullpen job with the Foresters before the moves were made in an attempt to strengthen the bullpen. Looking back at it, maybe he should have gotten the chance. He spent the year in AAA Cincinnati going 3-5 with 4 saves. He started (11 games) some in the 2nd half of the season a 3-4 record with a 3.26 ERA. Still he wasn't really someone we were looking at for the back of the rotation for next season. But with his debut performance in Brooklyn (9 inning 6-hit shutout), he is going to get 2-3 more starts this season to see how he does. I think he odds of emerging as the #5 SP next season are long, it doesn't hurt to have depth, which we have been lacking. But with him and Bert Henggler (3-1 2.55 ERA in 7 starts) maybe thinks aren't so dire as we had thought.

After the last 2 games next week with the Cannons (we are 17-3 against the Cannons this season), we move onto Montreal to face the Saints for the last time this year in a 4-game set. This season we are even with the Saints at 9-9 on the season series.

We will end the week next week on the road for a single game against the Sailors in Philadelphia.

Interesting note - The Foresters all time best regular season record is 87-68 back in 1917 when they had a 1 game playoff against the Montreal Saints for the CA title. The 2nd of only 3 that the Foresters have ever won. If the Foresters can manage to go 9-6 they would match that mark of 87 wins but in 1 less fewer games. 10-5 would put them as the all time best Forester regular season team, record wise. It is a goal that I gave Jim Wilson back in early August when we completed the Goins and the Fowler trades.

10-05-2020, 01:58 PM	#84
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Flipping the Calendar to May, will it help? What might be the youngest manager ever (who wasn't a player manager) in FABL history (will have to refer to our league founder on that), Jim Wilson (30) had quite the first week as skipper of the Foresters. Last week the team fired it entire coaching staff as it got off to a 5-12 start. Now a lot of folks figured the "Tree-Huggers" would be a 2nd division team in 1933, but Cleveland management and ownership thought otherwise. Despite a spring training with 4 season-ending injuries, Management felt that the team should at least be in the conversation and certainly should be a first division club as they were last season. Everything changed on Sunday evening after the game, the Forester's took drastic steps and cleaned house. Many in the city wondered why Forester GM DD Martin was spared, and only his connection and friendship to owner Elmer Marshall's son made sense as to why he was canned as well. Wilson quickly worked with the embattled Martin to make changes on the team. Called up were SS George Dawson, Cleveland's top prospect and the 5th overall in the FABL. DFA was veteran pitcher Jim Thompson who's 0-2 record and ERA approaching 8 was deemed not worthy of being in the rotation. There will likely be more changes coming, but those were the ones that got the week started. And what a week it was, Cleveland offense which couldn't find sand in a desert, suddenly erupted for its best week of the season. The Mean Green went 6-1 and found themselves out of the cellar in the CA which was being led by the brutally tough Chicago Cougars. Week in review Brooklyn Kings 7-10 vs Cleveland Foresters 5-12 May 1st 1933 at Forester Stadium Rubber game of the 3 game series 1-1 Brooklyn Kings 3 Cleveland Foresters 7 Nice debut for rookie skipper Jimmy Wilson as his Foresters found an offense with new life and timely hitting to take the 3rd game in a series between them and the Kings. 3B Jake Moore hit his 1st home run of the season and SP Roger Perry went the distance. Max Morris went 3-4 with a double and drove in a couple of RBI's in a good sign for the Foresters and was named player of the game. Just called up rookie SS George Dawson was 0-3 with a walk and run scored. WP- Roger Perry 3-2 2.87 LP - Mike Murphy 1-3 9.38 HR - Jake Moore (CL) 1st Notes - Harry Barrell also made his debut and was kept in check until he hit a double in the 8th inning drive in a run and later scoring. Unfortunately as predicted hardly anyone saw the debut of these 2 top 5 prospects as only 4,631 "fans" showed up. Next the Forester's continue the home stand with the Montreal Saints 11-7 coming to town for a 3-game set. Tuesday May 2nd-Thursday May 4th Montreal Saints 11-7 vs Cleveland Foresters 6-12 Season Series - First Matchup of the season Tuesday May 2nd Montreal Saints 1 Cleveland Foresters 7 Manager Jim Wilson improves to 2-0 in his career as the Foresters strike early as SS George Dawson gets his first big league hit when he tripled into the gap and scored on 2B Brooks Meeks grounder. Dawson ended the day 3-5 adding a couple of singles and a couple of more runs scored. Max Morris hit a 3-run homer for his first home run inside Forester Stadium this season. SP Ed Wood got his first win (1-3) on the season pitching a complete game, but walks are still an issue (5). WP - Ed Wood 1-3 4.85 LP - Walker Moore 1-1 3.69 HR - Max Morris (4) Wednesday May 3, 1933 Montreal Saints 2 Cleveland Foresters 10 The Forester offense exploded for 6 extra base hits (2 homers, 2 triples, 2 doubles) to humble the Saints 10-2. With a season high 17 hits, Max Morris hit his 5th on the season and struggling rookie 3B John Turner hit his 1st. SP Ben Turner help his own cause going 2-4 with a triple, run scored and RBI. WP - Ben Turner 2-2 3.41 LP - Randy Taylor 2-2 5.40 HR - (Mon) Cliff Moss 3rd, (CL) Max Morris 5th, John Turner 1st Thursday May 4th, 1933 Montreal Saints 7 Cleveland Foresters 6 The Foresters defense betrayed them in this game as the team had played error-less defense in manager Jim Wilson's first 3 games (all wins), but today they literally threw the game away with 4 errors. None were more costly than in the 8th inning when C Jim Kyle fumbled a bunt by PH Al Wilson allowing Bob Worley to score to tie the game. Wilson went to 2nd on the error and then scored what ended up being the game winner on Vic Crawford's RBI single. The Foresters got a lead-off walk by Johnny Turner but couldn't do anything with it as Russ Franklin popped a bunt, Max Morris struck out swinging and Brooks Meeks fly out to left to end the game. WP - Howie Snyder 1-2 3.86 LP - Frank Phillips (0-1) 2.00 S - Earle Whitten 4 0.59 HR - (Mont) Vic Crawford 1st, Wood Armstrong 3rd Finally the Baltimore Cannons (13-7) come riding high into Cleveland (8-13), and try to derail the winning ways of the Foresters under manager Jim Wilson. Friday May 5th- Sunday May 7th Baltimore Cannons vs Cleveland Foresters Forester Stadium Friday May 5th 1933 Baltimore Cannons 5 Cleveland Foresters 9 SP Carl Bragg made his 1933 Forester debut but lasted only 3.2 innings having to leave with a finger blister. RP George Baldwin didn't exactly light it up, but did enough and hit a home run with is bat in leading the Foresters to a surprising win over long time SP nemesis Rabbit Day. Day gave up 7 runs on 7 hits and an uncharacteristic 6 walks to help the Foresters to the win. WP - George Baldwin 1-0 4.82 LP - Rabbit Day 4-2 4.40 HR - (Balt) Lou Kelly 3rd, (CL) George Baldwin 1st Saturday May 6th, 1933 Baltimore Cannons 2 Cleveland Foresters 3 (10) Baltimore SP Ken Carpenter appeared in control, but gave up a game tying solo HR to Brooks Meeks in the bottom of the 9th. Then in the bottom of the 10th, after Leon Drake was thrown out at home on C Jim Kyle's single (he took 2nd on the throw home). Johnny Turner (hitting 141 on the season) had a chance to be the hero and delivered an RBI single scoring Klye for the win. SP Roger Perry went 8 innings giving up only 5 hits and 2 runs to keep Cleveland in the game. WP - Frank Phillips 1-1 1.64 LP - Ken Carpenter 4-2 2.98 HR - (CL) Brooks Meeks 1st Sunday May 7th, 1933 Baltimore Cannons 3 Cleveland Foresters 4 Suddenly the Forester's who looked so terrible in the first month of the season are hot, Hot, HOT winning 6 of their 7 games under new rookie manager Jim Wilson. SP Ed Woods got his 2nd victory of the season with a complete game 3-run job against the Cannons. WP - Ed Wood 2-3 3.96 LP - Bob Miller 3-3 2.73 HR - none Summary - And there you have a 6-1 week that thrust the Foresters back into mediocrity and out of pathetic. The club played inspired ball this week. The pitching staff threw 64 innings this week giving up 66 hits and 2.68 ERA. The offense which was simply embarrassing in April, came out in the first week of May and hit 298/390/833 (with 7 doubles, 4 triples and 6 HR's). The team scored 46 runs 6.57rpg compare to 49 in the first 17 games 2.88rpg. So was this turnaround the sudden brilliance in firing a complete staff and replacing them with a new energetic group? Or is it that the first 17 games were so bad, nobody can play that bad for too long? Time will tell. And how did top prospect George Dawson do in his first week in the majors. Well he went 7-27 with 3 walks (259/333), drove in 2 runs and scored 6. In the field he had no errors 22 PO and 10 assists while turning 3 DP's. Compared to where we were in April with the SS position, that is a positive week. Injuries - On the injury front, SP Carl Bragg's blister was a minor irritation and he has been cleared to start his next regular spot in the rotation at home Tuesday against the New York Stars. Next - Week 2 in the career of Manager Jim Wilson Attached Images Last edited by DD Martin; 10-05-2020 at 02:01 PM.

10-12-2020, 06:00 PM	#86
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Finding Several Bumps on the Road May 15th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 2 @ Montreal Saints 5 Cleveland SP Karl Johnson threw a gem for 5 innings allowing only 1 hit and 1 walk. Unfortunately baseball games are not 5 innings and the 6th inning was Johnson undoing as the 2nd place Saints (19-12) scored 4 in the 6th and added an insurance run in the 7th. WP - Dave Paynter 1-1 8.64 LP - Karl Johnson 3-3 4.85 S - Randy Taylor 4 4.28 HR - None Next up the team head to Baltimore after going 1-2 versus the Saints. The Cannons were 16-15 heading into this game and the Foresters were 15-16. We were sending up our #2 prospect in his first big league start as 23-year-old Dean Astle (1-1 2.73 AAA Cincinnati) was making his big league debut. Cleveland Foresters @ Baltimore Cannons May 16th-18th at Banner Field Baltimore Tuesday May 16th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 4 Baltimore Cannons 0 Quite a debut for the rookie SP as Dean Astle went the whole way giving up 7 hits in getting the shutout in his first game. After this outing, it is certainly understood why the Foresters (16-16) wouldn't trade away this kid in the off-season. WP - Dean Astle 1-0 0.00 LP - Rabbit Day 4-4 4.14 HR - None Wednesday May 17th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 7 Baltimore Cannons 3 RF Moxie Pidgeon went 3-5 with 2 singles and a 2-run homer in the 3rd inning, as the Foresters exploded for 7 runs in the inning. Cleveland never looked back and got above the 500 mark for the first time this season at 17-16. WP - Roger Perry 5-2 2.71 LP - Clay Jackson 1-3 4.28 HR - (CL) Pidgeon 2nd Thursday May 18th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 2 Baltimore Cannons 3 After the Foresters scratched out a 2nd run against SP Ken Carpenter in the 8th, the Cannons came back. With 2 outs C Tom Clevenger (.235) hit an RBI single that scored 2B Moe Davis with the go-ahead and game winning run. RP Lee Drouillard flirted with trouble in the 8th with 2 walks but in the end stayed perfect picking up his 6th save of the season. WP - Ken Carpenter 8-2 2.56 LP - Ed Wood 3-4 3.23 S- Lee Drouillard 6 0.00 Notes - So we take 2 out of 3 in Baltimore and are off to a 3-3 start to this road trip. We head to NY to take on the defending CA champion Stars who are sputtering a bit a 16-18 on the season. Last season the Stars won 99 games and the World Series, so what a difference a year makes. Can they get it turned around in time to catch the run-away train that is the Chicago Cougars? Cleveland Foresters 17-17 @ New York Stars 16-18 3-game Series May 19th-21st In New York at Riverside Stadium Friday May 19th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 0 New York Stars 5 Stars SP Les Zoller silenced the road-weary travelers from Cleveland to 3 hits. WP - Les Zoller 3-1 2.55 LP - Ben Turner 3-4 3.72 HR - None Saturday May 20th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 3 NY Stars 4 Manager Jim Wilson, who was a former SP himself, has a tendency to his SP's battle through and sometimes leaves them in too long. That was the case on Saturday. After tying the game in the top of the 9th on Max Morris 6th homer of the season, Johnson prompted gave up a run in the bottom half of the inning and the Foresters lost 4-3 WP - Boyd Harper 3-4 5.17 LP - Karl Johnson 3-4 4.78 HR - (CL) Bobby Allen 3rd, Moxie Pidgeon 3rd, Max Morris 6th Sunday May 21st, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 1 NY Stars 3 And the Stars completed the sweep as their pitchers stifled the Foresters again. In the 3 game series, the Foresters managed only 4 runs. Today it was SP Lou Martino who pitched a 4-hitter and struck out 10 in 6.2 innings. Rookie SP sensation Dean Astle took the tough luck loss. WP - Lou Martino 1-1 2.31 LP - Dean Astle 1-1 1.06 Forester season record 17-20 Current road trip 3-6 Notes - We finish up the road trip going across town to Brooklyn to take on the Kings. It's tough to figure out these King's who are celebrating their 50th season this year. They have once again started the season terribly coming into this series with a 15-22 record. This from the same team that had played 500 ball in the first half last year would have been in serious contention last season with the Stars and Cougars. As we head into this series we made several moves, the first of which was to DFA George Baldwin who's roller coaster ride looks to have ended. Baldwin was sent packing to make room for veteran RP Bert Henggeler who was picked up off waivers from these vary same Kings club. We also claimed RP Bob Boyd, but we haven't assigned him yet. All these moves are in a continuing attempt to forget our bullpen of last season. Will these moves off the waiver dumpster help? We also said goodbye to Jim Thompson who started the year with us but after 3 horrible starts he was exiled. He was promptly picked up by the independent Richmond Rebels (Union League AAA). OF Mike Williams was sent to AAA Cincinnati to make room for LF/1B Ray Cochran. Williams has probably seen his last chance go up in flames with the Foresters as he hit 143/143/286 0-4. Cleveland Foresters 17-20 @ Brooklyn Kings 15-22 3-game series May 22nd-24th at Kings County Park II Monday May 22nd, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 4 Brooklyn Kings 3 Foresters snapped their 4 game losing streak with a 9th inning win over the Kings. In the 9th Ray Cochran singled and stole 2B. SS George Dawson failed to bunt him to 3rd and ended up popping out to 3B. CF Leon Drake grounded out to 2nd, but Cochran moved to 3B. Moxie Pidgeon then hit a hard shot to the hole that SS Harry Barrell bobbled and Cochran scored the un-earned run with 2 outs. WP - Roger Perry 6-2 2.79 LP - Lyman Weigel 2-3 3.93 S- Frank Phillips 1 1.42 HR - (CL) Max Morris 7th, Moxie Pidgeon 4th Tuesday May 23rd, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 4 Brooklyn Kings 3 C Jim Kyle hit a HR in the top of the 6th breaking a 1-1 and leading the Foresters to the win at Brooklyn. SP Ed Wood (4-4) pitched well and picked up the win. WP - Ed Wood 4-4 3.20 LP - Tom Barrell 2-6 4.22 HR - (CL) Jim Kyle 3rd Wednesday May 24th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 1 Brooklyn Kings 4 Kings SP Johnny Jacobs pitched a gem giving up 8 hits and only 1 run in stopping the King's losing streak and getting at least 1 win in the series. WP - Johnny Jacobs 6-3 3.01 LP - Ben Turner 3-5 3.68 HR - None Notes - So we get 2 out of 3 and end the trip 5-7. At 19-21 on the season, club is still searching for consistent offense. We have an off-day on Thursday before starting a 3-game series with Toronto with a double header on Friday. Then we welcome the Chicago Cougars who have had our number so far this year, which is to be expected. Toronto Wolves 15-25 @ Cleveland Foresters 19-21 Saturday May 26th-27th At Cleveland City Forester Garbage Dump (aka Forester Stadium) Friday May 26th - Game 1 Toronto Wolves 4 Cleveland Foresters 5 Game 2 of the DH Toronto Wolves 8 Cleveland Foresters 3 In game 1 Dean Astle picked up his 2nd win (2-1) as the Foresters walked off the the Wolves in the 9th CF Leon Drake's RBI single. Game 1 - WP - Dean Astle 2-1 2.08 LP - Birdie Smith 3-6 4.86 HR - (Tor) Frank Huddleson 2nd In game 2 of the DH, it was one of the worst played Forester games of the season, the Wolves bombed SP Karl Johnson for 8 runs. Game 2 WP - Bob Wood 1-1 2.00 LP - Karl Johnson 3-5 5.27 HR -none Saturday May 27th, 1933 Toronto Wolves 7 Cleveland Foresters 6 The first 6 innings of this was a pitching clinic with the Foresters leading 1-0. Then Toronto scored 4 in the 7th and 2 more in the top of the 8th to take a 6-1 lead. The Foresters woke up and scored 5 in the bottom of the 8th to tie the game at 6. In the top of the 9th, Toronto LF Chuck Allison coaxed an 11-pitch walk after falling behind 0-2. He moved to 3rd on 2B Sam Orr's single and scored with 3B Luke Flemming's 1 out sac fly to win the game. WP - Eddie Quinn 5-5 2.62 LP - Frank Phillips 1-2 1.98 S - John Reimers 1 2.31 HR - (CL) Max Morris 8th, Moxie Pidgeon 5th Notes - Really a disappointing series against the last place Wolves. We've dropped 3 of our last 4 and now have the Cougars coming to town to end the month. We decided to option SP Karl Johnson to AAA Cincinnati after his last outing. He has decent stuff but has been so up and down this season. The plan is to go with a 4-man rotation to end May and start June with a couple of off-days. Once he is back from the AAA DL, we will bring Carl Bragg back up and resume our 5-man rotation. Replacing Johnson on the roster is Bob Boyd who was activated after being picked up off waivers from Phily. George Baldwin who was DFA stayed with the organization and was assigned to class A Reading. Minor league P Mickey Flanders was placed on the 60-day DL after herniating a disk in his back. Flanders was 2-2 with 1 saves with a 2.12 ERA. Sunday May 28th-May 30th, 1933 Chicago Cougars 29-14 @ Cleveland Foresters 20-23 3-games series at Forester Stadium Sunday May 28th, 1933 Chicago Cougars 4 Cleveland Foresters 2 SP Tommy Wilcox outpitched Ed Wood and the Cougars won the opener. P Ed Wood aided his cause by hitting a shocking solo HR against Wilcox. WP - Tommy Wilcox 8-2 2.70 LP - Ed Wood 4-5 3.30 HR - (CL) Ed Wood 1st Monday May 29th, 1933 Chicago Cougars 4 Cleveland Foresters 1 Really a game the Foresters wanted to forget. SP Jim Crawford scattered 12 hits but only gave up 1 run. The Foresters are seriously concerned about their SP Dean Astle who went 8.2 innings but was injured when a line drive went off his elbow. The diagnosis is pending. WP - James Crawford 5-3 2.81 LP - Dean Astle 2-2 2.60 HR - none Tuesday May 30th, 1933 Chicago Cougars 7 Cleveland Foresters 1 Ugh......nice start from Cougar SP Dick Luedtke administered another game and the Cougs completed another 3-game sweep of the Foresters. The Cougars are 8-1 on the season against the Foresters. Notes - So we end the month on a real low losing 6 out of the last 7 and ended up 20-26 on the season. All the early month promise came crashing down. The bad news on SP Dean Astle is he has bone chips in his pitching elbow. The good news is that he will only be out 6 weeks and then should make a full recovery. We will see where we are at the time, but we will likely pitch him some the last half of the season, but will likely not over work him. He pitched 160-163 innings in both of the last 2 minor league seasons. We will likely limit his innings this season to around 120. We ended up May with a 15-14 record, but the first half of the month was much better than the last half. Below are the pitching and batting stats for the month of May for the Foresters. Attached Images

10-13-2020, 04:36 PM	#89
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	The Home Stand Continues - Can the Foresters get it in gear? The countdown for Max Morris and his career hit number 3000 is fast approaching. He enters the week 11 hits away from becoming the 10th player in FABL history of cracking the magical number. We enter the week with a 25-31 record and still firmly in 7th place in the CA. The week ahead We have a 4-game series (Monday-Thursday) against the Brooklyn Kings (26-31) and then we follow with a 4-game set against the New York Stars (27-29). So two teams that are directly ahead of us in the standings and both teams that aren't playing up to their potential. Seems to be the story in the CA as we aren't playing up to our potential either. Brooklyn Series Pitching Match-ups Brooklyn Kings vs Cleveland Foresters Johnny Jacob 7-5 3.49 Ben Turner 4-6 3.81 Tom Barrell 3-8 3.86 Karl Johnson 4-5 4.91 Mike Murphy 6-5 4.43 Carl Bragg 1-1 2.08 Lyman Weigel 5-3 3.31 Roger Perry 7-4 3.05 Monday June 12th, 1933 Brooklyn Kings 3 Cleveland Foresters 7 Things were not looking good for the Foresters through the 7th inning stretch as they trailed the Kings 3-1. After the stretch, Max Morris hit a home run to cut the deficit to 3-2. In the 8th the Foresters offense finally awoke from its slumber to erupt for 5 runs in the inning highlighted by Moxie Pidgeon's GW double that made the score 4-3. WP - Ben Turner 5-6 3.68 LP - Johnny Jacob 7-6 3.82 HR - (CL) Max Morris 11th Tuesday June 13th, 1933 Brooklyn Kings 2 Cleveland Foresters 5 The Foresters launched 11 hits, 3 doubles and even stole 3 bases against SP Tom Barrell in winning their 2nd in a row. The ups and downs of Karl Johnson continue but today was an UP as he went 9 innings giving up 8 hits (7 singles and a homer) and 2 runs. CF Jim Gentry's 5th inning 2-run homer was the only real mistake that Johnson made. WP - Karl Johnson 5-5 4.62 LP - Tom Barrell 3-9 3.86 HR - (Brk) Jim Gentry 1st Wednesday June 14th, 1933 Brooklyn Kings 4 Cleveland Foresters 5 SP Carl Bragg is definitely making a case for him to keep a spot in the rotation when Dean Astle return in July. Bragg went 7 innings, scattering 8 hits and gave up 2 earned runs. 2B Brooks Meeks 2-run single in the bottom of the 6th gave the Foresters a secure 5-1 lead. WP - Carl Bragg 2-1 2.22 LP - Mike Murphy 6-6 4.39 S - Ben Henggeler 1 2.25 HR - none Thursday June 15th, 1933 Brooklyn Kings 3 Cleveland Foresters 11 The Foresters sweep the 4-game series against the Kings at the City Dump Ballpark. SP Roger Perry was 2 for 3 with a double and drove in run as he notched his 8th win of the season. Offensive stars for the Foresters were 2B Brooks Meeks and RF Moxie Pidgeon both collecting 3 hits. The Foresters have won 4 straight and are now 6-2 on their 19-game home stand. With the sweep the Foresters (29-31) have moved past the stumbling Kings and into a 3-way tie with the Sailors and Stars for 4th. WP - Roger Perry 8-4 3.10 LP - Lyman Weigel 5-4 4.04 HR - None Next the New York Stars 29-31 come to town to take on the Foresters 29-31. New York Stars vs Cleveland Foresters Friday June 16th - Monday June 19th @ the Cleveland City Dump Ballpark New York Stars Series Pitching Matchups (Friday-Sunday games) New York Stars vs Cleveland Foresters Dick Richards 4-5 5.94 Ed Wood 5-7 3.76 Lou Martino 2-3 2.51 Ben Turner 5-6 3.68 Charlie Steadman 5-5 3.30 Karl Johnson 5-5 4.62 Friday June 16th, 1933 New York Stars 0 Cleveland Foresters 7 The Foresters routed the Stars to move into a tie for 3rd place with their 5th straight win. 1B Max Morris led the Foresters with 3 hits including 2 home runs (13) and drove in 4 RBI's (40). Morris is now 2 hits short of the magical 3000 number. SP Ed Wood was brilliant in pitching a 5-hit shutout to pick up his 6th win of the season. WP - Ed Wood 6-7 3.44 LP - Dick Richards 4-6 5.74 HR - Max Morris 12th and 13th Saturday June 17th, 1933 New York Stars 4 Cleveland Foresters 5 The Foresters 6th straight win evened their season record at 31-31, in a 3rd place tie with the Baltimore Cannons. Max Morris become the 10th man in FABL history with his 2nd hit of the night in the 5th inning. The single was Morris's 3000 career hit as the records and milestones keep falling to the legend. The hit raised Morris average on the season to a season high 289. WP - Ben Turner 6-6 3.62 LP - Bennie Conover 4-3 2.45 HR - (NY) Pete Layton 6th Sunday June 18th, 1933 New York Stars 2 Cleveland Foresters 3 (10) Break up the Foresters as they won their 7th straight game. This one took 10 innings to finish off. In the bottom of the 9th the Foresters went in trailing 2-1 but a leadoff walk to 3B Johnny Turner and a single by RF Moxie Pidgeon moved Turner to 3rd. SP Charlie Steadman then balked in Turner. Unfortunately with a runner on 2nd and no one out, the Foresters couldn't end the game there. In the 10th C Jim Kyle singled and was sacrificed to 2nd by the outgoing Art Wells. SS George Dawson grounded out to 3rd for the 2nd out moving Kyle to 3rd who then came around and scored on 3B Jake Moore's walk off RBI single. Both SP's went the distance in this game. WP - Karl Johnson 6-5 4.33 LP - Charlie Steadman 5-6 3.25 HR - (CL) Leon Drake 2nd Summary - With that the Foresters are won 7 straight game and have moved from 7th to sole position of 3rd place in the CA. They have picked up 5 games on this home stand and now are back to within 9 games of the lead in the CA. With 9-2 record on the home stand we are finally over 500 again, hopefully for good. Moves - Despite the winning streak, we continue to tinker with the major league roster. First off the waiver claim we had for 1B/IF Steve O'Bannon was accepted but then we never moved him onto the roster so he was released. We have reached out to Steve to see if he would like to sign a minor league deal. We picked back up the contract of 2B Bob Baker and added him to the major league roster. Baker at one time was the starting 2B for the Foresters last appearing in 120 games in the 1931 season. He was hitting 315 at AAA Cincinnati and with the departure of both (Traded) Russ Franklin and the DFA of Art Wells opened the door. Wells was just not very effective in the very few appearances he made. He was just 2-16 in the 8 games he appeared in. After hitting just 231, 3B Johnny Turner was optioned to AAA and SS Joe Dougherty was brought up to be the backup to George Dawson. Dougherty was hitting 225 so he is maybe a step above Wells. We thought about bringing back up SS Pat Schurling, but decided we wanted him to continue to play everyday at AAA. Perhaps the biggest move was when we called up C Ben Richardson for the first time. To make room we optioned occasional RP and C Al Howell down to AAA. Howell was just not hitting this season sitting at 223 after last season 304. He will move into the rotation in Cincinnati and play part time C. The call up of Richardson is perhaps the dawning of the Ben Richardson era. He and Jim Kyle will share time behind the plate. Attached Images

10-14-2020, 10:08 PM	#92
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Let the Travel's Begin - Time to see if this team is for Real! We start our 23-game road trip and start in Philadelphia for a single game on Thursday and a DH on Friday. The Sailors 35-36 started out the season pretty good, but have struggled in May (10-19) and now are starting to play better again in June (15-10). Thursday June 29th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 1 Philadelphia Sailors 8 SP Ben Turner had a night to forget as he was bombed by the Sailors. Jack Cleaves went 3-3 with a double, triple and added a walk and Dick Walker hit his 6th home run of the season in the rout. The Foresters came out looking like they spent their off-day all day on a slow moving bus and never got untracked. WP - Rollie Beal 11-4 2.77 LP - Ben Turner 7-7 3.90 HR - (PH) Dick Walker 6th Friday June 30, 1933 Game 1 Cleveland Foresters 10 Philadelphia Sailors 2 SP Carl Bragg was the beneficiary of the team getting a good night sleep as the Foresters put up a 10 spot in game 1. The Foresters have 12 hits and half of them were for extra bases. Leon Drake hit his 3rd homer. WP - Carl Bragg 4-1 2.25 LP - Oscar Morse 5-9 3.44 S- Lou Proctor 3 1.38 HR - (CL) Leon Drake 3rd Game 2 Cleveland Foresters 5 Philadelphia Sailors 3 The nightcap was closer but Moxie Pidgeon continued his hot hitting as he drove in 3 runs (39 now on the season) by hitting his 9th homer of the season. Lou Proctor saved both halves of the double header. WP - Karl Johnson 8-5 4.09 LP - Williams 6-8 3.28 S - Lou Proctor 4 1.29 HR -(CL) Moxie Pidgeon 9th Summary - So after a sleepy effort on Thursday the bats came alive for 15 runs over the 2 games on Saturday. Carl Bragg (4-0 1.80) and Karl Johnson (5-0 2.20) have really been good since they have been recalled at the beginning of June. Speaking of Johnson, he was awarded the CA pitcher of the month for his efforts. The season started off slow for baseball legend Max Morris. While he hit his 600th home run in early April, his bat appeared sluggish for both April and May. But as the weather warmed up in June, so did Max Morris and the 38-year-old superstar started to hit like he has been for over 15 years. Morris was named the runaway CA Hitter of the month for June with the following stats. Morris hit 379 with a 445 OBP with 9 homers and 27 RBI's with 23 runs scored. His season stats are still lower than what he would normally expect through the halfway point but Morris is now at 293 17-50. Next - Onto Toronto to start the month of July. Attached Images

10-15-2020, 06:12 PM	#93
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Last Stop Before the First Ever All-Star Game We arrive in Toronto to take on the last-place 25-50 Wolves. It seems to be a familiar position for the Toronto club, but we have been there many times ourselves so it can and will turn around for them. But right now we are on opposite ends of the rebuilding spectrum. We end the series having taken 2 out of 3 against the Sailors in Phily to start our long journey so only 20 games left before coming home. A realistic expectation is that if we really are a good club, then we should roll to 3 or 4 wins here, but baseball isn't normally that easy. Coming into this series we are 5-4 against which suggest that they tend to play us tough. While I'd love to take 3, even getting a split on the road would make me happy. But in the pit of my stomach I am dreading this long road trip, but let's see where it takes us. I do have to admit though I hate spending the 4th of July out of the country, but we do get to see how the Canadian fans spend their "1st of July" Independence Day. Cleveland Foresters 41-33 @ Toronto Wolves 25-50 Saturday July 1st through Tuesday July 4th Toronto's Dominion Stadium Pitching Matchups Cleveland Foresters vs Toronto Wolves Roger Perry 8-5 3.10 Birdie Smith 4-10 4.82 Ed Wood 8-7 3.60 Kevin Cole 1-2 3.60 Ben Turner 7-7 3.90 Eddie Quinn 6-11 3.06 Karl Johnson 8-5 4.09 Bill Anderson 7-7 3.12 Saturday July 1st, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 4 Toronto Wolves 6 Happy Independence Day Canada, the Wolves scored 4 in the bottom of the 6th putting them ahead 6-4 and made it stood up for the win. The big blow against SP Roger Perry was from now 1B Frank Huddleston (who has played a lot of SS this year which is an odd position combo) hit his 2nd double of the game that drove in the deciding runs for the Wolves. Perry who was once thought to be on pace for the All-Star game has slumped a bit this last month. WP - Birdie Smith 5-10 4.63 LP - Roger Perry 8-6 3.36 HR - (CL) Moxie Pidgeon 10th Sunday July 2nd, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 8 Toronto Wolves 6 After yesterday's Canada Day fireworks, the Foresters woke up on the grumpy side. Young Wolves SP Chuck "Don't Call Me Kevin" Cole gave up 7 runs. RF Moxie Pidgeon had a huge day hitting 2 triples and a homer going 3-4 and driving in 2 runs. 5 other Foresters had 2 hits apiece in the onslaught. SP Ed Wood didn't have his best stuff, but benefitted from the hit parade to get the win. WP - Ed Wood 9-7 3.69 LP - Chuck Cole 1-3 4.50 HR - Moxie Pidgeon 11th Monday July 3rd, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 4 Toronto Wolves 3 Continuing their winning ways in 1-run games, the Foresters scored 3 in the top of the 9th to come from behind and get the win. Moxie Pidgeon hit his 3rd triple in 2 days and LF Bill Littlefield got his 1st start as a Forester and hit 2 doubles. In the top of the 9th, Jake Matheson drew a walk, followed by 2B Brooks Meeks single to put runners on 1st and 2nd. CF Leon Drake was then hit by a pitch to load the bases. Bases loaded and nobody out until Jake Moore hit a shallow fly ball to left. Ray Cochran hit a groundout to the 1B that moved the runners up and scored Matheson. 2 outs so of course Max Morris was intentionally walked to re-load the bases. That brought up the hottest Forester going, RF Moxie Pidgeon who hit a single that scored both Meeks and Drake to give the Foresters the 4-3 lead. RP Ben Proctor pitched the 9th for the save WP - Ben Turner 8-7 3.87 LP - Eddie Quinn 6-121 3.12 S - L Proctor 5 1.13 HR - none Tuesday July 4th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 1 Toronto Wolves 3 The Wolves pick up the win in a tight pitchers duel between Bill Anderson (Tor) and Karl Johnson (CL). For Johnson it was his first loss since being recalled from AAA Cincinnati and winning the CA Pitcher of the Month award in June. The lone Forester run came on Max Morris 18th homer of the season. WP - Bill Anderson 8-7 3.09 LP - Karl Johnson 8-6 3.97 HR - (CL) Max Morris 18th Summary - And there you have it, a split against the struggling Wolves. Not completely unexpected but rather disappointing. Still we start out this long road trip at 5-4 and get a few days off for the All-Star Break. Injury Report - SP Dean Astle will be coming off the DL after the All-Star game and will report to AAA Cincinnati for at least 1 start before being looked at to come back to Cleveland. Right now our SP's have been performing really well so it will not be an easy choice who we will bump out of the rotation. Despite pitching well the early money is on SP Carl Bragg to go down to Cincinnati because he has already used his option this season and we do not want to mess with the bullpen right now. The All-Star Game Voting I really felt about 2 weeks ago that we would end up with 3 All-Stars, but the recent slide of SP Roger Perry (who doesn't seem to get a lot of respect anyway around the league) will likely mean that only 1B Max Morris and RF Moxie Pidgeon will be elected. Below are the announced All-Star Game representative from both leagues for the game that will be played at the home field of Chicago Chiefs, Whitney Park. Also below is the ballot of Cleveland sports editor Lou Shelby. Next - All Star game recap Attached Images

10-01-2020, 05:48 PM	#81
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Week 3 of a very long season Welcome to a place where a 3-4 week is a success! Unfortunately for the Forester's major changes are about to take place. No, there are no moving vans showing up at the stadium in the middle of the night to move the team (although that is not a bad idea), but there will be some repercussions felt for the team's lack of success on the field after 3 weeks (5-12 dead last in the CA). Thankfully April is over so we can start out fresh in May. Anyway here is a review of last weeks "success" on the field. We will finish up the Philadelphia series with 2 on the road on Monday and Tuesday, and then head off Toronto for an early season showdown of "who's on the clock" for next year's draft. Then we will come home after a long 9 game road trip to the not so friendly confines of Forester Stadium (if it holds together that long) to play the Brooklyn Kings. Monday April 24th Cleveland Foresters 8 Philadelphia Sailors 2 Max Morris is obviously a fan of Sailors Memorial Stadium as he smacked his 3rd homer in the last 2 days here. Today's victim was someone named Bert Small who was making his 1st career start in the big leagues. Cleveland's Ben Turner was once again very good which begged the question why he didn't make the opening day roster. Two wins in a row for the Tree Farmers. WP - Ben Turner 1-1 2.16 LP - Bert Small 0-1 4.26 HR - Cleveland - Morris 3rd, Philadelphia - Irv Brady 2nd Tuesday April 25th Cleveland Foresters 2 Philadelphia Sailors 11 The Sailors were obviously furious over dropping the first two games of this series (and 11 runs) to the lowly C-Town 9. So they made up for it in a big way and punished SP Karl Johnson for 9 runs over 6.1 innings. George Baldwin not seeming to understand that his job is on the line gave up 2 more runs in his 1.1 innings. The Sailors didn't hit any out of the park but did account for 6 extra base hits. WP - Russ Real 3-0 2.33 LP - Karl Johnson 1-2 4.84 HR - None As we run for our lives out of Phily taking 2 out of 3, we head north of the border for a 3 game brawl with the Wolves of Toronto. Both teams are 3-9 heading into this epic series to gain advantage in the #1 draft pick chase. Wednesday April 26th Cleveland Foresters 3 Toronto Wolves 7 Veteran SP Birdie Smith (32) look as giddy as a 25-year-old as he regained his form against the Foresters. The game gives Cleveland a leg up in the chase to the draft. Cleveland SP Jim Thompson reminded everyone why he wasn't on the 1931 or 1932 Foresters with this performance, which might be his last with the team. WP - Birdie Smith 1-2 4.15 LP - Jim Thompson 0-2 7.45 HR - Toronto - Chuck Allison 1st, Freddie Malloy 1st Thursday April 27th Cleveland Foresters 1 Toronto Wolves 8 Toronto SP Dick Salten picked up his first win of the season (1-2) going the distance and lower his ERA by 2.2 runs in the process. Other than walking 5 batters, Salten completely befuddled the Foresters lineup giving up just 4 hits. SP Ed Wood looks like he had trouble making it across the border as whoever this was pitching (8 runs in 4.1 innings) did not look like the youngster at all. George Baldwin who must be manager Hank Leitzke's favorite out of the pen finally got the message that he is out of options and his job is on the line as he pitched 3.2 of shutout ball in the blowout loss. Max Morris didn't homer (which he hasn't done outside of Phily) but did get his 1st SB of the season! WP - Dick Salten 1-2 4.56 LP - Ed Wood 0-3 6.53 HR - none Friday April 28th Cleveland Foresters 8 Toronto Wolves 3 The Foresters decided they had gained enough ground in the loss column and put up a fight and won today. SP Roger Perry (7 inn 3 runs) pitched well enough to get the win, and the Cleveland offense took advantage of 10 hits and 5 walks to at least escape Canada with 1 win. 2B Brooks Meeks hopefully is shaking off an early season slump to garner 3 hits, including a double and drove in 4 runs (his first 4 RBI's of the season). The Foresters will head back home after the 3-6 road trip to welcome the Brooklyn Kings to town. WP - Roger Perry 2-2 2.83 LP - Buddy Adams 1-3 4.25 HR - None Weekend Series (Saturday-Monday) against the Brooklyn Kings 6-9 vs the Cleveland Foresters 4-11 Saturday April 29th Brooklyn Kings 6 Cleveland Foresters 0 SP Johnny Jacob (3-1) completed tamed the Foresters on 4 hits in pitching the shutout. Not much to say about the game but rumors were running rampant in Cleveland that things were about to change. WP - Johnny Jacob 3-1 2.73 LP - Ben Turner 1-2 3.86 HR - none Sunday April 30th Brooklyn Kings 4 Cleveland Foresters 9 What a way to end the month. Who started the Fire in the Forest? The Foresters smack 11 hits and clubbed 2 home runs in a show of offense that the hometown fans hadn't seen all year. The 9 runs in this were almost as many as the team had scored (13) in their first 7 home games. Whatever was in the pre-game meal (or drink?), make sure it is served tomorrow as well. WP - Karl Johnson 2-2 4.60 LP - Lyman Weigel 1-1 4.97 HR - Cleveland - Bobby Allen 1st, Jim Kyle 1st Week record 3-4 Home record 2-6 Season record 5-12 Summary - SP Karl Johnson was so shocked at the support he received that he made 2 errors in Sunday's game. The usually sure-handed Johnson had only made 4 errors in his previous 71 starts. Max Morris struggles (for him at least) are more than just a power thing in the month of April. The career 350 hitter was hitting just 15-65 231 and his OBP was 100 pts lower than last year's 395. A slow start, hopefully just that. At home so far this season Morris is hitting just 172 5-29 with 3 doubles and 1 RBI. Power seems to be down across the CA to start the year. Morris who only has 3 home runs is tied for the league lead. The pace, is only 25 which would be Morris lowest total since he left Cleveland in 1919 when he was still pitching as well as playing the OF. It will be interesting to see if the power bats pick up in May in the CA. The 25 homers to lead the CA would be the lowest total in the league since 1927 when Baltimore's Joe Welch hit 25. Maybe it was just April's really cold extended winter that lead to the lack of pop. On the Farm The team we are watching the most is the Class A Reading Coal Barrons. Why Reading, well 4 of our top 10 minor league guys are there and they were all draft in our last draft. Leading the CB's is the OF group of Levi Redding, Pete Day, Al Heard along with 3B Art Spencer. These 4 along with 2B Juan Sarmiento are 5 of the best position players we had in the minors. So far the Coal Barrens have only played 3 games but as the minor league season progress we expect to hear a lot about this group. SS George Dawson in 3 games is trying to show that he belongs on the big league team. Hitting 4-9 with 3 walks for AAA Cincinnati (3-0), he is staking his case to be recognized as not the SS of the Future, but the SS of Today. We will see when he gets the call up. Most of the minor leagues just started this last weekend, but Class C Ottumwa is off to an 18-6 start. News Just as the game finished on Sunday, my best friend and son of owner Elmer Marshall said Dad wanted to have a meeting. He said to meet them downstairs when the ballpark cleared out. Was this it, after 7 years and 1 month on the job was it the pink slip for me?............To Be Continued Next - After Hours Meeting in the basement

10-01-2020, 06:13 PM	#82
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Several Hours after everyone had gone home from the stadium.... A meeting was taking place in the "basement" of the stadium. Everyone had a glass full of beer and was waiting on me to get there. Mr. Marshall - Grab a beer DD, its going to be a long night. Now grabbing a beer for me wasn't a problem, but since we are in the prohibition era it was highly illegal for this place to be serving anything alcoholic. Mr. Marshall - Good now tell me about your side trip to Portland, I assume it was "profitable"? DD Martin - Yes sir, I had a long talk with our prospect there and he is ready to assume command when we decide it is time. He figures it will be in September. Mr. Marshall - Good, because we are thinking that its time to make a change. (DD Martin gulps). Go ahead and tell Hank we are letting him go tomorrow before the game. Hopefully our new manager will be here in time for the game. DD Martin - (sounding relieved) You want me to fire Hank Leitzke? Mr. Marshall - Yes, the start of this season is just unacceptable. We have Max Morris, we have a good young core and they are not performing. I'm tired of waiting and if we are going to stink this season we might as well stink with our future in place gaining experience. DD Martin - What about the others? You think we just make a clean sweep? Mr. Marshall - That is up to you DD, just see to it that it gets done. Oh and have you heard the rumors about what the Kings are about to do? DD Martin - You mean with the Harry? Mr. Marshall - Yes, Harry Barrell. Bring up our kid too since all these other guys can't hit, at least we will have a top notch fielder. I can't stand being one upped in our own ballpark! DD Martin - I'll get George Dawson up here right away. Mr. Marshall - Now drink up and have a good one tonight here guys. After we are done we have to have the "boys" move the stuff out, it appears some wise acre downtown is bucking for a promotion, so there will be a raid here tomorrow. Make sure the regulars know before the game that the "basement" is closed for tomorrow's game. Summary - So we are going to make an announcement tomorrow that Manager Hank Leitzke, Hitting Coach Billy Marshall, Bench Coach Bill Harris and Pitching Coach Mark O'Rourke are all fired. It should be an interesting day in Cleveland, but will it make a difference in the 1933 season?

10-01-2020, 07:12 PM	#83
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Forest Fire in Cleveland as team does a complete organization shakeup Foresters Fire Manager Hank Leitzke and his entire staff When expectation are high, no matter how unreasonable they are, when you start the year 5-12 and slog through a spring training, someone is bound to be responsible. Before the rubber game against the Brooklyn Kings this afternoon, the Forester's announce that Leitzke and his staff were fired. GM DD Martin stated that ownership had lost faith in Leitzke and that the start of the year was simply unacceptable. Leitzke was a combined 214-265 (.447) in parts of 4 seasons with the big league club. He had been a very successful minor league manager winning 2 Union League titles in Cincinnati prior to his promotion in 1930 to the Foresters following the retirement of Manager Joe Johnson in 1929. Interesting to note that Johnson then took the manager job in Detroit for one season in 1930 prior to hanging them up for good after 1 year. Also fired was pitching coach were bench coach Bill Harris, Pitching Coach Mark O'Rourke, and Hitting Coach Bill Marshall. Some speculation as to the job security of team trainer Henry King, who just joined the club in the off-season, is also scrutiny. With the rash of injuries this spring, the club is wondering if maybe more thought into prevention than recovery might be in order. New Manager and Staff Named The Forester's have pulled a shocking move in replacing the veteran manager Hank Leitzke. Today the Forester's announced that former top rank pitcher and AA Pitching Coach for the Forester's AA team in Portland, Jim Wilson has been hired as the Foresters new manager. Wilson has no prior managing experience but it is noted that the club and Wilson have been in talks over the years about the idea of him starting to manage next season. The announcement of Wilson has left shock waves through the whole FABL. Joining Wilson on his staff are veteran minor league manager Charlie Reed who was Wilson boss at AA Portland. It will be interesting to see how this role reversal will go. Joining the team as the new Pitching Coach from AAA Cincinnati is Jackie Austin. The hitting coach is also coming from AAA Cincinnati as Jack Ralls joins the big league club. Ralls specializes in patience which is something that the Foresters seem to need right now. The organization promoted a number of coaches and managers within the minor league system to fill the roles in the upper minor leagues in Portland and Cincinnati. Class C Ottumwa whose team is off to an 18-6 start had it entire coaching staff taken and moved to different teams in the organization. The Foresters are out looking for all 3 minor league coaches at Ottumwa plus a new pitching coach at Class B Savannah. Further Player Movement The blood letting in Cleveland was not just reserved for the coaches. The Foresters decided that the mess at SS this season created by the injury to SS Erv Smith in spring and likely the Brooklyn Kings rumored call up of SS Harry Barrell, has triggered the Foresters call up of #5 overall prospect SS George Dawson. The fact that Barrell was being called up to play in the game in Cleveland so infuriated the Foresters that they decided to call up Dawson so they would grab some of the headlines as well. These two players who once were both in the Forester minor leagues as their top 2 prospects will both make their debut tomorrow. Making room on the roster for Dawson's promotion was SS Pat Schurling being sent down to AAA Cincinnati. Schurling was hitting just 170 on the season, but offered a better option than since DFA SS Marty Smith. It was also announced that 3B Johnny Turner and Jake Moore were going to see more shared time at 3B. Turner has struggled in his first taste of the big leagues hitting just 122 so far. The veteran Moore in limited early season at-bats has hit 308. Finally, veteran SP Jim Thompson was designated for assignment and SP Carl Bragg has returned to Cleveland and will assume the #5 spot in the starting rotation.

10-05-2020, 10:07 PM	#85
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Week 2 of the new regime, can the winning continue? May has been a completely different month than what April was. So far we are 10-3 under new manager Jim Wilson and with everything wrong in April it has reversed in May. That leaves us at 15-15 tied for 4th in the CA 5 games behind the Cougars, who are not running away with things....yet. The Week Monday May 8th, 1993 Baltimore Cannons 1 Cleveland Foresters 5 A rare 4 game sweep against a very good Cannons team. It was the 2nd meeting of the series for us against the Cannons ace Rabbit Day. While we hit him hard in the first game of the series, this one was much closer as we clung to a 2-1 lead heading to the bottom of the 7th. In the 7th we got a double, single, walk (to the pitcher), then a single and another to plate 3 runs and give us the margin of victory. SP Ben Turner scattered 9 hits in getting the complete game. WP - Ben Turner 3-2 2.88 LP - Rabbit Day 4-3 4.41 HR - (CL) Jim Kyle 2nd Tuesday May 9th-Thursday May 11th 3-game home series against the New York Stars 11-13 Tuesday May 9th,1933 New York Stars 4 Cleveland Foresters 5 The Foresters evened their record at 13-13 on the season with the LF Bobby Allen hitting a run scoring double in the bottom of the 8th for the go ahead run. Leon Drake also hit his 1st homer of the season in the 3rd (2-run homer) to give the Foresters a 3-1 lead after 3. SP Karl Johnson got the win despite giving up 10 hits and 5 walks, in going the distance. Summary - 4-2 on the week as we finished a 4-game sweep against Baltimore at home. Then we took 2 out of 3 against the New York Stars and split the first two games of 3 at 2nd place Montreal. WP - Karl Johnson 3-2 4.72 LP Boyd Harper 1-4 1.74 HR - (CL) Leon Drake 1st Wednesday May 10th, 1933 New York Stars 8 Cleveland Foresters 6 A frustrated Stars team exploded out to a 8-0 and then survived a 6-run Forester uprising in the 8th to hang onto the win. Both teams made 3 errors each in the game but SP Carl Bragg struggled to over his teams blunders in the field giving up 8 runs but only 3 were earned. WP - Dick Richards 2-3 6.45 LP - Carl Bragg 0-1 3.60 HR - (NY) Speed Davis 2nd, Dave Throwbridge 1st, (CL) Moxie Pidgeon 1st Thursday May 11th, 1933 New York Stars 2 Cleveland Foresters 6 The Foresters took the rubber game of the 3-game set and ended their home stand 11-4. With the win the Foresters now have a winning record at home 11-8. SP Roger Perry earned his 4th win (4-2) in holding down the Stars. WP - Roger Perry 4-2 2.67 LP - Lou Martino 0-1 2.60 HR - none Cleveland Foresters 14-14 @ Montreal Saints 17-11 3-game series Saturday May 13th-Monday May 15th Saturday May 13th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 3 Montreal Saints 2 Big win for the Foresters taking game 1 of this road series against the 2nd place Saints. SP Ed Wood has rebounded from an 0-3 start to the season to even his record and in this one it was his best game of the season. Wood went the distance giving up only 6 hits and more importantly only 1 walk. WP - Ed Wood 3-3 3.40 LP - Walker Moore 2-2 3.59 HR - (CL) Bobby Allen 2nd Sunday May 14th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 2 Montreal Saints 6 Montreal's Earle Whitten making only his 2nd start of the season after serving as the team stopper with 4 saves, handcuffed the Foresters all night giving up just 4 hits in 8 innings of work. Whitten has been brilliant in whatever role the Saints have thrown him in with his league leading 0.79 ERA in 34 innings this season. WP - Earle Whitten 5-1 0.79 LP - Ben Turner 3-3 3.40 HR - None Movement Montreal is sitting just 2 games out of first after taking 2 out of 3 against the Cougars this last week. Brooklyn in what is becoming an annual slow start is at 11-19 and made available one of its good young SP in Milt Fritz. Montreal feeling this might be the season they have been waiting for made a statement move that they intend to contend. Montreal package 3 solid minor league guys and their 1st round pick in exchange for Fritz and the Kings 3rd round pick. Were we interested in Fritz, perhaps but while we were looking at things, something seems wrong with him. His walks per 9 innings is up over 4 while he has been in the mid 2's most of his career. For only being only 23, he has some mileage already on his arm throwing over 1100 in a career that started in 1929 at the age of 19. So in passing on Fritz, what are we looking for? We continue to look for a power bat to plug into the middle of our lineup. When you look at the current lineup, you might say that the power spots are all filled (1B Morris, LF Bobby Allen, RF Moxie Pidegon). Well if we can find the right man we do have a plan that would allow us to move things around a bit and yes it would likely involve Allen moving back to CF. So we would definitely give up some defense for a big offensive improvement. The other spot is 3B where Johnny Turner got off to a dreadful start in April but has hit much better in May at 321. Turner and Jake Moore are now basically splitting time at 3B and Moore is hitting 306 on the season. But the search continues for a power bat. Changes - I sat down and discussed the team after Saturday's game in Montreal and we decided that we would make a couple of changes. We activated LF/1B/3B Ray Cochran from his rehab assignment. Cochran sprained his elbow sliding into 2B during a game in the spring and missed several weeks. He then went down to AAA Cincinnati to get some at-bats in and also work out at 1B some. Cochran who is a 300+ hitter at AAA only hit 242 in 16 games. Not exactly tearing the cover off the ball but he spent 20 games there so it was time to activate him. Heading down to Cincinnati to make space for Cochran is OF Mike "all or nothing" Williams who continues to live up to his name. A huge power hitter at AAA, Williams (hitting just 143 in 21 AB's) just hasn't figured it out at the major league level and his time with the Foresters might be on a short leash. Also we made a waiver claim (from Brooklyn, from Phily) in picking up veteran RHP Bert Henggeler (31). Henggeler had some success with Philadelphia Keystones in the bullpen and he will get a shot to help us in some middle innings. Right now I am fairly happy with the late game situation with "stopper" Frank Phillips, and MR Lou "Proctor, where's is Proctor" Proctor. The two have combined in 16.2 innings to yield just a 1.08 ERA. With Jim Cavender holding his own with a 3.00 ERA, we are feeling much more secure handing things over to the bullpen. To make room for Henggeler, we had to DFA George Baldwin who was up and down so far this season. Baldwin is an out of options 28 year old RH, who doesn't appear to be a fit in our plans any longer. Finally in another move that will helpfully help our bench, we optioned CF Jake Matteson to Cincinnati and brought up CF Amos LeBlanc who had a great spring and had a very good start to the season in Cincinnati hitting 347. Matheson was hitting just 185 in 28 PA's with the Foresters and has been a complete bust in managements eyes. He too could be on a very short leash on the Foresters 40-man roster. Cause for Concern??? I had a long conversation with Jim Wilson who has spent his entire playing career (which was very short) and his coaching career with our organization. When he had a career ending injury in 1929, we made the decision to hire him as a pitching coach for class B Savannah for the 1930 season. He then moved to Reading (A) in 1931 and then to AA Portland in 1932. The concern is that he is in the final year of his contract and I wanted to get that behind us. The fact that he is underpaid to be a big league manager is something that I wanted to correct and I also wanted to give him the security of a longer term deal. When he started here a couple of weeks ago he declined to get into the discussion saying he wanted to spend the time getting to know the team. So now that he is settled in I figured I would see if I could address it again, but again Jim said no, he didn't want to get into that right now. I am not sure what to make of it and while I won't make too much of a big deal out of it, I am glad that I got bench coach Charlie Reed (who was the manager at Portland) under contract for 4 more seasons. Next - We will see if we can keep it going

10-12-2020, 10:45 PM	#87
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Moving into June - Searching for Direction So May was an improvement as we went 15-14 for the month. We are sitting right now in tied for 6th right now with the Philadelphia Sailors (a team that generally give us fits on the field). We will start June at home for 3 games against the Sailors who we are 2-4 against this season. Then the week really gets tough as Chicago has just been brutal against us all season going 8-1 (including 5-1 in Cleveland). Philadelphia Sailors @ Cleveland Foresters 3-game series in the Cleveland City Dump Thursday June 1st- Saturday June 3rd Phily leads season series 4-2 Thursday June 1st, 1933 Philadelphia Sailors 3 Cleveland Foresters 0 Sailors SP Oscar Morse was brilliant in pitching the 1-hut shutout of the Foresters. Max Morris broke up the no-hit bid with a leadoff single in the 8th inning. WP - Oscar Morse 3-6 3.21 LP - Roger Perry 6-3 2.80 HR - none Friday June 2nd, 1933 Philadelphia Sailors 3 Cleveland Foresters 6 LF Bobby Allen went 3-3 with a home run and SP Ed Wood hit his 2nd home run of the season as well. Wood evened his season record at 5-5 WP - Ed Wood 5-5 3.27 LP - Doc Newell 2-6 3.87 HR (PHLY) Jim Stevens 1st, (CL) Ed Wood 2nd, Bobby Allen 4th Saturday June 3rd, 1933 Philadelphia Sailors 5 Cleveland Foresters 4 In the rubber game of the series, the Sailors did what they have done all year against Cleveland and took 2 out of 3. LF Ray Cochran hit his 1st home run of the season for Cleveland but it was not enough. WP - Russ Real 6-2 3.05 LP - Bert Henggeler 0-1 0.00 S - Merritt Thomas 1 0.00 HR - (CL) Ray Cochran 1st Chicago Series Sunday June 4th- Tuesday June 6th Cleveland Foresters @ Chicago Cougars Chicago leads season series 8-1 So the numbers in our 9 games against Chicago this season have been down right ugly. The Cougars have outscored us in those 9 games by a 40-14 count. Batting Numbers vs Cougars vs CH overall season Batting Avg .226 .257 On-Base Pct .290 .315 OBSP .581 .679 Runs per game 1.56 4.30 (vs all other teams) Pitching Numbers vs Chicago ERA 4.04 3.30 HA/9 10.50 8.52 Runs per game 4.45 3.78 WHIP 1.423 1.293 BB/9 K/9 Doesn't look good for us.....but let's get to it. Sunday June 4th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 4 Chicago Cougars 2 SP Roger Perry gave the Foresters the type of game they needed to get this victory. Perry gave up only 2 runs over 6.2 and veteran RP Bob Boyd went 2.1 innings of no-run 3-hit relief to earn the save. Moxie Pidgeon hit his 6th home run of the season. WP - Roger Perry 7-3 2.80 LP - Dick Luedtke 8-2 2.48 S - Bob Boyd 1 0.00 HR - (CL) Moxie Pidgeon 6th Monday June 5th 1933 Cleveland Foresters 2 Chicago Cougars 5 This is more the normal outcome versus the Cougars. Timely hitting as 1B Bill Ashbaugh hit his 5th home run and great starting pitching from Max Wilder (8 innings 1 earned run). About the only thing the Cougars didn't do well in this game was well fielding. 2B Slim Bloom made 3 errors but the Foresters couldn't do much even with that. WP - Max Wilder 4-6 3.43 LP - Ed Wood 5-6 3.28 HR - (CH) Bill Ashbaugh 5th Tuesday June 6th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 3 Chicago Cougars 2 The reporters can't say that SP Karl Johnson outdueled Tommy Wilcox but he certainly hung with him and gave the Foresters a chance. The clutch hit came from SS George Dawson (hitting 282 on the season) slicing an RBI single in the 7th for the winning run as the Foresters surprised the Cougs taking 2 out of 3 in Chicago. WP - Karl Johnson 4-5 4.91 LP - Tommy Wilcox 9-3 2.41 HR - None Weekly Summary - A 3-3 week but considering the teams we were playing (and have struggled against) all season, we will take it. Moves - With Dean Astle going on the DL, we brought back up Karl Johnson. We will look forward to Astle getting back on the hill for us after the All-Star game. We also moved our stopper Frank Phillips to AAA Cincinnati as we activated SP Carl Bragg from the DL. Phillips didn't pitch badly for us, but with all the veterans we have acquired and who are also pitching well, we didn't want to DFA anyone. So while he didn't deserve it, Phillips will go down. We made a minor trade as well this week. We sent 2B/OF Russ Franklin who has been a solid bench contributor and 300 plus hitter to Chicago for a 5th round pick. Franklin had really struggled with us this season and was kind of a man without position as he was backing up both the 2B (Meeks) and CF (Drake). His defense wasn't the best in the infield and he was hitting 184 this season. The pick helps make up for the 4th and 6th rounders we traded in the off-season. Key minor league move - We promoted OF Pete Day from Class A Reading to Class AA Portland. In 35 games at Reading Day was hitting (358/466/973) with 1 homer and 20 RBI's. Day is one of 4 top prospects that was at Class A Reading.

10-13-2020, 01:40 PM	#88
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	The Start of a Very Long Home Stand As we get ready to start this very long 19-game homestand, the team is sitting at 23-29 and in 7th place in the CA. We are 13 games behind the Chicago Cougars, who have a 4 1/2 game lead over the surprising Montreal Saints. Realistically to get back to 500 we would have to go 13-6 on this home stand which would likely get us back into the middle of the CA. It is time for this club to either show what they can do, or get ready to make plans for next season. After this homestand we will have played 47 of our 71 games to that point of the season at home. That means we will likely have to improve significantly on our 10-14 road record if we want to make any noise this season. Not impossible but it starts now, with the first 4 of those 19 games at home against the 2nd place Montreal Saints. So far this season we have split our 6 games against the Saints. We won 2 out of 3 here in Manager Jim Wilson's first full series against a team (he won his debut game against Brooklyn the day before the start of this series). Montreal came back and took 2 out of 3 at their home. After this 4-game series with the Saints we won't see them again until after the All-Star Game when we head to Montreal for a 4-game series July 15-18. Max Morris is just 4 RBI's away from 1900 in his career. He is already the all-time leader in this category, but we expect him to maybe get those 4 RBI's in this 4-game series, but definitely on this monster home stand. Montreal Saints (32-21) @ Cleveland Foresters (23-29) 4-game series at Cleveland's Garbage Dump Stadium June 8th - June 11th Pitching Matchups Montreal vs Cleveland George Thomas 5-1 4.24 vs Carl Bragg 0-1 3.60 Johnny Douglas 3-1 3.06 vs Ben Turner 3-6 4.11 Walker Moore 4-2 3.09 vs Roger Perry 7-3 2.80 Milt Fritz 4-6 3.60 vs Ed Wood 5-6 3.28 Thursday June 8th, 1933 Montreal Saints 1 Cleveland Foresters 8 A sterling performance by SP Carl Bragg going 7 1/3 innings and surviving 4 Forester errors. Bragg only gave up 3 hits and 1 unearned run with the effort. While Bragg was the pitching star of the game, there was no question who the Star of the Game was. Max Morris hit a 3-run home run (9th) in the first inning. In the 3rd inning after a triple by CF Amos LeBlanc, Morris got his 1900th RBI with a ground out with the speedy LeBlanc easily scampering home. After the game the quiet and humble legend simply stated "I've been fortunate enough to have stayed healthy most of my career which has allowed me the opportunity to have do some pretty great things. It takes teamwork to score runs and without guys getting on base ahead of me, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to drive them in. WP - Carl Bragg 1-1 2.08 LP - George Thomas 5-2 4.62 HR - (CL) Max Morris 9th Friday June 9th, 1933 Montreal Saints 0 Cleveland Foresters 2 The Foresters have started this 19-game home stand on the right foot as they move to 2-0 with the shutout win today. SP Ben Turner gave up just 5 hits with no walks in the game where he was obviously voted POTG. Max Morris who appears to be finally heating up hit another home run after his historic game the night before, and Moxie Pidgeon also homer for the Clevelanders. WP - Ben Turner 4-6 3.81 LP - Johnny Douglas 3-2 2.98 HR - (CL) Max Morris 10th, Moxie Pidgeon 7th Saturday June 10th, 1933 Montreal Saints 5 Cleveland Foresters 2 The Saints came back after being shut out yesterday and show everyone why they are a contending team in the CA this season. Great SP and clutch timely hitting along with a solid defense has been the Saints secret all year, today was no different. Vic Crawford who was a player that the Forester's really coveted back when he was drafted, and also was a player that they had brief discussions about adding in the off-season, hit his 21st double of the season and is now hitting 300 for the year. WP - Walker Moore 5-2 2.84 LP - Roger Perry 7-4 3.05 HR - (Mont) Hank Barnett 7th Sunday June 11th, 1933 Montreal Saints 7 Cleveland Foresters 4 The Saints jumped all over SP Ed Wood for 7 runs in the first 5 innings. While the bullpen pitched 4 innings of scoreless ball to give the Foresters a chance to comeback, they just couldn't overcome the early deficit. Vic Crawford hit his 3rd homer for the Saints as they evened the series at 2 games apiece. SP Milt Fritz improved his record with the Saints to 4-1 since the trade with an ERA of 2.89. WP - Milt Fritz 5-6 3.64 LP - Ed Wood 5-7 3.76 HR - (Mont) Vic Crawford 3rd Summary - So that was thoroughly a disappointing start to the home stand. After winning the first 2 games and getting things off to a great start, we sputtered in the last 2. I was really hoping to get 3 out of 4 to start us off here, but we can't let the disappointment of the last 2 set the tone for the rest of this stand. While before the series I talked about how a great home stand would vault us back into the middle of the CA. A truly poor home stand would cement us into contention for a likely top 5 draft pick. C Al Howell who hit 304 last season continues to struggle with the bat this year hitting just 211. He was positioned early to get about 40% of the starts this year, but his bat is pushing his appearances down. We need to get him going, but if he doesn't there is someone who is knocking on the door to get called up. C Ben Richardson is hitting 324 at AAA Cincinnati and is pushing to get his opportunity at the big league level. Richardson has long been thought of as the clubs heir apparent at C, but the team decided to trade for Jim Kyle in the off-season to replace Josh Fry. Richardson who is only 23, could be making a push to claim that his now is now. The continuing issue in CF has been going on for several years. Bobby Allen certainly hit, but didn't field the position as well as Cleveland brass wanted. Allen has been a very solid LF for the Foresters since moving there last season. In CF the team has tried a number of players including this year's starter Leon Drake, last year's starter Jake Matheson, and also seen Amos LeBlanc, Frank Moseby, Russ Franklin, Mickey Crawford, and Dick Wilson all get shots. The team has a young pipeline of potential players in the minors that we will focus on in a bit, and also will have the return next spring of Leo Clark. But if the team is going to improve this season in CF, it is likely going to be by way of a trade. Next - The Home Stand Continues......

10-13-2020, 10:22 PM	#90
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	The (so far) 9-2 home stand continues..... We are rolling with a 7 game win streak and have the New York Stars in for 1 more game this week, before welcoming the Baltimore Cannons for 4 games and then Toronto for the last 3 of the home stand. We are playing some really good baseball right now and I hope it can continue. We have address a lot of areas so far this year, the biggest priority was fixing last years GasHouse Gang in the bullpen and I feel that so far with bullpen ERA of 2.29 that we have accomplished that. The starting rotation despite the injuries to Heinie Bretz and Dean Astle has been very solid. Where we are struggling still in my mind is on the offensive side of the game. Yes RF Moxie Pidgeon (323/398/870 8-34), LF Bobby Allen (314/373/821 5-38), 1B Max Morris (284/332/844 15-42) are the anchors. 3B Jake Moore who didn't start the season as the everyday 3B has once again taken hold of that spot and while not hitting for power he has hit well (319/327/795 1-20). SS George Dawson has been really good defensively (ZR +12.3, RF 5.29 Eff 1.203) although he has made a few mistake (15 errors) which we would like to see him cut down on. With the bat, which was the major concern he is hitting 273 and I can't really ask for anything more from him in his rookie season. 2B Brooks Meeks is following up on his solid rookie season with an equally solid sophomore campaign hitting 282 with 3 HR's and 26 RBI's. I'd like to see him get his OBP up to around 340 but he also has played really good defense and hep solidify our middle lineup. That leaves us with C and CF positions. C Jim Kyle was brought in to be the 1st team C and Kyle is ranked right in the middle of the pack (#8). But with his hitting this season (247/297/702 3-15) it feels worse. He has been good defensively throwing out 56.5% of all base runners and has a positive ZR. The pitchers also seem to be responding well to him. We shipped out to AAA backup C Al Howell who was simply not showing us the same hitting approach that he had last year. Howell's disappointment, led us to really take a strong look at the "Catcher of the Future" Ben Richardson now as he was hitting really well at AAA. While the "experts" haven't been crazy about Richardson, we have remained high on him and it has been paying off. He will get a shot now to see what he can do. The CF spot was an open competition in spring training between Leo Clark and Leon Drake. In early spring Clark had won the job and Drake would come to Cleveland as the 4th OF since he can play the corners as well as CF. But then Clark went down with a torn PCL and Drake was inserted as the starter. Drake was backed up by both Russ Franklin (since traded to Chicago) and Jake Matteson (since demoted to AAA Cincinnati). Currently the backup CF is rookie Amos LeBlanc. CF Production Leon Drake 52G-45GS 222/328/656 2-14 84 OPS+ 1.2 WAR Amos LeBlanc 19G-19GS 145/167/351 0-3 -2 OPS+ -0.7 WAR Jake Matheson 9G-8GS 185/353/538 0-1 54 OPS+ 0.1 WAR Russ Franklin 13G-8GS 184/244/454 0-1 28 OPS+ -0.1 WAR Collectively 195/270/536 2HR 19 RBI 41R Drake is still only 24 and both our scout and BNN/OSA feel that he could become one of the top CF in the league. The league experts have Drake pegged as the #5 CF in baseball, he has not lived up to that high praise. So far we haven't seen it and right now it is a glaring hole in our lineup. Leo Clark is also not a guarantee to make it, he is a good power bat but we haven't had the opportunity to see if that power plays in the big leagues. We are looking to make a move to find a worst a quality backup and at best a top flight CF both defensively and offensively. Ideally the power would be a leadoff type hitter. Oh to wish and dream. Monday June 19th, 1933 New York Stars 2 Cleveland Foresters 0 NY SP Les Zoller pitched a gem for 7.2 innings giving up just 6 hits and Boyd Harper got the last for outs for his 8th save. The loss snapping the Foresters 7-game win streak and salvaged a game for the Stars in the 4-game set. SP Roger Perry pitched well for the Foresters but picked up the loss. WP - Les Zoller 6-2 3.01 LP - Roger Perry 8-5 3.03 S- Boyd Harper 8 2.09 HR - None Baltimore Cannons 31-33 @ Cleveland Foresters 32-32 June 20th-23rd 4-games @ Cleveland Forester Stadium (aka the City Dump) So the Cannons have come to town and by the sounds of the Baltimore press, it appears the team might be conceding that its window of opportunity might be closing. Rumors are running rampant that SP Rabbit Day (who we once made a huge push for many seasons ago) and OF/1B Lou Kelly might be available. Both players are the type of quality that a contending team would love to add. While Kelly is not a CF, he is the power hitting corner OF/1B that we could have interest in. Pitching Matchups Baltimore Cannons vs Cleveland Foresters Rabbit Day 8-4 3.42 Carl Bragg 2-1 2.22 Clay Jackson 3-7 5.40 Ed Wood 6-7 3.44 Bob Miller 5-9 3.95 Ben Turner 6-6 3.62 Tuesday June 20th, 1933 Baltimore Cannons 2 Cleveland Foresters 3 SP Rabbit Day is 8-1 against everyone else, but with today's tight loss moves to 0-4 against the 1933 Foresters. Day struck out 9 Foresters but has nicked around for 11 hits, and was outpitched by Cleveland SP Carl Bragg. WP - Carl Bragg 3-1 2.23 LP - Rabbit Day 8-5 3.42 S - Lou Proctor 2 0.00 HR - none Wednesday June 21st, 1933 Baltimore Cannons 5 Cleveland Foresters 6 Another 1-run game and another 1-run win for the Foresters. With the win the Foresters move to 15-5 in 1-run games this season. The Foresters scored 2 in the 8th to tie the game and then walked off on 3B Jake Moore's 1-out single to drive in SP Ed Wood who walked to lead off the 9th inning. Interesting that manager Jim Wilson didn't pinch hit for Wood but the SP has been a very solid hitter for the Foresters with a 375 average and 3 HR's. Maybe the team should make him a 2-way player to be eligible to pinch hit. WP - Ed Wood 7-7 3.56 LP - clay Jackson 3-8 5.52 HR - (CL) Ed Wood 3rd, Bobby Allen 5th, Max Morris 14th, (Balt) none Thursday June 22nd, 1933 Baltimore Cannons 3 Cleveland Foresters 6 Bobby Allen went 3-3 and Moxie Pidgeon hit his 8th home run of the season powering the Foresters past the Cannons and winning for the 10th time in the last 11 games. WP - Ben Turner 7-6 3.49 LP - Bob Miller 5-10 4.06 HR - (CL) Moxie Pidgeon 8th Friday June 23rd, 1933 Baltimore Cannons 4 Cleveland Foresters 5 The Foresters finish the 4-game series sweep with another 1-run game. SP Roger Perry pitched well enough to get the win but a key error in the 8th took the win away from him and gave it to Lou "where is" Proctor. WP - Lou Proctor 1-0 0.00 LP - Paul Vandenburg 2-3 1.73 HR - none Series notes - Forester pitchers did not surrender a homer to Lou Kelly and the rest of the Cannons. Over the years Cannon hitters have laid waste to Cleveland pitching. As we have started a new streak of 4 straight and 11 out of 12, we look forward to the Toronto Wolves coming to town to finish off the 19 game homestand. The first game is Sunday and the other 2 games will be (next week) Monday and Tuesday. Sunday June 25th, 1933 Toronto Wolves 2 Cleveland Foresters 4 2B Brooks Meeks went 4-4 and hit a key home run driving in 2 runs and helping the Foresters win their 5th straight. SP Karl Johnson continued their solid pitching after going down to AAA Cincinnati going 4-0 and lowering his ERA in those 4 starts by over a full run. WP - Karl Johnson 7-5 4.14 LP - Buddy Adams 4-11 4.66 HR - Brooks Meeks 3rd, Max Morris 15th Summary - After the Stars ended our 7 game win streak we started a new one that is up to 5 games now. 5-1 for the week and now 14-3 on the home stand. I hate to say it but we are now flirting with 2nd with the Saints who hold a 2.5 game edge on us. Moves - After the game Sunday we optioned CF Amos LeBlanc to AAA as he has just been over-matched at the big league level. We don't have really any other options right now so we will bring back OF Jake Matheson to be the designated "Last Resort" CF. Matheson has hit 258 at AAA so I am not expecting him to greatly improve on his 185 batting average, but he has proven that he can take a walk. We make a waiver claim on DFA Bill Littlefield (St. Louis). No not to solve the CF situation since he can field a ball to save his life. He is a solid hitter and in 50 years might be an asset to someone. If we get him we will then figure out where his future lies (maybe 1B?). The other option is to find another corner OF bat if we can't find a solid CF. In that scenario depending on who the acquired player was we would likely move LF Bobby Allen back to CF, but the defense takes a hit with that move. Next - The finish of one hellofa home stand

10-14-2020, 05:44 PM	#91
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Home Stand Over 16-3 So we finish up our 19-game home stand up and it has been a great stretch for this Cleveland Club. Despite the fact that the hot water doesn't work in the home locker room (fortunately for the visitors its does in their locker room), the Foresters completed probably the best home stretch over 12 games in my history with the club. We are sitting 39-32 after Tuesday game against game against Toronto. Monday June 26, 1933 Toronto Wolves 6 Cleveland Foresters 7 (10) Tied going into the bottom of the 10th, CF Leon Drake reached base on an error by SS Frank Huddleston. Ray Cochran single and Jim Kyle popped up a sacrifice bunt. That brought up 2B Bob Baker fresh up to the big league team, and he ripped the first pitch he saw for a game winning single scoring Drake. WP - Jim Cavender 1-0 1.93 LP - Eddie Quinn 6-10 3.12 HR - (CL) Max Morris 16th, (Tor) Bill Eastep 2nd Tuesday June 27, 1933 Toronto Wolves 4 Cleveland Foresters 5 The Foresters ran their 1-run record to 18-5 as SS George Dawson singled in the game winning run in the 7th inning. SP Ed Wood won his 3rd straight decision. WP - Ed Wood 8-7 3.60 LP - Birdie Smith 4-10 4.82 HR - (CL) Max Morris 17th, (Tor) Frank Huddleston 5th Home stand record 16-3 Home record 29-18 Season record 39-32 3rd place in the CA 7.5 GB Summary - So now that the long home stand is over, we have played 47 of our 71 games at home. So that means we have a likely long road trip coming up, and its true the Foresters will go on a 23 game road trip wrapped around the All-Star Game on July 6th. The last game against Toronto was on June 27th and we will not return to Cleveland for a game until July 24th. Next up - We start on the long and winding road.....

10-15-2020, 06:28 PM	#94
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	First Ever FABL All-Star Game July 6th, 1933 Chicago's Whitney Field A record crowd of 32,250 fans crammed into Whitney Field to witness a historic night for the FABL as All-Star teams from the Federal Association and Continental Association were selected to do battle. The fans wouldn't have to wait long as in the Top of the 1st inning, the Cleveland Forester duo of 1B Max Morris (who singled) and RF Moxie Pidgeon (homer) put the CA All-Stars up early 2-0. The Cleveland duo will go down in history as the hitters who got the 1st hit in an All-Star game (Morris), first homer hit in an All-Star (Pidgeon) and first run scored (Morris). After the early 1st inning fireworks by the Cleveland duo, the Federal Association All-Stars took control of the game scoring runs in the 1st and 2nd innings and then three more in the 3rd. In the 3rd inning SS Pete Asher (a former Forester) hit a 2-run single to put the FA out in front for good. SS Asher (Pittsburgh) won the game's MVP award by going 3-4 with the double, 3 RBI's and a run scored. Lots of pitchers were used in this game as most saw only an inning of work. St. Louis RP Ben Curtin got the win and Pittsburgh RP Ben Morrill got a 3-inning save for the FA. The All-Star Game certainly seems to be a success with the fans and the players so look for this new tradition to continue. Most likely it will not be held in Cleveland though anytime soon with the condition of Forester Stadium (see picture at the bottom). Next - We return from the brief All-Star Break and go back on the Road Attached Images

10-16-2020, 09:17 PM	#95
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	The All-Star Break was nice, but on the road to Brooklyn So what does a GM of a team that is 8-12 games out at the mid-way point in a season do? Look for upgrades, and by reports GM Martin has been busy on the phones and telegraph machines looking for deals to upgrade this team. Why, go all out with the Cougars likely running away from the rest of the CA in 1933? To go all in for what might be Max Morris's last season next year. While the legendary slugger has offered no hints, and he is still swatting baseballs out of the ballpark at a good clip. The old saying "father time waits for nobody" is likely lurking in the future. So the Foresters who have never won a World Series and have only won the CA 3 times in their 40+ year history are looking to make bold moves. Will they get to make one of those moves, or two? Stay tuned.....the rumors are flying. So we head to a 4-game series in Brooklyn against a King's team that is beginning to once again find their 2nd half wind. It is too bad for Brooklyn fans that the team has a penchant for digging such big holes early that they are out of it by Memorial Day (this year everyone was likely out of it by the 4th with Chicago). Heading into this series the Kings are 37-43 and in 7th place. Cleveland Foresters 43-35 @ Brooklyn Kings 37-43 July 7-9 1933 4-game series (DH on Saturday) At Kings County Park II (which looks like a palace compared to the city dump in Cleveland) Season Series 4-4 Pitching Matchups Cleveland Foresters vs Brooklyn Kings Roger Perry 8-6 3.36 Lyman Weigel 7-4 4.20 Ed Wood 9-7 3.69 Hal Galvan 1-1 1.80 Ben Turner 8-7 3.87 Tom Barrell 5-10 3.70 Carl Bragg 4-1 2.25 Roy Pierce 3-3 3.97 Friday July 7th 1933 Cleveland Foresters 17 Brooklyn Kings 12 Yes you read that score right and no it wasn't a football game. It appears both teams hitters were eager to get the 2nd half of the season going as both teams ripped the pitching staffs of the other. A total of 29 runs, 34 hits and a very unimpressive 15 walks were doled out in this game. CF Leon Drake was named POTG hitting a homer and double driving in 6 runs. Former Forester farm hand RF Charlie Powell hit his 3rd home run of the season. WP - Roger Perry 9-6 3.45 LP - Lyman Weigel 7-5 4.69 HR - (CL) Leon Drake 4th, (BRK) Charlie Powell 3rd Saturday July 8 - Double-Header Game 1 Cleveland Foresters 4 Brooklyn Kings 11 Overall an ugly game for the Foresters. 40-year-old RP Hal Galvan got the start in this game. The veteran who is still a quality reliever pitched surprisingly well and his teammates gave him lots of support. Is this a new role for Galvan going forward? WP - Hal Galvan 2-1 2.57 LP - Ed Wood 9-8 4.00 HR - (CL) Leon Drake 5th and 6th, (BRK) Buck Sargent 3rd, Art Summers 8th Saturday July 8 - Double-Header Game 2 Cleveland Foresters 11 Brooklyn Kings 3 This game was the complete opposite of the earlier game as the Foresters laid the lumber to struggling SP Tom Barrell. Leon Drake is loving Kings Ballpark as he hit his 4th homer in the series. Unfortunately he appears to be suffering from an strained oblique muscle late in the game. WP - Ben Turner 9-7 3.81 LP - Tom Barrell 5-11 4.06 HR - (CL) Leon Drake 7th, (BRK) Art Summers 9th Sunday July 9th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 2 Brooklyn Kings 10 There were no close games in this series as the Kings even this one and the season series with the blowout. 70 runs were scored in the 4-game set as pitching was scarce after the All-Star Break. WP - Roy Pierce 4-3 3.73 LP - Carl Bragg 4-2 3.40 HR - None Summary - So another split and we move to 6-5 on the current road trip. Two more weeks on the road and 12 more games. The injury to CF Leon Drake couldn't have come at a worse time as the kid was showing flashes of all that talent the scouts drool over. We will not DL him yet, but will adjust the starting lineup for next week's game and see where he is. LF Bobby Allen will move back to his former CF position and Ray Cochran will take over in LF. One thing we need to watch is our bullpen. During the first 3 months we were ranked 2nd in ERA in the mid/low 2's, now we are 3rd but the ERA has creped up to 3.40 on the season. RP Bob Boyd had a real rough outing here in Brooklyn and while he is wildly popular with the home fans, not enough of them show up to really matter. But who can blame them for not showing up, even if the team is playing solid ball. Activation Rehab Assignment - SP Dean Astle comes off the DL and will head to Cincinnati for probably 2 starts next week. Hopefully the kid will shake off the rust and get back to Cleveland quickly. Next - The Road Trip Continues - Can the Foresters hold up? Last edited by DD Martin; 10-16-2020 at 09:21 PM.

10-19-2020, 11:00 PM	#96
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Long Trip Blues - (and no not the KC Blues) We continued our long trip with a venture to New York to face the Stars (43-40) who have not followed up on their World Series win this season. Why are the Stars not playing like they did last year? Is it injuries, well not really although they are missing 3B Dave Throwbridge who had a great season last year. He wasn't quite on the same pace before his injury this year but now that he is out for 6 weeks he will be missed. The Stars still have 2B Pete Layton and John Lawson, who has moved over to 3B with Throwbridge's absence. The pitching though is not quite as sharp as it was a year ago and SP Dick Richards used all his mojo in last years 17-7 season. It would be nice to get out of our split slog that we have been on this trip. We have 4 in New York on Monday-Tuesday, then a day off in Times Square on Wednesday before continuing with games on Thursday and Friday. Then we head to Montreal with a 2nd place show down with the Saints starting on Saturday and continuing on through next Tuesday. Monday July 10th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 7 New York Stars 3 Bobby Allen hit his 6th homer of the season and rookie C Ben Richardson reached the seats for the first time in his big league career in the victory over the Stars. WP - Karl Johnson 9-6 3.91 LP - Les Zoller 8-3 3.26 HR - (CL) Bobby Allen 6th, Ben Richardson 1st, (NY) Gordie Loftus 2nd Tuesday July 11th 1933 Cleveland Foresters 4 New York Stars 5 So the Forester's did something that they haven't done much and that is lose a 1-run game. With the Foresters leading 4-2 in the 8th, PH Lum Baker came up with a 3-run homer off RP Lou Proctor to give the Stars the lead and the game. It is one of the few failures of the bullpen this year. WP - Jack Carr 2-1 3.49 LP - Lou Proctor 1-1 1.65 HR - (NY) Lum Baker 1st, (CL) Max Morris 19th Thursday July 13th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 7 New York Stars 5 SP Ed Wood hit his 4th homer of the season and recently returning to the Foresters 2B Bob Baker hit his 1st. We go for a series win tomorrow WP - Ed Wood 10-8 4.03 LP - Bennie Conover 5-6 3.27 HR - (CL) Bob Baker 1st, Ed Wood 4th Friday July 14, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 0 New York Stars 4 Still on the split series treadmill as the Stars shut the Foresters out behind Lou Martino. John Lawson hit his 10th home run of the season for the Stars in the win. WP - Lou Martino 4-5 2.71 LP - Ben Turner 9-8 3.78 HR - (NY) John Lawson 10th So with the 2-2 split in New York we head north of the border to take on the Saints for 4-games. The trip is winding down and we have held our head above water so far. Saturday July 15th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 7 Montreal Saints 8 A complete and total collapse in the 9th for the Cleveland team. The Saints come up with 6 runs in the 9th and win it. 1B Vic Crawford delivered the final blow with double that scored Cliff Moss with the winning run. All of the damage came against Carl Bragg who pitched a great 8 inning game, but got shelled in the 9th. Proctor tried to come in and get Crawford but gave up the double to break the tie. WP - Leo Hall 2-1 7.27 LP - Lou Proctor 1-2 2.60 HR - (CL) Ray Cochran 2nd, (Mon) Jim Watson 4th Sunday July 16th, 1933 Cleveland Foresters 4 Montreal Saints 5 For the 3rd time this week the Foresters lost a 1-run game and with the current 3 game losing streak have fallen out of 2nd place. Saints SP Wes Moore left without recording an out with back spasms, but the initial report is he will not miss his next start. RP Leo Hall won for the 2nd straight day with 6 innings of 2 earned run ball to bail out the Saints. WP - Leo Hall 3-1 5.52 LP - Karl Johnson 9-7 4.00 HR - (CL) Ray Cochran 3rd, (MON) Hank Barnett 12th Summary - With the two losses to start the Montreal series we fall to 8-9 on our 23-game trip. Two more here against the Saints on Monday and Tuesday next week and then we go to Baltimore to wrap up the long trek. Losing 3 1-run games this week drops our league best record in 1-run games to 19-8. We have been so successful this year in that type of contest. Leon Drake injury has not responded well so we decided to put him on the DL for 2 weeks with complete rest and treatment. He had only played a minimum amount this week but he was complaining about pain even more. Ray Cochran in the OF has gone 5-22 but has hit 2 HR's and been clutch driving in 7 runs. Trade Rumors - Honestly the trade rumors are heating up. Now some would be asking with us down by double digits with around 70 games left, why bother. The truth is I don't think we can run down Chicago, unless we change our fortunes against them or they have a slide like they did last year. So far there is no sign of that slide, but last season they lost the pennant in late July and August with a bad swoon. We have 2 key series coming up against them after this road trip ends. Chicago who is 9-3 against us will come to Cleveland for 3 games and then the following week we will go to Chicago for 4 games. If by some miracle we figure out a way to win 6 out of 7 or better, then maybe we have a slight chance. The truth is we are really looking at next year. Some say Chicago is the dominant team in the CA and will be again next season. But in looking at them, they may be some opportunities to over take them next season and we are going to make moves that ensure we give ourselves every chance to capitalize if those opportunities materialize. Next - The Long Trip Finally Ends

10-27-2020, 02:53 PM	#97
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	The rest of July So we finished off the month of July with an 8-6 record and moved into 2nd place in the not very competitive Continental League Standings. The Chicago Cougars were running away with the pennant as just about everyone said at the beginning of the season. They were 13.5 games ahead of us and 14.5 over the Montreal Saints who for awhile there looked like they would make a race out of it. But this was the Cougars year and it all starts with their pitching. They have 4 studs at the top of the rotation and barring any injury they should easily win the CA by 15 or more games. The Philadelphia Keystones have an 11 game lead in the Federal League so it looks like a the Keys will make their 2nd straight trip to the World Series. This will be the 2nd trip for the Cougars in the last 3 years as well. With our 500 record (14-14) in July, if we really wanted to compete we would have needed to go about 20-10, that would have kept the division deficit likely un double digits. So with the trade deadline coming up there probably won't be much action, and there wasn't except for us. We were looking to acquire as much top name talent that still had something left in the tank for a serious run in 1934. In fact we were involved with the only 2 trades in the month that were done before the deadline. Trade #1 The Boston Minutemen trade 25-year-old CF Dan Fowler and their 4th round draft pick, to the Cleveland Foresters. In return they received SP Ed Wood (25), AAA SS John Wood (22) #113 prospect, AAA CF Pete Day (22) #59 prospect and AA 3B Art Spencer (21) 342 prospect. So what we got - Dan Fowler is the CF I have been looking for since I started in Cleveland for the 1926 season. He is young, hits for power and has speed. He was the 6th overall pick in the 1929 draft (the same year we took CF Amos LeBlanc at #8). We had coveted Fowler since we missed out on him in that draft. At 25, he looks to man CF for us for a number of years. We also got the Minutemen's 4th round pick which looks to be the #2 pick of that round (or a late 3rd as I like to look at it). So what we gave up - A lot but even though it was expensive and I gave up 3 of my key draft picks from the last draft, I think it was worth it. Of the 3 I really wanted to keep 3B Art Spencer as he looks like he could maybe start next year or definitely by 1935 and it is a position of need for us (although we do still have 23 year old Johnny Turner who will get another shot at the spot next spring). We also gave up SS John Wood who was a solid find in the 5th round last year and 2nd rounder Pete Day who was out performing our 1st round pick Levi Redding. Day had started at Class A with all the others and Redding but quickly moved to AA and then AAA. Yes and I gave up a SP in Ed Wood (who might be the best hitter pitcher in the league as he had 4 home runs this season). Wood was 10-8 with an inconsistent 4-02 ERA, but had really settled down more of late. I have spent so much time trying to acquire pitching, but honestly if everyone comes back healthy I feel pretty good about the rotation still, even without Wood. So we get the immediate impact of Fowler now and next season for what we hope is a serious run at the CA. The Minutemen have picked up 4 pieces who could all be with them early next season if things break right. Were we done? Not quite, on the very last day before the deadline we made another deal. This one took longer because I had to really think about it and we were in discussions with another team for a younger player. Trade #2 - The Washington Eagles trade 32-year-old all-star C T.R. Goins (32) to the Cleveland Foresters for the Foresters 1st round pick in the 1933 draft (December) and SP Karl Johnson (25) and C Ben Richardson (23). What we got - The C that I had been after for 4-5 seasons through various GM's in Washington. It was a deal that almost didn't happen though as I was also in conversations with Pittsburgh for their starting C (and another player I had tried to get before) in Jim Pool (28). Goins is clearly the better player and has had a great career, but Pool has been solid and is younger by 4 years. I was also trying to get a veteran SP in the Pittsburgh deal to offset the loss of Johnson and Wood. We just couldn't come to terms with it after I had traded so much to Boston for Fowler. Still we got a catcher who should still have several more good seasons and fits into what I think is our 2 year window next starting next season. What we gave up - Our 1st round pick which is looking like the #13 or at best #11 pick. Washington will clearly be hoping that we have a lousy August and September with Montreal and likely Philadelphia chasing us for 2nd place. We also surrendered "our catcher of the future" Ben Richardson. The OSA scouts were not nearly as enamored with Richardson as I had been. He finally got a shot to come up and platoon with Jim Kyle and hit 247 in his 73 AB's with the team. Not bad for a kid, but again I was focused on trying to improve this team for next season. The next piece hurt though as we also coughed up SP Karl Johnson who had been sort of a pet project of mine since he was drafted out of high school in the 6th round of the 1925 draft. This was Johnson's 3rd season with the big league team and he was really starting to show what he could do. He was briefly demoted early in the season as some mechanical issues flared up, but the demotion was brief. He came back and won the CA pitcher of the month award for June going 5-0 and was 11-8 on the season with a 3.52 ERA. Final thoughts - So we picked up two pieces to our puzzle for next season. While I know that we do not have the pitching staff to compete with Chicago this season, it was our offense that had let us down the last two seasons. Even with Max Morris we are trending towards the bottom in runs scored which has been a concern. We have been averaging just 4.4 rpg and that is good for 6th in the CA. Our pitching has been in the top 2-3 below Chicago. Hopefully we haven't given up too much pitching, but with SP Heinie Bretz progressing towards a return next season and the core we still have, I am hoping it is enough to combine with an improved offense. Attached Images

10-27-2020, 04:25 PM	#98
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Month of August As we churn towards the end of the season our tragic number is down to 6. Chicago will likely officially wrap up the CA title this coming week. The Cougars do have incentive though to keep trying to win to gain home field advantage in the World Series. The FA soon to be officially declared winners, the Philadelphia Keystones are 89-45 while the Cougs are 88-45. The two teams have been atop the power rankings and win-loss ranking all season trading it back and forth. 3 weeks to go to see the race to the top. We were 14-13 in August to continue our decidedly 500 trudge through the remainder of the season. 28-27 since July 1st was just not enough to make a serious threat. I feel like we should be doing a bit better but we are middle of the pack. So in looking at things for August who really was struggling with the bat? LF Bobby Allen who was hitting well in the 1st half has hit bottom in the 2nd half with August he hit only 153. That meant it was time to give Leon Drake the September AB's in LF since he is back from injury but lost his CF job to Dan Fowler. On the pitching side of the equation, SP Roger Perry had a lack luster August. Last season he was having a great year but seemed to have worn down in September. This year Perry isn't quite as sharp as he was through last season, but August was rough for him going 2-1 in 5 starts with a 4.17 ERA. Ben Turner was 1-4 with a 4.37 ERA. The surprise was the forced move to put RP Bert Henggeler into the starting rotation. And Henggeler has responded in his 6 starts with a 2-1 record and a team leading 2.10 ERA since he move to the rotation. I'll be honest I was looking at cutting loose either Henggeler or Bob Boyd but decided to give Henggeler a shot. Boyd has stayed as well as we don't need to make a 40-man roster move during the season. Can Henggeler who has now 25 career starts in the majors emerge as a contender for the #5 spot next season? He certainly is increasing his odds of staying with the Foresters with this late season move. Moves - With the injury to 2B Brooks Meeks we have brought back up Johnny Turner. I am going to give Turner a run at 2B and just see if he has some solid fielding skills there as well. He is still young so we need to get him lots of playing time. He will come back next season and try once again to unseat 3B Jake Moore. While Moore has been ok, 3B is really a spot that I would like to see more production from next season. I don't know if that is Turner or it is someone not on the roster. We did make a run early in the season at Chicago Chief veteran 3B Joe Masters, but the price was too high. Master's who is 34 is hitting 272 with 15 homers and 87 RBI's for the Chiefs so he is having another very good season but is slowing down a bit. SP Dean Astle returned to the rotation in late August after a minor injury. In 8 games started he is 3-3 with solid 2.38 ERA. He looks like to settle into the rotation next season behind Roger Perry in the rotation. The Future - With the pennant race this season, we really begin to turn our attention to next season. We will be without our likely late 1st round draft choice and there are a few positions that I would like to shore up. I have pretty much gutted our minor league system that was fairly strong over the last 2 seasons with trades. We will begin rebuilding that with what we have in the draft for this year and also try to supplement with a few key acquisitions. I have my eye on a SP and a few other position players. Our efforts to resolve the bullpen have not panned out although I believe it is better we are likely not going to make any outside moves unless it is via Rule 5, Indy draft or the waiver wire. I have a few options that will be finally given their chance. Below are the team stats for August. I am fairly pleased with our late July trade acquisitions as both Goins and Fowler haven't made me regret my choice. Attached Images

10-27-2020, 04:50 PM	#99
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	Morris Does it Again September 3, 1933 Once again Cleveland Forester 1B Max "Mighty Mo" Morris has etched his name into the record books. With the Foresters trailing 6-2 entering the 9th inning of a game that had been a pretty ho-hum affair, the Forester bats came alive. Coming up 5th in the inning, Morris lined a double to left and moved Moxie Pidgeon to 3rd with the Foresters now trailing 6-4. C TR Goins came up and delivered a single that score both Pidgeon and Morris to tie the game up at 6-6. The run scored by Morris, the 1941st of his career, broke the all-time record that was held by John Dibblee of 1940. With that mark Morris is now the all-time leader in the following categories in the FABL. He is now the all time triple crown leaders in Home runs, RBI's and Runs scored. Home Runs - 632 RBI's - 1972 Runs scored -1941 Career Slugging % .6391 He is also now just 92 total bases away from breaking Dibblee's career mark in that category as well. That milestone will likely drop sometime early next season. Another honor for the slugger was the August 1933 CA Batter of the Month Award. While there have been whispers about Morris slowing down, the fact is he is now hitting 309 on the season with 33 homeruns and 100 RBI's. This is the 2nd batter of the Month award Morris has received this season (June and August). There has been some discussion about Morris not being one of the top players anymore, likely because of his WAR being only 4.0 this season. Because of his position played is not a premium defensive position and likely his age slowing him down a bit, his WAR is not in the top 7 in the CA. But here is what he is doing in the CA in his age 38 season. The 1933 season Stats (and stats don't lie) Leading the CA in home runs with 33 (Mike Taylor is 2nd with 18), Leading the CA in RBI's with 100 (John Lawson is 2nd with 82). Leading the CA in slugging % at 558, which is down for him, but still ahead of #2 in the CA of Jack Cleaves 496. Leading the CA in OPS at 930 (John Lawson is 2nd at 899, and Pete Payton is 3rd at 898. Morris is tied for 1st in runs scored at 84 with Hank Jones. He leads the CA in total bases at 278 ( Jake Shadoan is 2nd at 262). The Vote and Argument is ON So for those that don't think he is putting up Whitney Award stats, the numbers clearly beg to differ with you. This is not a career achievement award for Morris because by the numbers that count (as we all know WAR is meaningless), Max Morris, at least through September 3rd, is your Whitney Award leader in the CA.

10-28-2020, 07:00 PM	#100
DD Martin All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Seattle area Posts: 1,022	What a Week!!! 7-0 For the first time in a couple of months the Foresters put together what was truly an amazing week. It started with the Forester finishing off taking 3 out of 4 at home against the NY Stars 8-6. Then the team (72-61) headed off to Brooklyn (66-69) for a 4-game series against the Kings. The Foresters had done pretty well against the Kings this season with a 13-5 lead in the season series. The first two games of the series were shutout wins for the Foresters 4-0 and then 7-0. Ben Turner pitched a 6-hit shutout in the first game and George Coleman made his major league debut in pitching a 6-hit shutout in the 2nd game of the series. The 3rd game of the series was a game the Foresters were losing 5-3 after a Kings 4 run spot in the 7th. But not to be outdone, Cleveland plated 4 in the top of the 9th and then hung on (Barely) in the bottom half to win 7-6. The win improved our record (at one time it was 16-5) to 26-16 on the season in 1-run games. The 4th and last game of the series was won by the Foresters 8-5 with CF Dan Fowler going 4-5 and scoring 3 runs while driving in 2. We ended the season series against Brooklyn at 17-5 on the season. While Chicago had our number this season, we certainly had Brooklyn's for a change. Next was a visit for 4-games to Baltimore (57-80) to take on the struggling Cannons. At one time it looked like the Toronto Wolves had a lock on the #1 overall pick in the draft, but the Cannons are trying to giving them a run for their money. Our week will end with games on Saturday and Sunday in Baltimore (the last 2 will be Monday and Tuesday of next week). The first game was a 9-5 decision that wasn't as close as the final score indicated. Manager Jim Wilson likely forgot that SP Bert Henggler hadn't started too many games this season, but he was up 9-2 and had pitched well. Unfortunately it was an inning too long when he came out for the 9th, but Frank Phillips at least finished off the win. The Sunday game saw the Foresters complete the perfect week with SP Carl Bragg continuing his really surprisingly good 1933 season upping his record to 10-2 with a 3.56 ERA. Bragg didn't make his Forester debut until June, so he has been really effective and produced his best season for the Foresters. Bragg started the year as the #8 guy in the spring rotation, but with injuries to Heinie Bretz in spring and another to Dean Astle in early June, he found his way to the big league team. With the win the Foresters are now 78-61 on the season and trailing the Cougars by 11.5 games with 15 to go. Chicago who we figured would have wrapped up the CA by now reduced its magic number to just 4. Summary - What a week for 1B Max Morris and CF Dan Fowler. For Morris it was another player of the week award, the 52nd time in his career he has been given such an honor. Morris hit 500 (16-32) with 5 more home runs (38) and driving in 9 (109) and scoring 9. With his home runs this week Morris set the all-time Forester record for home runs in a season with 38 and counting. The old record was 35 that were hit in 1925 by retired 2B Carl Martin. CF Dan Fowler was likely 2nd in the weekly award voting with a 485 2-12 line for the week. SS George Dawson hit a nice 423 for the week and ended up with his 17th stolen base of the season. Swiping bases has not been a strength of the Foresters and still isn't, but Dawson and Fowler will make a nice full time addition next season together. P George Coleman who in spring was fighting for a bullpen job with the Foresters before the moves were made in an attempt to strengthen the bullpen. Looking back at it, maybe he should have gotten the chance. He spent the year in AAA Cincinnati going 3-5 with 4 saves. He started (11 games) some in the 2nd half of the season a 3-4 record with a 3.26 ERA. Still he wasn't really someone we were looking at for the back of the rotation for next season. But with his debut performance in Brooklyn (9 inning 6-hit shutout), he is going to get 2-3 more starts this season to see how he does. I think he odds of emerging as the #5 SP next season are long, it doesn't hurt to have depth, which we have been lacking. But with him and Bert Henggler (3-1 2.55 ERA in 7 starts) maybe thinks aren't so dire as we had thought. After the last 2 games next week with the Cannons (we are 17-3 against the Cannons this season), we move onto Montreal to face the Saints for the last time this year in a 4-game set. This season we are even with the Saints at 9-9 on the season series. We will end the week next week on the road for a single game against the Sailors in Philadelphia. Interesting note - The Foresters all time best regular season record is 87-68 back in 1917 when they had a 1 game playoff against the Montreal Saints for the CA title. The 2nd of only 3 that the Foresters have ever won. If the Foresters can manage to go 9-6 they would match that mark of 87 wins but in 1 less fewer games. 10-5 would put them as the all time best Forester regular season team, record wise. It is a goal that I gave Jim Wilson back in early August when we completed the Goins and the Fowler trades.