Saturday 28 July 2007

Thursday, September 15, 1949

Vancouver Wins WIL Playoffs
VANCOUVER, B.C., Sept. 15—The Vancouver Capilanos captured the Western International league baseball playoff series tonight by whipping the Yakima Bears for the third time in a row, 8 to 3.
The playoff title gave second-place Vancouver $1,500 in prize money. Yakima won second money of $1,000 from the $4,000 play-off pool.
The Caps won the contest in the first and sixth innings. Singles by Jim Robinson, Bill Brenner and Len Tran, a sacrifice by Ray Tran and an error by shorstop Dick Briskey accounted for two runs in the first followed by a six-run barrage in the third that knocked Bear hurler Floyd Dickey off the mound.
Dickey had retired two batters when Dick Sinovic singled and scored on a homer onto Sixth Avenue by Bill Brenner. K. Chorlton singled, and Bob McLean and George Nicholas walked to fill the bases. Then Jim Robinson scored all three on a double to the left centrefield corner.
Larry Powell had no sooner taken over the mound when Ray Tran knocked a double that scored Robinson. Powell finished the game giving up three hits and striking out five.
It looked like a shut-out for Nicholas until the eighth, when the Bears snared all their three runs. Bob Williams hit his third single of the night, went to second on Sinovic's error and advanced to third on Ted Jennings' single. Babe Gammino stepped up and bashed a homer to score all three.
Nicholas tossed an eight-hitter for Vancouver, striking out six and walking three.
2,400 braved the cold wind and heavy rain to see the Caps win the best-of-five series. The rain came down hard in the second inning and lasted until the third when it stopped for good.
Yakima .......... 000 000 030—3 8 1
Vancouver ..... 206 000 00x—8 10 1
Dickey, Powell (3) and Orteig; Nicholas and Brenner.

Nenezich Says He's Through as Umpire
[Vancouver Sun, Sept. 16, 1949]
Johnny Nenezich, senior umpire in the Western International Baseball League, announced last night he was through calling balls and strikes.
The little fellow said he was tired of knocking his head against a wall in a Class B league and would call it quits next season.
Johnny will be sorely missed. He was league president Bob Abel's ace trouble-shooter, a man who could hop into a stormy series and quieten things down.
He was always colorful. He gave the grow their money's worth evry time he worked either the plate or the bases.
He also came far closer than any umpire in this league with being popular with the players.
The story goes that Johnny would have been in the Coast League umpiring years aho had he not been so friendly with the players.
There is a “non-fraternization” rule in organized baseball which prevents umpires and players from associating. Johnny, however, was always found of those who played the game and found it hard to live hard by this rule.
He will return to his home and business in Seattle.

ERIC WHITEHEAD’S
FAN FARE

[Vancouver Daily Province, Sept. 16, 1949]
No one bothered to sing it, but No. 1 on the Capilano ball club hit parade last night was “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag. . .” and there were plenty of smile, smile, smiles in the dressing room after that last big one against Yakima.
There were also many serious, pensive moments as close friends of a tough year’s work shook hands, picked up their kit and departed, many to pick up the restless threads of their careers in parts unknown come next spring.
That last, hectic dressing room scene that marks the close of another season is a dramatic one in the lives of pro ball players.
For a few like, like Dick Sinovic and Vern Kindsfather, who are moving up to Seattle, and for Len Tran, who is also toward bound, it marks the end of a triumphant milestone along the glamorous way to perhaps the Big Leagues.
To others, rookies like Bob McLean and Kay Chorlton, who know that they have made good in their first try at Class “B” ball, it is a time of quiet satisfaction and the birth of bigger and better hopes for the future.
Where Do They Go?
For others, veterans like Bob Costello, Hunk Anderson, Ray Tran and Carl Gunnarson, it marks the passing of another year of youth, ambition and fading opportunity—a year less in the desperately short calendar of a pro ball player’s active life.
They—and even the youngest of the rookies—know that next year, the year after and the year after that, there will be new, eager-faced, ambitious youngsters hanging their sweatshirts on those same dressing-room hooks.
Once that dressing room bangs shut for the last time each season—where do the ball players go? What do they do when the headlines turn to the winter of athletes?
A Winter’s Work
Here is where your 1949 Caps are going, and to what.
Bill Brenner, great manager of a hustling ball club, is already back home in Olympia, Wash., taking a short breather before taking over his twin winter shore: work in a loyal brewery and sports-casting for the local radio station, Len and Ray Tran, the double-play inseparables who are now apparently parting baseball company, are heading for a quiet fishing vacation along with Wenatchee’s Cy Greenlaw. After that, Len expects to go back to his old job at Seattle’s Boeing Plant. Ray expects to work in a Seattle brick factory.
Third-sacker Jim Robinson is headed for Seattle University and a final term that will give him his high school teaching certificate. Others heading for a campus are outfielder Kay Chorlton, who will pick up his junior year physical ed course at University of Washington, and pitcher Vern Kindsfather, in Portland U and his P.E. course.
Bob McLean, lanky first first-sacker, is headed straight for New York City, his fiancé, and, he “expects,” an early wedding. Also Manhattan-bound is pitcher George Nicholas—to resume his trade as clothes-cutter for a garment factory—at $100 per 35-hour week.
A Short One, Coz
Hunk Anderson is Seattle-bound, back to the driver’s seat of last year’s oil truck. Fellow hurler, Jim Hedgecock, will stick around in Vancouver and work for sports-program concessionaire Eddie Lamoreaux. Carl Gunnarson will also stay in this town. The likeable Gunner is already looking for work. He can be located for such, sez he, at 2724 Oxford Street.
Bob Costello is on his way to wife and family in Spokane, The popular beanpole expects to latch onto a job as a bartender—on the “right side of the bar,” as Coz puts it. Bob Snyder will winter in Tacoma—may go back to last year’s job as a longshoreman.
Outfielder Charlie Mead is going home to Sierra Madre, Cal., and Dick Sinovic back to Portland, but neither one as yet have winter jobs lined up. Bud Sheely is en route to Sacramento and a hitch as on a construction company’s payroll.
Last of the 1949 Caps is Sandy Robertson, rooted right here in an engineering firm.
Then there’s always spring training.

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