Thursday, September 1, 1949

               W  L  PCT GB
Yakima ...... 96 48 .667 —
Vancouver ... 87 54 .617 7½
Wenatchee ... 76 70 .521 21
Spokane ..... 75 70 .517 21½
Victoria .... 63 82 .434 33½
Salem ....... 61 81 .421 34
Tacoma ...... 60 84 .417 36
Bremerton ... 58 84 .408 37

SPOKANE, Sept. 1—Yakima clinched the Western International League baseball pennant Thursday night, dumping Spokane 5-0 to eliminate the last mathematical chance that it could be headed off.
They won it in championship style with Bill Bradford giving up only three hits. Not a Spokane player passed second base.
The title win was a complete reversal of the Bears' form of the last two years. In each they finished in the cellar. Last year they were 35 games off the winning pace.
The night's celebrations were married with one item. Heavy-hitting catcher Ray Orteig suffered a possible broken finger when he was hit in the hand with a ball during pre-game practyise. He may miss the playoffs.
Yakima .......... 000 101 030—5 11 1
Spokane ........ 000 000 000—0 3 0
Bradford and Tornay; Werbowski, Adams (9) and Rossi and Parks (9).

VANCOUVER, Sept. 1—Vancouver took an 8-3 decision from Bremerton, with two double plays giving Vancouver a season's total of 177, equaling the league record set by Tacoma two years ago.
The 8-3 win was sparked by home runs from the bats of Bud Sheely and Dick Sinovic.
Bremerton ......... 000 000 102—3 7 0
Vancouver ......... 201 020 30x—8 9 3
Kohout and Ronning; Kindsfather and Sheely.

VICTORIA, Sept. 2 [Colonist]—If Manager Earl Bolyard could have looked into a crystal ball and come up with Centerfielder Len Noren as his starting hurler last night, Victoria's Athletics might have won another ball game. Instead, they absorbed a 21-12 drubbing at the hands of the Tacoma Tigers.
The Tigers, battling to stay out of the W.I.L. basebment, reached the offerings of regular moundsmen Frank Logue, Tobey Tobias and Frank LaBrum for 21 hits in the first six innings and held a 21-4 lead going into the seventh. Then Noren, who started his baseball career as a pitcher, took the mound and held the Tigers to a lone scractch single in three innings, and joined his centrefield replacement, Ray Jacobs, in a late Victoria attempt to overcome the huge deficit.
Noren hit a home run over the right centrefield wall in the seventh and hammered a two-run double in the eighth. Jacobs touched off a four-run eighth-inning rally and a three-run ninth-frame splurge with a pair of tremendous home runs. His first, a high inside-the-park blow, hit high on the signboard in deepest left field, and Jacobs was well around third when the ball game down.
Main source of worry to the Athletics was Southpaw Ray Fortier. Although he was reached for 17 hits, Fortier held the A's in check while his teammates built up the huge lead and paced the Tifer attack with three singles and a double in five trips for five runs bated in. Every member of the Tiger line-up, except Dick Greco, who only played one innijng, had at least one R.B.I.
Victoria's two left-handed batters, Vic Buccola and Gordon Johnston, picked up seven of the Athletic hits, with the former having a perfect night with triple and three singles in four trips.
Tacoma ........... 058 053 000—21 22 4
Victoria ........... 110 200 143—12 17 5
Fortier and Gardner; Logue, Tobias (2), Labrum (3), Noren (7) and Morgan.

Salem ........... 020 063 831—23 25 3
Wenatchee .... 600 022 010—11 15 3
Olson and Burgher; Orrell, Greenlaw (5), Meyers (6), Haskell (8) and Pesut.

Brown Would Do It Again
VANCOUVER, Sept. 1—Bob Brown, owner of the Western International league Vancouver Capilanos, is looking back Thursday on 50 years with his first love—baseball.
More than 70 now—he won't say how much more—Brown came to Vancouver 40 years ago with an idea he could make a living out of the sport. He'd been in baseball for 10 years then.
He needed first, a stadium, and he helped turn the first sod himself. Today it is the Capilano stadium.
Since the day when Brown first saw the dense forest slowly shaped and molded into a baseball field, a lot of water has passed beneath the bridge. The stadium has twice burned down.
Friday night local fans and players will honor him in his stadium for his 50 years in baseball ... a milestone reached by few.
And if he was 21 again, what would he do?
“I'd get me a good ball club with a big park and just sit back and watch the fans roll in.”

Tran Sold To Seattle
VANCOUVER, Sept. 2—A story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this morning said that Len Tran and Bud Sheely would probably be called in to finish the season with the Coast League Rainiers.
Speculation here led to the belief that already a deal had been made between the Caps and Seatttle for the sale of Tran, probably for cash and players for delivery next spring.

Wednesday, July 27, 1949

STANDINGS
W L Pct. GB
Yakima ...... 68 36 .654 —
Vancouver ... 62 39 .614 4½
Spokane ..... 55 49 .529 13
Wenatchee ... 49 55 .471 19
Bremerton ... 47 57 .452 21
Victoria .... 45 57 .441 22
Salem ....... 45 58 .437 22½
Tacoma ...... 43 63 .406 26

VANCOUVER, July 27—Diminutive Ted Savarese kept the Yakima Bears four and a half games ahead of the second-place Capilanos tonight by effectively scattering 11 hits to salvage the series finale for the W.I.L. leaders, 8-2. The Caps pounded out a 14-10 triumph in the first game of the second successive twin-bill between the two clubs.
Vancouver mound ace George Nicholas failed in the nightcap, being victimized for a trio of runs in the second inning after the Caps had opened with a 2-0 lead. Roy Paton's three-run homer was the payoff blow for Yakima.
Behind 4-0 in the first game, the Bears took a 9-4 lead with two runs in the fourth and seven in the fifth, but the Caps unloaded for ten runs in their half of the fifth. Six hits, five walks and two hit batsmen did the damage.
First Game
Yakima ......... 000 271 0—10 10 14 0
Vancouver ..... 400 0(10)0 x—14 15 0
Bradford, Dickey (5), Sporer (5) and Orteig; Anderson, Hedgecock (5), Kindsfather (5), Robertson (6) and Sheely, Brenner (8).
Second Game
Yakima ......... 030 003 101—8 11 2
Vancouver ..... 200 000 000—2 11 3
Savarese and Orteig; Nicholas and Brenner.

BREMERTON, July 27—The revitalized Bremerton Bluejackets moved within two games of fourth-place Wenatchee, scoring a 4-2 decision over the Spokane Indians for their fifth straight win. Southpaw Joe Sullivan authored a three-hitter to get the win when his club tied it with two runs in the sixth and won it with another pair in the eighth.
He had to be stingy with his hits as John Conant tossed a six-hitter against him.
Approximately 1,200 fans were on hand tonight, double the usual crowd. Fans responded to a plea that they show their desire for continuance of pro baseball there by attending games. sThe request followed announcement by Bremerton club President Willis Shepherd that his majority holdings are up for sale, and reports that two other communities are dickering for the franchise. Indians notes - Spokane has given an outright release to pitcher Hank Weaver.
Spokane ....... 000 011 000—2 3 1
Bremerton ..... 000 002 02x—4 6 2
Conant and Parks; Sullivan and Ronning.

TACOMA, July 27—Ed Barr's seventh-inning triple drove in Gordon Jones and Joe Kaney with the tying and winning runs as the Tacoma Tigers dumped Wenatchee for the second night, this time 6-5. Manager Bob Johnson, third of three Tigers pitchers, received credit for his fourth mound triumph.
Wenatchee ...... 310 110 000—5 10 1
Tacoma .......... 010 200 30x—6 7 2
Frick and Winter; Fortier, Clary (3), Johnson (6) and Gardner.

VICTORIA, July 27—Jim Propst won his won his tenth game since late May and held the Salem Senators to five hits in a 14-1 crushing by the Victoria Athletics.
It was the tenth game in a row he has gone the distance and the 12th time in 15 games he has finished. He won eight of those ten games.
Propst has pitched 113 1-3 innings in 16 appearances, including one in relief, and has given up 102 hits, good for 48 runs, 44 earned. He has given up 87 walks and struck out 119, second-best in the lead behind Bremerton's John Marshall.
A pair of singles sandwiches around one of his eight robbed him of a shutout in the third inning.
His teammates battered Salem pitching for 21 hits. They took the lead in the second when Bob Day singled in the first two runs and kept adding to the margin, leaving 16 on base along the way.
Charlie Balassi had a double and two singles to raise his batting average to .355, John Hack and Len Noren had three hits each and every Victoria batter had at least one rap.
Salem ....... 001 000 000— 1 5 6
Victoria .... 021 323 03x—14 21 1
R. Drilling, Osborne (5), Hedington (7) and Beard; Propst and Day.

Seals Promise Bears Aid In Quest of W.I.L. Flag
VANCOUVER, July 27—Here is bad news for Western International League baseball clubs.
Dewey Soriano, president of the Yakima Bears, current league leaders, said in an interview, his club could ask for and get any player on the San Francisco Seals' roster, except Pitcher Con Dempsey, who is being groomed for the big wheel.
The Seals own 50 per cent stock in the Yakima club and intend to see the Bears win the pennant this year no matter what the cost, he said.
EVEN MELTON, BREWER
“There is not much chance of us folding,” Soriano said. “At the first sign of a slump, we can have Cliff Melton or Jack Brewer to help our pitching.” Melton is a veteran who was one of the New York Giants' big winners a few years ago. Brewer is one of the Coast League's most consistent winners.
“With the Seals aid in players we have already broken a Yakima record for attendance, drawing over 90,000 fans.”
In regard to his team, Joe Orengo, club manager, thinks Lloyd Dickey is one of the best pitching prospects he has ever seen. The Seals own Dickey's contract.
However, the Bears own Dick Briskey outright who they think will bring in a straight sale.
“Briskey is the most improved player in the league right now,” Orengo said. “He is hitting .339 and is doing everything out there at shortstop. Dick has 75 R.B.I.'s to show for it.”
The Bears regard Vancouver Caps, who are in second place in the standings, as the biggest hurdle.
“I don't figure Spokane as a threat," Orengo added. “They are a team built on old men. They haven't got that hustle that Yakima or Vancouver have.”

$15,000 Win Buy Cap Keystone Ace
VANCOUVER, July 27—Second baseman Len Tran of the Vancouver Capilanos has a $15,000 price tag on him.
Bob Brown, veteran general manager of the Western International League entry, predicted the 23-year-old hustle “won't be with us next season, he's going up and might not stop until he gets to the big wheel.”
To purchase Tran a club would have to complete the deal before September 15, when his name will go on the draft list.