Showing posts with label Lee Mohr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lee Mohr. Show all posts

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Thursday, August 21, 1947

WESTERN INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE
STANDINGS after Thursday's games
              W  L Pct. GB
Spokane .... 77 57 .575 --
Bremerton .. 76 57 .571 --
Victoria ... 75 60 .556 2½
Salem ...... 71 58 .550 3½
Vancouver .. 70 62 .530 6
Tacoma ..... 63 69 .477 13
Yakima ..... 52 80 . 394 24
Wenatchee .. 45 86 .344 30½


A's Nab Wild Battle
VANCOUVER, Aug. 21 — Victoria's hard-hitting Athletics smashed out 19 safe blows and combined them with five Capilano errors here tonight to down the Vancouver Western League entry, 13-12, in the first of a four-game series.
If was the fourth win in five starts for the A's against the Caps.
In a wild game which saw Victoria twice come from behind after taking an early lead to snatch victory. Vic Mastro, Pat Patterson, John Hooper and Bill White led the winning attack.
Mastro lined out two home runs and a single and batted in four runs, Patterson figured in every rally with four hits, including a double, White picked up two triples and drove three runners across while Hooper hatted in three runs with as many singles.
Athletics found the offerings of starting hurler Bob Snyder to their liking. He pitched four balls before the score mounted to 3-0. Patterson singled on the first offering, Hooper followed suit, only to be out at second trying for a double. Bill White tripled and Mastro homered on the next two Snyder deliveries.
Vancouver came back in their half with four tallies to take a short-lived lead, but Patterson againt started the visitors rolling in the second by singling and tearing in all the way from first on Hooper's hit. White got his second triple and Mastro singled him over.
Bob Jensen went to the showers in the fourth inning when two walks and a single loaded the bags and Frank Mullens poled one of his Capilanos Stadium specials over the right field wall — a scant 270-feet away!
Jim Arnold relieved and was reached for the third four-run rally by the Caps in the seventh after Victoria had tied it up in the sixth when Hooper's hit scored Arnold and Patterson, who had walked and doubled.
Down but not out, the A's came back in the eighth with a five-run uprising. Mastro's home run with two out tied the count as 12-12. Jack Harshman singled and all hands were safe when Buddy Hjelmaa booted Babe Jensen's grounder. John Cavalli's single plated the winning run.
Victoria ............ 330 002 050—13 19 0
Vancouver ........ 400 400 400—12 10 5
R. Jensen, Arnold (4) and Mastro; Snyder, Robertson (2), Hedgecock (8) and Stumpf.

WENATCHEE, Aug 21 — The Spokane Indians maintained a half-game lead over the rest of the Western International League on Thursday by doubling the Wenatchee Chiefs, 8-4.
Spokane pushed over four runs in the opening inning on three singles and George Schmees' triple, then sewed up the game with Jack Phillips' homer in the third and consecutive four-basers by Bud Hicks and Bob Morgan with two out in the ninth.
Steve Andrade tripled and singled to drive in three Wenatchee tallies and scored the fourth himself.
Spokane ........... 401 000 102—8 13 0
Wenatchee ....... 000 030 100—4 10 0
Werbowski and Bufflap; Vivalda, Waltho (9) and Winter.

BREMERTON, Aug. 21 — Eddie Murphy's home run after Jimmy Estrada's double broke a 3-3 tie in the ninth inning, enabling Bremerton Bluejackets to down Tacoma, 5-3, in a Western International League game here tonight.
Tacoma ............. 030 000 000—3 9 0
Bremerton .......... 200 010 002—5 10 0
Walden and Kuper; Marshall and Volpi.

YAKIMA, Aug. 21 — Yakima Stars had two four-innings, the fifth and the seventh, in turning back Salem Senators, 11-4, tonight in a Western International League match.
Hank Robinson, with five singles in six trips to the plate, was the big gun in the victors' 15-hit attack. Salem, although garnering 11 base blows, could only manufacture four tallies, half of them driven in by Bob Moore, a former Yakima player.
Salem ............... 002 000 101— 4 11 1
Yakima ............. 301 040 41x—13 15 1
Sporer, Laroy (2), Wilson (6) and Beard, Mosler (8); Ward and Phillips.

Mohr Sorry
VANCOUVER, Aug. 22 — Lee Mohr, the second-baseman whose almost assured call-up to Seattle was suddenly cancelled, has told Vancouver Capilanos General Manager Bob Brown he is sorry he jumped the club after Tuesday's double-header.
He is still in Vancouver, and it remains a question whether Brown will accept the apology and allow him to return.
The Capilanos have obtained Cy Stevens, who batted 0 for 5 tonight, and was charged with an error in seven put-out chances. He had one assist.

Mohr’s Side Has Points To It, Too
By DON CARLSON

[Vancouver Sun Sports Editor, Aug. 22, 1947]
When Lee Mohr, the ex-Marine who plays second base for the Caps “jumped” the club in Victoria Thursday, he committed the supreme faux pas of baseballdom, according to the rules. But before he’s crucified for “disloyalty” to Vancouver, let his side of the affair be heard.
For Mohr, by his act, may stand today at a crossroads of his ball career. By missing Thursday’s game in Victoria, he sinned more grievously, according to baseball’s one-way code, than the clergyman who puffed a Lucky in the pulpit or the plumber who fixed a wall plug.
Let no tears be shed for his owners, the Seattle Rainiers, whose “rights” are protected by the rules which the baseball moguls have conceived for the preservation of “law and order” in the game and which tie up their chattels tighter than Jane Russell’s bodice.
If sympathy is in order in l’affaire Mohr, it seems to this writer it should be given to Mohr himself, who, like the other hired hands in organized ball, became shorn of the kind of bargaining rights most working men guard with burning zeal the moment he signed a Seattle contract last spring.
Mohr came to Vancouver armed with verbal promises from Seattle’s general manager Earl Sheely and manager Jo Jo White that he was on 24-hour recall, and would be brought back to the triple A club instantly [if] injuries occurred in the Rainiers’ roster.
A Tough Lesson
Within the past month Seattle reached the point where its “old men” began hobbling about like the star exhibits at Mayo Bros. But did they remember that springtime promise? No, sir. Instead, they went outside their own organization and bought replacements from other clubs.
Lee Mohr learned a tough lesson from that one. A promise in business—especially baseball—is hardly a promise if it isn’t written down, witnessed, and smeared with the great seal of the high commissioner himself.
Now, where does Mohr find himself? Because baseball is organized as it is, he can’t quit and find himself a job with another boss in the same Coast League. By kicking his heels up here Thursday, he faces a fine and suspension.
But if Seattle wants to fire him this very moment, they can, summarily, and he’s through.
I am not daring to question the soundness of this remarkable piece of baseball logic, which has always seemed to me to be strongly reminiscent of the prevailing laws in that old English era when moppets toiled in the coal mines.
But I am daring to answer criticism of Mohr for what has been described as a “traitorous act” to the Caps in their “pennant drive.”
At 26, Mohr has got to cut corners if he wants to go up in baseball. Some critics don’t think he is triple A calibre. He’s told me thinks he is. That should entitle him to a fairer trial than Seattle gave him in seven games this spring.
Dramatic Fate
Of course, somewhere off-stage, the gentle hands of the Caps’ Robert P. Brown seem to be twirling their thumbs. It wouldn’t be too much of an educated guess to assume that Bob, without a single infield replacement, came up with a ringing, hands-off plea to Sheely last week when the scouts got word that Mohr was going back up.
Brown’s plight, of course, was not Mohr’s fault—but it seems to have been his nemesis.
Mohr’s blow-up has been a dramatic example of the fate to which minor leaguers commit themselves when they sign on the dotted.
And since we can’t change the rules, let’s hold back the razzberries for a boy who’s trying to get ahead in the biggest organized jungle since Barnam.

Wednesday, August 20, 1947

WESTERN INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE STANDINGS
after games of Wednesday
              W  L Pct. GB
Spokane .... 76 57 .571 --
Bremerton .. 75 57 .568 ½
Salem ...... 71 57 .555 2½
Victoria ... 74 60 .552 2½
Vancouver .. 70 61 .534 5
Tacoma ..... 63 68 .471 12
Yakima ..... 51 80 .389 24
Wentchee ... 45 85 .346 29½


BREMERTON, Wash., Aug 20 — The Tacoma Tigers rallies for three runs in the ninth to tie the score then scored twice in the 11th to defeat the Bremerton Bluejackets, 7-5, tonight as former outfielder Dick Greco gained credit for his second mound win by pitching five scoreless innings.
Tacoma ............. 001 001 003 02—7 18 2
Bremerton .......... 200 300 000 00—5 10 2
Chetkovich, Greco (7) and Clifford, Kuper (10); Sullivan, Lowman (9) and Volpi.

VICTORIA, August 20 — A glaring errors by John Cavalli on a force play at second base for the third out opened the door as Vancouver went on to score seven times in the fifth inning, en route to a 12-7 Western International League win against the Victoria Athletics.
The A's took a 2-0 lead in the first, scored twice in the third and once more in the fourth to take a 5-2 advantage after Bill Brenner's second-inning clout tied the score.
Then came the fifth inning, when five of the seven runs were unearned.
Bill Reese pounded a two-run homer over the centre-field fence in the sixth to give the visitors an 11-5 margin. The blow came off Jim Arnold, who came on in the chaotic fifth to relieve Joe Blankenship, who was charged with his seventh loss in trying for his 13th win
The Athletics thumped Vancouver lefthander Jim Hedgecock for 10 hits, including a home run, a triple and three doubles.
Vancouver ............ 020 072 010—12 16 2
Victoria ................ 202 100 110— 7 10 5
Hedgecock and Brenner, Stumpf (4); Blankenship, Arnold (5), Fortier (7), Kasparovich (8) and Mastro.

SPOKANE, August 20 — Wenatchee Chiefs battled for 12 innings before dropping a 2-1 decision to the Spokane Indians in a thrilling Western International League encounter tonight. The game was decided when a single followed two walks in the third extra frame.
Wenatchee ............ 000 000 100 000—1 4 4
Spokane ................ 000 100 000 001—2 12 1
Day, Frost (6), Dalrymple; Miller, Kramer (9) O'Neill, Bufflap (9).

SALEM, August 20 — The Yakima Stars, now managed by Spencer Harris, and going nowhere in particular, fought as if the pennant were at stake to gain an even split with the Salem Senators tonight. They lost the first game of a twin-bill by a 4-3 count, but came back to best Ken Wyatt , 4-1, in the second fixture.
First game:
Yakima .............. 001 020 0—3 5 1
Salem ................ 010 200 1—4 6 0
Simon and Phillips; Anderson and Beard.
Second game:
Yakima ............ 120 000 001—4 9 0
Salem .............. 001 000 000—1 8 1
Romple, Nowels (4) and Phillips; Wyatt, Peterson (8) and Mohler.

Dick Gyselman Goes Back To Seattle Rainiers Again
SAN DIEGO, August 19—Sale of Dick Gyselman, veteran Pacific Coast League infielder, to the Seattle Rainiers on a straight cash deal, was announced Tuesday by Bill Starr, president of the San Diego Padres.
Amount of the sale was not disclosed.
The third baseman came to the Padres from Seattle in 1945 after playing with the Rainiers from 1935 though 1944. He broke into organized baseball in Tucson, Ariz., in 1931.

Mohr Faces Baseball Law
Cap Deserter May Be Suspended Or Fined; Feels He Got Raw Deal
By KEITH MATTHEWS
[Vancouver Sun, August 21, 1947]
Lee Mohr has deserted the Capilano baseball club and he now faces the stern hand of baseball law for his sentence.
Mohr left the team yesterday afternoon in Victoria after demanding his release from Earl Sheely in Seattle. His reason was that he thought he was given a left handed shake in the deal which almost took him to Seattle as the Rainier’s infield insurance.
Mohr’s graduation had been rumored since Monday and he had been set to leave the Caps on minute notice from Seattle. Then yesterday the Suds purchased veteran infielder Dick Gyselman to fill the hole in their infield.
As far as Seattle was concerned there was no need to call on Mohr and deprive their farm club, the Capilanos, of a sorely needed second baseman.
But for Mohr this incident has not been closed. He was carrying a Seattlepaper in his hand, the one which told the story of Gyselman’s purchase, yesterday afternoon. He was very, very angry.
Only Thought—To Get Release
He wired business manager Sheely of the Rainiers requesting his release. And after the wire had been sent he went to Capilano business manager Bob Brown’s hotel room to inquire further into the matter and to inform Brown of his decision to leave the club.
The combined efforts of Brown and manager Bill Brenner could not sway Mohr, whose only thought by now was some way to get out of the Seattle chain.
So today Mohr faces a stiff suspension and fine for his club jumping. He could be kept inactive by suspension the rest of this year and put on the “inactive” list next season.
There are, of course, two sides to the story. Mohr’s attitude was that of deep disappointment at not having his chance to show his stuff in Seattle. That the Rainiers should turn around and purchase Gyselman, a 40-year-old veteran, rather than give the young Mohr a chance, hurt Lee deeply.
Finances entered into it, too. With Seattle Mohr naturally assumed he would make more money, but in the long run he would have lost that by making a change in uniforms. There was a bonus in line for Mohr at the end of the WIL season for being a first division club, which the Caps should wind up. And Lee would have had his whirl with the Rainiers after the Capilanos had finished play.
Wins Sympathy of Teammates
Mohr blamed Earl Sheely entirely for the delay on his promotion to Seattle. Actually, though, the Gyselman deal had been brewing for two weeks. If Seattle had not completed the purchase by yesterday morning, Mohr would have been flown to the Sound City and would have been in Jo-Jo White’s line-up last night.
There is no resentment among Mohr’s Capilano teammates. Some openly sympathized with him, intimating that under the circumstances they would have done the same thing. Others were disappointed that Lee should up and leave when the Caps were in the thick of a pennant squabble. And there were a few who thought the team would benefit in the long run from his departure.
Phones from Victoria to Seattle were hot yesterday. Earl Sheely, contacted by Bob Brown, said that he would be waiting for Mohr when he arrived in Seattle and spoke as if he was getting ready to deal out stiff punishment.
Meanwhile Bob Brown has signed a replacement for Mohr. The new second baseman is Cy Stevens, a young semi-pro player from Seattle, who comes here on high recommendation from Buddy Hjelmaa and Len Tran. Stevens will be in the lineup tonight when the Caps open at home against Victoria.

Capilanos Jolted When Infielder Jumps Club
VICTORIA, August 20 — Vancouver Capilanos received a rude jolt Wednesday night when it was learned that Leon Mohr, their regular second baseman, had jumped the club and left for parts unknown.
Mohr, batting .327, was believed to have been considerably upset after learning that Seattle Rainiers had obtained Dick Gyselman from San Diego to bolster their infield and that he would have to finish the season with the Caps instead of being recalled by the Coast league as he had hoped.
Club officials said Wednesday night that Mohr had been suspended pending further developments.
His loss is a serious one to the Caps, still holding a good chance to cop the Western International league flag.
Vancouver General Manager Bob Brown announced that Cy Stevens, former Captain of the University of Washington baseball squad, would replace more at second base.
Stevens, who comes recommended by Len Tran and Buddy Hjelmaa of the Caps, played with the Huskies in 1941 and had a chance to go up to Los Angeles of the Coast League. Instead, he wet into the armed service.
Released from the services, Stevens took a business position in Seattle and has been managing a semi-pro ball club this year.

Sports Reel…
[Vancouver News-Herald, Aug. 21, 1947]
Losses suffered by Bob Hall, Carl Gunnarson and Pete Jonas in Victoria Monday and Tuesday broke up a lovely monopoly. Those three hurlers, plus Jim Hedgecock and Bob Snyder, hadn’t lost a game during the Caps’ earlier August uprising that brought them 23 wins in 27 starts. They’d managed 10 wins among the, with Sandy Robertson getting two, and Ron Bryant and Hal Saltzman one each. Saltzman had absorbed two losses, Bryant and Robertson one each.
* * *
In a phone conversation with Jimmy Tang of the Victoria Colonist Monday, the Island sports editor claimed that young Dick Mitchell was probably the best righthander in the W.I.L. right now. Mitchell promptly made an honest man of him by going out and blanking the Capilanos on one hit for his eighth straight triumph. We still like Spokane’s Bob Costello as the best righthander in the loop, though.
* * *
And speaking of the best in the league, the Brownies’ Jim Hedgecock is fast qualifying as the number one southpaw in the loop. You’d probably get an argument, though, from Bremerton, which has Joe Sullivan, Salem, which boasts Wandell Mossor and Ken Wyatt, and Yakima, whose John Cordell has 10 wins and five losses with a seventh place club.