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| Legends of Cooperstown News |
| February 7, 2002 |
| LOC National League race becoming tightly bunched at the top |
| John Wolfmeyer's Riverbats hold fast to the top of the WLOC AL |
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| 2 Blockbuster trades in set 4, as teams manuever before the break |
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| Ferguson Jenkins is the only pitcher with over 3,000 strikeouts, but fewer than 1,000 walks in his career. Fergie finished up with 3,192 K's while allowing only 997 bases on balls |
| Little known 19th century Hall of Famer Mickey Welch is the only pitcher to ever strike out the first 9 batters he faced in a game. He did it on August 28, 1884 for his New York Giants vs the Cleveland Spiders. |
| Ralph Kiner is the only Major Leaguer to hit home runs in 3 straight All-Star Games, in the 1949, 50 and 51 mid-season classics. On top of that, he also is the only player to lead his league in home runs 7 straight years, 1946-52 while playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. |
| Only one man has won the big 3 awards during his career, Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player and Cy Young...and amazing he's not in the Hall of Fame. Don Newcombe of the Dodgers is the only man to win all 3 awards, Rookie of the year in 1949, Cy Young and MVP in 1956. |
| The only member of the Hall of Fame to play in 2 perfect games is Reggie Jackson. He was with Oakland when Catfish Hunter threw his perfect game against the Twins on May 8, 1968 and he was with the Angels when Mike Witt accomplished the feat vs the Rangers 9/30/84. |
| In the first of 2 important set 4 trades, the Virginia Generals and Newark Eagles pulled off a stunning blockbuster. Virginia sent number 1 draft pick and NL All-Star Joe Dimaggio and HOF P Vic Harris to Newark in exchange for their number 1 draft pick and AL All-Star Mickey Mantle and ace left-handed pitcher Sandy Koufax. The deal is hoped by both team's general managers to jump start them to second half of the season playoff runs. Another trade, this one not involving any Hall of Fame players, but including top 1967 talent, the Cleveland Spiders traded disgruntled pitcher and top 1967 draft choice Jim Lonborg and embattled closer Minnie Rojas to Kansas City for pitcher Sonny Siebert and shortstop Rico Petrocelli. Lonborg has been under the gun in Cleveland, due in part to not living up to his 1967 Cy Young billing with a 2-9 record overall for the Spiders. Be sure and read the official Cleveland Spiders press release surrounding the deal. |
| The red-hot St. Louis Perfectos, led by the bats of Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie and Ernie Banks have forged a tie at the top of the LOC National League with the KC Monarchs. The team has picked up for new owner John Bonno where they left off in set 3, and they have risen from near the cellar of the NL in the last 2 sets to the top of the league. Speaker and Lajoie are 2-3 in hitting at .353 and .336 respectively and they trail just behind Brooklyn's Rogers Hornsby who is at .354. Banks leads the NL in RBI with 87 and is tied for 4th in HR with 24. Virginia Generals' slugger Hank Greenberg has risen to tie for the league lead in HR (28) with Hornsby, just ahead of Kentucky's Jimmie Foxx (25). Greenberg is also in the top 5 in several other offensive categories for Chuck Sutton's team, including RBI (73), Runs Scored (62) and slugging percentage (.646). Kansas City's Cool Papa Bell has begun to lap the field in Stolen Bases, as his league leading 34 is more than double the next highest (16), by 4 players. Gary Peters leads the NL in wins with 11, while his teammate Phil Ortega leads with 11 losses for Jeff Lomerson's Mountaintop Wallbangers. Four other pitchers have 10 wins in the NL, including KC's Hilton Smith and Satchel Paige, New York Giant Pete Alexander and Mountaintop's Leon Day. Scranton's Addie Joss continues to lead the league in ERA at 2.63, well ahead of Paige (3.08) and Kentucky's Chris Short (3.09). Ron Perranoski has 17 saves to lead the NL for Dan Spellacy's Trolley Dodgers, while Steve Felson's New York Giant's hurler Nolan Ryan leads the league in strikeouts with 124 walks with 100. |
| Super job on set 4 guys, as we finished in record time. With the holidays over, the sets are shorter so we can finish up before Summer Leagues fire up, and we got through the set with no problem. The pennant races are tighter than ever and teams are beginning to make moves and manuever for playoff runs in the second half of the season. 16 teams are ready to begin the Summer LOC draft next week and it's looking like the league will be a lot of fun. The format is similar to the WLOC, but with more of an international flavor, as there are franchises from Cuba and Latin America, all the way to Glasgow, Scotland, Moscow, Russia and Chunichi, Japan. I'm especially looking forward to using the new HOFers Ozzie, Maz and Winfield as well as seeing how the historical Japanese League players do. I'm working on a Latino set as well and will have that finished shortly. I'd like to see the WLOC integrate the Latino all-time greats and the J-Ballers as well next season, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Anyone wishing to get on the waiting list for the SLOC, e-mail me at [email protected] or Josh Raup at [email protected]. If you'd like a copy of the Japanese League All-Stars so you can evaluate them yourself, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy. Set 5 will be the last set this season played by the Visiting team versus the Home team's computer manager. Trades made now will take effect for set 6. Also, be aware that the league trading deadline for players to be eligible for the playoffs is just over the horizon at the beginning of set 7. Keep up the great work and keep having fun! Phil |
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| The Missouri Riverbats held firm atop the Legends of Cooperstown American League standings, maintaining a 3 game lead over the rest of the field. John Wolfmeyer's team sports 2 AL statistical category leaders, including Ty Cobb's .361 batting average and John Clarkson's league most 11 wins. After Cobb and Clarkson though, it has been primarily a team effort as no other Riverbat leads any other offensive or pitching category, yet the team leads the American League in team batting average at .282 and is third in the league with an overall 3.87 team ERA. Chicago's Eddie Mathews continues his torrid season. Colts owner Greg Domsten is obviously quite happy with Mathew's league leading numbers in HR (33), RBI (82), Slugging Percentage (.703) and Runs Scored (70), to go along with an impressive .327 batting average, which is 7th in the AL. Tim Daniels' Boston Americans have rallied into second place in the league, led in part by a recent hot streak by league overall number 1 draft pick Babe Ruth. The Babe has risen to second in the AL in HR with 24 and 6th in RBI with 53 and he has helped move the team into contention. Rochester's Ross Youngs had a torrid 4th set, which saw him raise his average to .343, second to Cobb and just ahead of the the New York Yankee's Rod Carew who's at .342. Washington's Don Drysdale and the Yankee's Lefty Grove are second to Clarkson in wins with 10 each, while Drysdale is second in the league with a 2.46 ERA, trailing Newark's Gary Nolan (2.00). The Eagles' Dizzy Dean leads the league in Games Finished with 31, but has been overtaken as Saves leader by Washington's Rollie Fingers, who now has 18. Be sure to check out the excellent Set 4 series' recaps by Tim Daniels for his Boston Americans, Josh Raup for his Cleveland Spiders and Mike Rivet for his Newark Eagles. |
| Unhappy Lonborg now a Kansas City Monarch |
| Virginia General slugger 'Hammerin' Hank Greenberg |
| Pittsburgh's great Hall of Fame slugger Ralph Kiner |
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| Number 1 pick Dimaggio traded from Virginia for number 1 pick Mantle |
| Summer Legends of Cooperstown League Draft to begin February 13th |
| The Summer Legends of Cooperstown League has it's 16 franchises in place and is set to hold their inaugural draft on Wednesday, February 13th. The overall number 1 pick belongs to Mike Rivet's Moscow Red Devils and it is rumored that management is already planning ways to entice Babe Ruth to come to the Russian based baseball club. The SLOC features the same HOF 2000 set players, the hand created Negro League players and a past season...this year it is 1941...as it's counterpart league the WLOC, but there is an added new international twist. The league is welcoming in a team of 24 past Japanese League greats, led by all-time home run king Saduharu Oh. The SLOC also plans on inducting it's own Hall of Famers permanently into the set on a yearly basis and held it's first HOF induction voting, but no single player garnered the 75% vote block that is required to be admitted. The league also is welcoming new MLB HOF inductees Ozzie Smith, Dave Winfield and Bill Mazeroski permanently into the HOF set as well this year and plans to create cards for any new HOFers that are inducted into Cooperstown each year. You can still get on the waiting list for either league by e-mailing the SLOC Commissioner Josh Raup or the WLOC Commissioner Phil Trygar for consideration. |
| Missouri's John Clarkson |
| Did you Know? |
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| Special All-Star Game Issue |
| Nationals dominate Americans in first ever WLOC All-Star Game, 7-3 |
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| Satchel Paige tossed 3 shutout innings and KC teammate Cool Papa Bell and Mountaintop's Mike Schmidt both homered, in leading the National League past the American League, 7-3 in the first Winter Legends of Cooperstown All-Star Game, held at Ebbet's Field in Brooklyn. The NL jumped out early in the first inning, when Bell walked and stole 2nd. The Dodgers' Rogers Hornsby moved him to 3rd with a ground out, where Mountaintop's Ted Williams delivered him with a sacrifice fly. The NL moved further ahead to 3-0 after 4 innings and broke the game open with 3 more in the 5th, highlighted by Bell's and Schmidt's home runs. The AL tried to rally back in the 7th, when they scored 3 runs, 2 of which were unearned. Boston's Babe Ruth and Chicago's Lou Gehrig delivered RBI hits and Ruth's teammate Ed Delahanty drove in the final run of the game with a sacrifice fly. |
| New York Yankee Bob Gibson took the loss for the American League, allowing 1 run on 1 hit in 2 innings, but he was hurt by 3 bases on balls. 43,507 home town fans roared their approval when Brooklyn's Ron Perranoski picked up the save by working a 1-2-3 9th inning with 2 strikeouts. Paige was awarded a Cessna T-41A airplane for his efforts in winning All-Star Game MVP. Brooklyn's Rogers Hornsby and Chicago's Eddie Mathews tied for most votes in the balloting, both with exactly 2,426,950 votes. Next year's All-Star game will be held at Boston's Fenway Park as the American League will surely hope to rebound from their effort this year and being in front of American League fans in Boston will surely help. 2001 WLOC All-Star Game box score |
| The Starting Lineups, as voted on by the fans. |
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| Rochester's Earl Averill chipped in with 2 hits for the AL |
| American League C-Bill Freehan-Chicago Colts 1B-Lou Gehrig-Chicago Colts 2B-Joe Morgan-Washington Senators 3B-Eddie Mathews-Chicago Colts SS-Honus Wagner-Missouri Riverbats LF-Al Simmons-Rochester Live Oaks CF-Earl Averill-Rochester Live Oaks RF-Babe Ruth-Boston Americans SP-Bob Gibson-New York Yankees |
| National League C-Josh Gibson-New York Giants 1B-Hank Greenberg-Virginia Generals 2B-Rogers Hornsby-Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers 3B-Jimmie Foxx-Kentucky Eclipse SS-Ernie Banks-St. Louis Perfectos LF-Ted Williams-Mountaintop Wallbangers CF-Cool Papa Bell-Kansas City Monarchs RF-Paul Waner-Kansas City Monarchs SP-Satchel Paige-Kansas City Monarchs |
| Here comes Saduharu Oh and his Travelling All Stars and Motor Kings |
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