Week 1 Summary

While the week one games constitute a small sample size, it would be accurate to say things got off with a bang. There were five instances where players hit two homeruns in a game, four occurrences of players hitting back-to-back homeruns, two different players had six RBI games and another had a seven-RBI game. Both leagues are exceeding their expected batting average by 30 points, and both ERA's are up over 3/4 of a run. The Yankees are hitting .373 as a team but were the last team to hit a homerun (in their sixth game of the season). While I do expect this will level out as the season progresses, the offense has been the name of the game so far.

Birdie Tebbetts

Thanks to two extra-inning victories Cleveland leads the AL by percentage points over Chicago and Philadelphia, and the two favorites, New York and Boston, are right on their heels. Detroit has the worst ERA by far, but still came away with two wins for the week and sits in sixth place. St. Louis and Washington are already lagging behind as these two teams simply can't match the offensive firepower that has been on display so far, so, for now, the Browns and the Senators are waiting for the league to come back to them.

In the NL, St. Louis is on top without a loss, and the Cubs are on the bottom without a win. The Cardinals had to go to extra innings two times against the Cubs though. In between is everybody else huddled around the .500 mark. It's going to be a long year for both leagues

After only one week I am going to bypass posting information on league leaders. Suffice it to say that each league has a dozen .400 or better hitters and another dozen with two doubles so I will let that build for a few weeks yet. There are some performances worth mentioning though:

Al Gettel

Boston Red Sox catcher Birdie Tebbetts is leading the AL in hitting (.600), homeruns (tied with two others at three) and in RBI's (12)

Cincinnati Reds left fielder Hank Sauer leads the NL in homeruns (5) and RBI's (13)

Chicago (AL) pitcher Al Gettel has two starts, both complete-game wins, sparking the White Sox in the early season. However, Gettel has allowed 22 hits and seven walks in those eighteen innings. Fortunately for Gettel, only five of those runners have scored.

In short, the first week of 1949 has played like it was 1930 all over again. Both leagues are hitting over .290, exceeding the given batting average by 30 points. Correspondingly, league ERA's are over 3/4 of a run as well. Homerun totals in the NL are through the roof, and if the Yankees hadn't of waited until the final day of the week to hit their first homerun then the homerun numbers in the AL would be much higher as well. Further, if this should persist, I will likely run out of relief appearances by August.

Hank Sauer

The walk and strikeout totals are actually pretty good. This is the re-issued 1949 player disk, and, at least so far, the changes the game company made here appear to be within reason. I am going to have to pay attention to the usual things I can control - Complete games and saves for pitchers, sacrifice hits and stolen base attempts for batters. I am in a bit of a hole here already, but the watchword here is "It's early." All of these numbers really should level out as the season progresses, which is why we play the game.