Week 14 Summary

Week 14 is completed and the 1949 Replay marches on. Boston and St. Louis both maintain healthy leads, but lately, cracks have started to appear in their armor. There's a long way to go yet and I do expect things will get tighter before this is done. More than half the teams have reached or passed the 90 games played mark, with the others right behind. Not this coming week, but the week after is the 2/3's mark and all teams will be over the 100 game mark at that point.

Dale Mitchell

Boston had hit a slow spell for a few weeks but got healthy this week by going to St. Louis to pound the Browns. New York continues to play well and had gotten to within 5.5 games of Boston at one point, but they slid backward a little at the end of the week. Cleveland just finished an eight-game winning streak where six of the eight wins were shutouts and they find themselves only one game behind New York. The more these two knock each other about the better it is for Boston. Detroit held their own in a rough series of games versus opponents from the east and is hanging right around the .500 mark. Chicago has climbed to the top of the second division teams as Philadelphia continues to flounder. Washington was in third place a month ago, and now they have slipped all the way down into seventh. St. Louis would like to get out of last place and have their eyes set on Washington's collapse.

St. Louis just lost three games in Brooklyn for the second consecutive time, but maintain a comfortable 9.0 games lead over second place New York. The loss of third baseman Eddie Kazak is more concerning to Cardinals fans. The 28-year-old Kazak wasn’t really a starter at the beginning of the season, but soon played his way into the regular lineup and has been a big contributor to the Cardinals early season success.  New York continues to rely on their starting pitching and homerun hitters, but their defense is shaky at times and they often find ways to lose. Three times in the past month Brooklyn has climbed into a tie for third place, only to fall back and have to start over. This time they finally took sole possession of third place, but it remains to be seen if they can keep it or improve upon it. Boston is still knee deep in the NL race, but injuries and inconsistent pitching have taken a toll. Philadelphia is all alone in fifth place as they have begun to play better. They are lacking enough offensive punch to do much more though. Pittsburgh is all alone in sixth place, and like Philadelphia have settled out from their recent collapse, but it will be hard for them to go anywhere up from here. Cincinnati until recently led Chicago by a handful of games, but that lead had disappeared and the fight to avoid last place is in play again.

Jackie Robinson

In the AL George Kell still leads in hitting (.367) over Luke Appling (.357) and Ted Williams (.346). Vic Wertz leads in hits (129), ahead of Kell (119) and Johnny Pesky (118).  Williams continues to lead in runs (89) and RBI's (97), ahead of Dom DiMaggio (76) and Eddie Joost (75) in runs and leading Vern Stephens (90) and Sam Chapman(75) in RBI's. Kell still has the doubles lead (23), over Hank Majeski and Joost, both with 21. Williams leads in homeruns (30) ahead of Stephens (29) and Tommy Henrich (22). Ellis Kinder (14-2), Mel Parnell (14-5), and Vic Raschi (14-5) lead the pitchers, although there are now nine AL pitchers who have double figures in wins, including three from Detroit.

In the NL Enos Slaughter continues his torrid pace (.406), leading teammates Stan Musial (.359) and Red Schoendienst (.342). It's the same three in hits: Slaughter (134), Musial (127), and Schoendienst (125). Musial has taken over the lead in runs (84), ahead of Ralph Kiner (82) and Schoendienst (77), but Kiner still maintains his lead in RBI's (90), well ahead of Bobby Thomson and Jackie Robinson, both with 73. Del Ennis has the lead in doubles again (28), but there has been plenty of churn behind him as Whitey Lockman (22) is next, just ahead of Eddie Kazak (21) and Granny Hamner (21). Behind them, there are five others with 20 doubles, and then five more with 19. Kiner has the homerun lead (26), ahead of Andy Pafko (21) and Thomson (20). Harry Brecheen (15-3) and Warren Spahn (15-4) lead the NL pitchers, with six other NL pitchers with wins in double figures.

Don Newcombe

I have counted thirteen instances so far where a runner has missed touching third base on their way to scoring a run and is called out on appeal. I am thinking this might have happened twice in my 1930 replay. That's just weird. Also, it is my observation that a lot of base runners are being picked off base by either the pitcher or the catcher. This isn’t counted in the statistics so I don't have any real numbers here, but it has happened enough that it has caught my eye.

Regardless, the replay is proceeding well. Another week and we will be in August. Injuries continue to lay up players, but obviously, this opens the doors for others to step in and get their chance. Using ATMgr relieves me of the necessity of worrying about why this person has so few appearances left or why this person has so many … it all just kind of works out in the end.