Week 8 Summary

Week 8, one-third of the season, is now completed. The NL games played mark is at the 33% mark, while the AL is just below. If Boston and Cleveland had reached the 50 games played level like the other teams the AL would be there as well. Both leagues feature a lot of teams clumped up in the middle with no one really able to break out and seriously challenge the teams sitting in first place. There has been a lot of player movement over the past two weeks and more is in the queue for this upcoming week, so teams are still adjusting their rosters to try and find a way to move up the standings.

Eddie Robinson

St. Louis has displayed a combination of hitting, pitching, and defense that has kept them safely on top of the NL for the past month. They aren't unbeatable, but they are every bit as tenacious as the teams behind them. Boston and New York are currently tied for second place. They both like to go on mini-winning streaks, only to immediately fall back afterward Two steps forward and one step back. Philadelphia was in second place just a few days ago but then went on a four-game losing streak. They sit in fourth place and have Brooklyn in their rearview mirror. Brooklyn is now safely ensconced in fifth place having won seven of their last ten, but it might be more accurate to say that Pittsburgh passed Brooklyn while going the other direction. In the past two weeks, Pittsburgh has gone 1-12 as their hitting, pitching, and defense have all collapsed. The front office is shuffling players trying to find a winning combination and it is safe to assume this losing streak will level off at some point. Cincinnati had a good week, including winning three in a row in Boston, and they would like the Pirates collapse to last a little longer so they can step up into sixth place. Chicago just fired their manager (Charlie Grimm, on his second of three stints as the Cubs manager) and are hoping for better times ahead.

Paul Calvert

Boston is in the middle of another eight-game winning streak and extended their Al lead by 3.0 games over the course of the week. Their shaky pitching has held together, and when in doubt they just pound their opponents offensively. New York seems to have settled their pitching issues and they have been performing much better in recent weeks. Still no word about a certain center fielder returning to the lineup. Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit all play like they are magnetically attracted to each other as none of the three can break away from the others. Philadelphia has enough pitching and hitting to stay out of the second half of the division, but Detroit is likely better, but they just haven’t been able to turn it on. Chicago is in the middle of revamping their lineup as they have been making numerous roster changes (and will continue to do so), but somehow they remain in the middle of this mix. St. Louis had moved several games ahead of Washington, but after some doubleheader sweeps on Sunday the two find themselves tied again.

Stan Musial (.381) stands alone atop the NL batting race, ahead of Harry Walker (.372) and Eddie Waitkus (.367). Ralph Kiner has cooled off from his recent hot streak, but he still leads in runs (49) over Musial (45) and Pee Wee Reese (45) and in RBI's (49) over Jackie Robinson (48) and Del Ennis (46). Musial leads in hits (74), ahead of Waitkus (72) and three others tied at 68. Waitkus also now leads in doubles (18) ahead of teammate Ennis (16) and Marv Rickert (15). Andy Pafko and Kiner both have 15 homeruns, with Hank Sauer right behind with 14. Warren Spahn was the first to ten wins (10-1) but Harry Brecheen (10-1) was right behind.

George Kell (.403) is still batting over .400, but maybe not for much longer as time always gets its way. Ted Williams (.368) and Vic Wertz (.354) follow Kell. Williams leads in runs (56) over Dom DiMaggio and Eddie Joost, both with 50. Vern Stephens has the lead in RBI's (59), just ahead of Williams (57) and Sam Chapman (51). Kell has 17 doubles, having passed Hank Majeski (16) who had led in this category most of the season. Joost (15) is right behind these two. Stephens leads in homeruns (20) over Williams and Tommy Henrich, both with 15. No ten game winners in the AL yet, but Mel Parnell (9-1), Ellis Kinder (9-1) and Eddie Lopat (8-1) aren’t far away.

This week featured a nineteen inning game and two seventeen inning games. There was also a thirteen inning game that featured a triple play, the second triple play of the season. My homeruns are still up, but with several shutouts and the extra-inning games the league batting averages and ERA's have leveled off a bit. Even after 30+ years of APBA, it is still fun to see bad pitchers suddenly become heroes for a game, and then in their next start go right back to being bad.

It is my observation that I am having a lot of errors, but I am still trending to come in slightly below the 1949 totals in errors. I was curious, so when I looked at my 1930 replay results - both leagues in 1949 have more errors than at the same point during the 1930 replay. Of course in my 1930 replay, I finished with 500-600 too few errors (per league!) while in 1949 it looks like I will come in 100-200 too few errors per league. The difference in unearned runs between the two replays at this point of the season is negligible. Maybe it's just because I am in the middle of 1949, but it does seem like the errors are up and are somehow more critical when they do occur, but the numbers don’t really bear that out.