Season Ticket Baseball Showdown

Four managers came together for a face-to-face Season Ticket showdown, bringing teams chosen from the six clubs in the STB catalogue which won 100 games without making the postseason. A double round-robin FTF tournament with no playoffs - winner takes all!

1919 NL - Games of Tuesday, 17 June

Cubs 4, Giants 3: Chicago scored once in the 8th to tie, and once in the bottom of the 9th to beat the League leaders in front of a jubilant home crowd. After Larry Doyle had homered (3) off of Pete Alexander in the 2nd to put the Giants ahead, the Cubs jumped into the lead with a pair of runs in the home half of the 3rd. After a walk and a sacrifice, Max Flack singled home the tying run, and then Doyle fumbled Charlie Pick's ground ball for an error. After Red Causey got a fly out for the second out, Fred Merkle grounded a single into center field to score Flack and put the home side on top. The pitchers then pulled themselves on top of the game for stretch, aided a bit by reckless base running (two two-out CS) by the Giants and a fine defensive play in the top of the 7th when, with the bases loaded, Alexander fielded a ground ball off the bat of League-leading batter Lew McCarty and and flung it home to force Benny Kauff. Alexander then whiffed pinch-hitter George Kelly on a called third strike to put an end to the NY threat. In the next inning, however, the Gothams did get to Old Pete - Ross Youngs reached on Pete Kilduff's one-out error, and then the next two Giants singled to fill the sacks to bulging. Kauff then struck a two-bagger that scored two of the runners before Doyle was thrown at the plate attempting to clear the bases. Now faced with a deficit, Chicago got to work straightaway. Less Mann hit a leadoff single, moved up on a ground ball, and came around to score and tie the game on Dode Paskert's base hit. New York got two hits in the top of the 9th, but Alexander fanned a pair to keep them tied down. In the bottom of the inning, Kilduff worked a walk from Pat Ragan (1-1) and then Bob O'Farrell laid down a sacrifice bunt. McCarty fielded it in front of the plate and fired to second, but Kilduff beat the throw by an eyelash. PH Turner Barber bunted again, and that moved Kilduff to third where Flack picked him up with a fly ball to left that gave George Burns little chance to throw home in time to prevent the walk-off win by the Cubs. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Monday, 16 June

Pirates 2, Phillies 1: Walter Schmidt and Casey Stengel singled in 3rd-inning runs and Babe Adams made sure those were sufficient for Chicago to nick Philadelphia at Forbes Field. Adams (7-2) shut the Phillies down on just one hit over the first six innings, a two-out single by Irish Meusel in the 4th, but allowed a solo homer to Gavy Cravath (his circuit-pacing 9th) in the 8th and then had to pitch around a one-out Doug Baird single in the 9th to finish off his thirty-batter work of art. Frank Woodward (0-7) suffered the tough loss despite allowing only six hits, and Schmidt's two hits were the most on either club. [box]

1919 NL - Pitching Leaders through 15 June

Pitching leaderboards in the National League through the games of Sunday, 15 June . . .

1919 NL - Batting Leaders through 15 June

Offensive statistical Leaders in the National League through the games of Sunday, 15 June . . .

1919 NL Players of the Week - 15 June

The Batter and Pitcher of the Week in the National League during the week of 9-15 June are (boldface denotes a League-leading total) . . .

1919 NL - Games of Sunday, 15 June

Robins 5, Cardinals 0: Leon Cadore allowed only two St Louis singles and retired twenty-one straight men on his way to an easy win in front of the Cardinal crowd. Brooklyn pounded out thirteen hits (all singles as well), four of which came in succession to start the 4th inning and score the first two runs of the ballgame. One more in the 8th, and two in the 9th, provided some padding but none of that was going to be necessary with Cadore (5-3) whipping through the Cards like a blackjack dealer. He allowed a 1st-inning knock to Milt Stock, and STL didn't record another safe hit until Doc Lavan singled with two outs in the 8th. He walked no one, while fanning five and faced just thirty men on the afternoon. Jimmy Johnston drove in two runs for the Robins with a pair of hits. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Saturday, 14 June

Giants 7, Cubs 0: Fred Toney throttled the Chicago Nationals on three singles and New York hitters teed off on League ERA leader Hippo Vaughn for thirteen hits in an easy Giant win at Weeghman Park. In what was was billed as a rematch of their legendary double no-hit matchup two seasons ago, Vaughn never really got to grips with the Giant offense. The visitors left runners in scoring position in each of the first two innings and then started the 3rd with three straight singles, and Larry Doyle's sac fly then opened the scoring. The Cubs got their first hit of the game when Max Flack led off the 4th with a single, but was almost immediately erased attempting to steal his way into scoring position. In the 5th, NY again touched Vaughn (6-6) for three straight base hits to begin the inning, and this time the Giants turned them into a crooked number - the third hit, from Benny Kauff, scored a run, Art Fletcher hit a sacrifice fly, and Lew McCarty tripled across a third to make it a 4-0 game. The Cubs got another single in the 7th, and a second from Flack in the 9th, but didn't come close to scoring against Toney (2-2) on either occasion while the Giants were padding their lead with three more runs in the late innings while the Cubs fell to pieces (three errors in the final three innings). [box] [broadcast]

1919 NL - Games of Friday, 13 June

Reds 9, Giants 4: Heinie Groh singled, tripled and drove in three to lead Cincinnati to a big win that salvaged the final game of their table-topping series with New York and pulled them back to within a game of first place. Things were not looking good for Cincinnati in the early going, as the Giants scored four times on five base hits in the first three innings off of Slim Sallee, George Burns scoring twice and Benny Kauff driving in two. But Sallee stopped the flow of runs after that, and the Reds began to claw their way back into the game. In the 5th a leadoff walk to Ivey Wingo set the table for RBI singles by Morrie Rath and Groh, and then the visitors fell apart in the 6th. A hit batsman and three Giant errors contributed to a four-run inning that gave Cincinnati the lead, and then three walks, another error, and Groh's two-run triple in the 9th put the game on ice. Jimmy Ring came on to relieve Sallee (5-1) in the 7th and pitched three scoreless innings to close out the game without heartburn for Pat Moran. [box]

1919 NL - Games of Thursday, 12 June

Pirates 10, Robins 2: Carson Bigbee had four hits and drove home four runs to lead a sixteen-hit Pittsburgh attack that overwhelmed Brooklyn at Forbes Field. The Pirates led 6-1 after four innings, with Bigbee already having a single, double, stolen base and RBI in his account; a three-run 8th inning in which he singled home two runs then put the game way beyond Brooklyn's reach. Frank Miller (4-2) used this support to good effect, allowing just single runs in the 4th and the 9th and walking no one while striking out three Robins. Bigbee was supported by three hits each from Casey Stengel and Walter Schmidt, and the Pirates also put on a fine display of scientific baseball, stealing three bases along with three successful sacrifices. [box]