W E S T   D I V I S I O N

E A S T   D I V I S I O N

LOUISVILLE COLONELS
Ben DeGrass
95-59  -- GB  (+20)

BROOKLYN SUPERBAS
Glen Reed
108-46  -- GB  (+3)

The Big Bounce (NEW)
Louisville may not have been the most improved team in 1960 -- thanks to Cleveland's 24-game jump -- but the Colonels earned the distinction of performing the biggest "bounce" in UL history.  Following their league championship season in 1958, the Louies run production dropped 158 runs, the second biggest dropoff in league history.  However, in 1960, the Colonels offense cranked up again, posting a 121-run improvement, the best single-season increase ever.  Link that run production to the best pitching staff in franchise history, and you've got yourself a second West Division title in three years.
  
First baseman Bill "Moose" Skowron (.319-24-89) won his fourth straight All-Star Award, joining the elite company of Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Steve Gromek, Carl Erskine, and Gene Conley.

It's a contract year for ace Antonelli, but the lefty fireballer has been a steal at $2 million a year.  Look for the Colonels to double him up to $4 million -- still a deal -- to keep him with the club for another five years.

 

CHICAGO COLTS
Lance Mueller
86-68  9 GB  (+12)

CLEVELAND BARONS
Charlie Qualls
93-61  15 GB  (+24)

Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
   What a difference a year makes. If this had been the Colts of old – the Northsiders, the Wrigley Field band of brothers – a team record 86 wins (and an attendance record to boot) would have been cause for great celebration. There would have been much slapping of backs and shaking of hands, maybe even a little dancing on the streets called Waveland and Sheffield . But these are the new Colts, and second place might as well be last. The days of accepting mediocrity are gone, spurred by the presence of champions like Erskine, Adcock, Thompson and Mossi. The Colts went into 1960 and life in their new stadium with a purpose, forget the past and fight to fly the West Pennant at Comiskey. Though there was no pennant, there was still much to be proud of: Erskine was stellar (making his fifth All-Star team and getting robbed of the Cy Young), Mossi bounced back from injury to go 14-6 over the final four months of the season, Banks played like an MVP, again, netting another Gold Glove and All-Star appearance, and youngster Johnny Roseboro nabbed his second Gold Glove in only his third year in the Bigs. And while all the boys fought hard, it’s tough not to spend at least a little time wondering, “what if?” What if Mossi and Sturdivant had been healthy all year? What if Bud Daley and his 66% quality starters had been with the team from the beginning of the season? What if Tom Gorman had had one more good year left in him? What if Marv Throneberry had played up to the potential he had shown in the past? All good question but all answers are moot. These Colts don’t want to spend their time asking, “What if?”, they’re too busy asking, “What now?” What do we need to do to finally bring a championship to the Windy City ? Whatever it is, look for the Colts to be charging hard in that direction as they aim for the top of the West in 1961.

Pretenders AND Contenders
   Holy Bat-Men, we got as close as 4 1/2 games, making everyone at least wonder for a few moments.  I mean, hey, car accidents happen all the time, right?  Who knew best buds Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle wouldn’t have a buzz on while driving around town – then BAM!  Sia-nara season.  Is it wrong and possibly morally questionable to hang your division hopes on the other guys getting hurt?  Maybe.  Is it even more reprehensible to pray to any God that will listen for half of another team’s starting rotation to suddenly go down inflamed?  Who’s to say?  Hey, look what happened in Washington.  By the way, if those were my prayers being deflected to D.C., then I apologize.  But the bottom line is: It’s hard to argue with such a radical turnaround.  No one told us that all we had to do to win the division was to simply field the best team in UL history.
   It’s a tough call to say whether or not we “mortgaged our future.”  Sure, we’ll miss the draft picks and the bats of Blaze and Maris, but when you’re lost in the woods, a stick is easier to find than a sling.  As for our slings, take away non-factors Larry Jansen (36) and Luis Arroyo (33) and the oldest pitchers in the franchise are Billy Pierce and Roy Face (32).  Throw in nine promising arms age 26 or younger and that’s a mortgage I’ll sign right now. 

Studs:
Eddie Mathews:  Career high 114 RBI
Norm Cash:  .266 AVG.   22 HR  80 RBI in smash rookie campaign
Billy Goodman:  .402 OBP  75 RBI  Billy, DO be a hero.
Hal Jeffcoat:  87 RBI  25 SB  Ok, that was probably a fluke.  What the Hal?
Pitching Staff:  Other than Jack Kralick’s one inning barf-o-rama, highest ERA on entire staff was 3.77 (T- Drysdale, Sanford)

Duds:
None.  Berra and Woodling had slight “showing their age” type years, but still managed to get the job done.  Richie Ashburn had a horrible season by his standards, but by any other standards, that means he was still pretty good.
  

ST LOUIS MAROONS
Tim Smith
72-82  23 GB  (-8)

NEW YORK GOTHAMS
Shawn Martin
71-83  37 GB  (+2)

End of An Era
   It started with the salary swap that sent the club's first ever draft pick to the Washington Monuments in the name of "payroll liquidity" and it continued in May with trade that sent the league's all-time hit and win leaders to the shores of Lake Erie, a blockbuster deal that signaled that GM Timothy J. Smith was taking no half-measures when it comes to rebuilding the St. Louis Maroons.  When the dust settled in the Gateway City, the Maroons had lined up a raft of draft picks and had rigged their payroll such that roughly two-thirds of their payroll expired at the end of the season, giving Smith maximum flexibility to recast his team for the league's second decade.  The result was the worst record in club history (72-82) and the club's first third place finish in the divisional era.
   Smith will focusing his rebuilding efforts around a small corps of young players.  The departure of top two starters Billy Pierce and Jack Sanford predictably led to a dropoff in pitching.  The Maroons' staff allowed 741 runs, 48 more than last year and the most since 1953.  There were some bright spots, however, as sophomore Bill Monbouquette, 24, emerged as a key starter (17-16, 4.59), and 25-year-old Bob Anderson will likely compete for a spot in next year's rotation, after going 3-1, 2.41 in the last two months.
   Offensively, the loss of career hit leader Gene Woodling and veteran Billy Goodman took less of a toll than expected.  Newcomers Roger Maris and Don Blasingame picked up the lost production.  Maris, 26, hit .235-33-97, leading the team in home runs and RBIs, and Blasingame installed himself as the full time second baseman with a .303 average and 148 hits.  Veterans Willie Jones (.315-15-76) and Dick Kokos (27 HR, 86 RBI) contributed their usual steady run production, and the club ended up fourth in offense with 716 runs, just 23 fewer than last year.
   St. Louis will have six draft picks in the first three rounds next year, and GM Smith hopes to swallow up some top prospects to return the club to greatness.  The Maroons won the inaugural league championship in 1951 and lost to Brooklyn in the inaugural UL World Series in 1957, but otherwise have a bare trophy case, despite a long string of second place finishes.  

SAN FRANCISCO SPIDERS
John Nellis
68-86  27 GB  (-19)

WASHINGTON MONUMENTS
Doug Aiton
57-97  51 GB  (-8)

Flash in the Pan?  (NEW)
If Louisville bounced in 1960, then San Francisco spiked in 1959.  After a flaccied title defense, the Spiders' Cinderalla worst-to-first season last year is looking more and more like an aberration.
   San Francisco improved by 24 games to grab the West pennant last year, and their dramatic World Series triumph --- clinched with a pair of extra inning wins at Brooklyn in Games 6 and 7 --- will live on as a classic UL moment for years to come.  But San Francisco fans may have to wait a while for an encore performance.
   The Spiders dipped 19 games this year, dropping from the dizzying heights of their first UL title to more familiar terrain -- fourth place and 27 games back.
   The biggest difference was the precipitous decline of Bob Porterfield and Ewell Blackwell.  Last year's dynamic duo combined for 42 wins in 1959 but only won 10 this year.  Blackwell's decline was especially shocking.  "The Whip" was 21-8, 3.24 a year ago, earning consideration for hardware, but posted a jaw-dropping 1-10 record this year, with a 6.78 ERA before June 1, spending the rest of the season in Triple-A Atlanta.
   The lineup had distinctly less ummph this year as well.  The club hit 14 more home runs this year, but the team batting average dipped nearly 30 points to .244.  The two players who best represent the club's offensive decline are Rocky Colavito and Wes Covington.  Colavito hit 29 home runs, five more than last year, but his batting and doubles dipped to four-year lows.  Covington, a key cog in the 1959 championship machine, lost 51 points on his batting average, which dipped to a career low .243 and over 160 on his OPS (.731).

LOS ANGELES OUTLAWS
Peter Vays
65-89  30 GB  (-1)

DETROIT GRIFFINS
Sean Holloway
55-99  53 GB  (-25)

Injury-Plagued and Treading Water (NEW)
Consistency is trait often coveted.  But the kind of consistency the Los Angeles Outlaws had demonstrated over the last four years is the envy of no one.
   L.A. has spent the last four years in a narrow band of 64-66 wins, emerging from the cellar just once when they finished one game ahead of San Francisco in 1958.  This four-year drought is all the more painful given the club's auspicous beginnings.
   In their inaugural campaign in 1955, the Los Angeles Outlaws, under the able guidance of GM Chris McCreight, rode the league's second best offense to an eye-opening 77-77 season --- 21 games ahead of their expansion siblings up the coast.  Alas, McCreight's batting fixation, while it paid immediate dividends, proved to be a poor long-term investment.  Only once in his five year tenure did McCreight divert from his favored strategy of stockpiling outfielders.  LA's string of first round picks --- Bobby Clemente (#1 overall in 1955), Frank Robinson (#1 in '56), Jim Bunning (#2 in '57), CF Albie Pearson (#1 in '58), CF Vada Pinson (#2 in '59) --- produced two Rookies of the Year and one the league's most formidable outfields, but the club's pitching stagnated near the bottom of the heap.
   Alas, much of GM Peter Vays' woes in his rookie campaign can be chalked up to bad luck.  After all, the club's best hitter and best pitcher each spent a chunk of the season on the DL.  Frank Robinson broke his hand a week into the season and took until July to revert to full form -- the result being the worst batting year of his five-year career (.281-26-60).  And Bubba Church missed a month and a half in midsummer to a pulled tricep.  Without those injuries, the club would probably have won seven more games, which would have landed them in third place in the division.
      There have been encouraging signs since Peter Vays took the reins this spring.  The pitching staff allowed 50 fewer runs to post a franchise best 4.29 ERA, Bunning (14-16, 4.21) emerged as a quality starter, and the bullpen improved.  Vays' first draft --- three starting pitchers in the first four rounds --- reverses a five-year trend of pitching neglect.  The club also boasts one of the league's best minors system.  First baseman Willie McCovey, 22, in particular, should make a splash when he makes the jump to the bigs. 
Frank Robinson broke his hand in April and took until July to revert to full form -- the result being the worst batting year of his five-year career.

Drowning in Maximum Suckage
Oh, what a difference a year makes.  The Griffins, inspired by roster moves that jettisoned dead weight, had thought the team turned the corner from mediocrity to pseudo-contender.  Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that the team had simply veered slightly from its normal path of sucking to the extreme.  Proof of this was in how the Griffins turned in another near-100 loss season (55-99-.357) and finished a whopping 53 games back of Glen “Moneyball was my idea” Reed’s Brooklyn Superbas.
   Manager Sean Holloway was rather confused by the pathetic year the team had, causing many observers to wonder if he had fallen off the wagon, despite repeated denials to the contrary.  When all was said and done, Holloway admitted that although he wasn’t drinking at the beginning of the season, he sure as hell was by the end.
   “I knew the team would have a hard time scoring runs, but I never realized how difficult things would be,” stated Holloway.  Difficult was an understatement, with the Griffins finishing last, tied for last, or near last in every offensive category Bill James could dream up.  There was, unfortunately, only one bright spot, in the guise of Leon “Daddy Wags” Wagner, who is emerging as the only Griffins player that can hit, registering a .289-25-80 year.  “Blech” is the only way this reporter can describe the Griffins offensively.
   Still worse, though, was the simultaneous collapse of every member of the Griffins’ pitching staff.  Nobody – not even highly touted FA signing Don Gross nor ace Pedro Ramos turned in a consistently solid performance.  Laments Holloway “you’d have thought that at least one guy would have had a decent year – I don’t think we could have done worse if we had tried to throw games.” 
   Holloway is grim about the future for three major reasons.  First, free agents aren’t exactly beating down doors to play in the Motor City .  The Commish commented that it seemed strange for DET to have so much money but not make any major signings during the past year and pushed for “a little more action” out of the Griffins’ front office.  Smith was later stunned to learn that Holloway did make the effort to contact superstar UL free agents in the off-season but was told to “get bent”, “sod off”, and “bite me” repeatedly.  Obviously, this is a sign that as far as free agents are concerned, it wasn’t the action in the Griffins’ front office that was the problem, but the suckage on the diamond.
   Second, Dusty Rhodes, the Griffins’ offensive star of late, is nearing retirement age, and neither Jim King, Jim Greengrass, nor Charlie “I’m Clem Labine’s Money-Sucking Third Cousin” Maxwell have shown any desire to literally and figuratively step up to the plate.  Newcomers Frank Howard and Ron Fairly are still young with uncertain futures.  The pitching situation is no better, and no amount of “potential” is a guarantee in the harsh world of OOTP, as Sandy “I look good on paper” Koufax will tell you.
   And finally, playing in the “Group of Death” with Glen “Billy Beane Is An Amateur” Reed, a resurgent Cleveland, and the seemingly endless supply of future Hall of Famers being traded out of the West and into the East, the immediate future doesn’t look good.
   What will Holloway do?  This reporter has no immediate answer.  It is clear, however, that unless the Griffins’ pitching improves AND the team finds some offense, 1960 will be another dreadful year.