Moose Tracks
SF Hurler Leads League's Best Pitching Staff
SAN FRANCISCO (May 31) -- San Francisco ace Bob Moose topped Don Wilson 2-1 today in a battle of division leaders, as the Spiders maintained a one-game lead over Chicago in the West Division.  Moose (8-2, 1.84), who pitched a no-hitter on Apr. 11, leads the league in ERA and co-leads in wins, and has allowed two or fewer runs in 9 of his 12 starts.  Spider pitching has allowed the fewest runs of any staff in the league--just 3.4 runs per game.  Mike Hedlund was 4-1 with a 1.53 ERA in May, including a four-hit shutout of the Monuments last night, and Fergie Jenkins has emerged from a slow start with a 1.50 ERA in his last three outings.  Closer Tug McGraw is tied for 2nd with 15 saves, four of which came in the last week, and has a 5-0 record.

RF Larry Hisle has emerged as the offensive leader with 15 HR and 29 RBI, despite a .236 average.  The club ranks third-from-last in runs scored, but it has hardly mattered as the Spiders are 12-6 in one-run games, 6-1 in extra inning games, and 6-3 against Chicago and Atlanta, its nearest divisional rivals in the standings.

New York Marathon
MANHATTAN (May 20) -- The Detroit Griffins and Manhattan Gray Sox battled through a 22-inning marathon today, in one of the longest games in UL history.  The teams combined for 30 hits and 145 at bats, and Bobby Bonds had 10 at bats in the game, probably setting some kind of record (Editor's note: the UL's contract with Elias Sports Bureau, who would know that kind of stuff, expired last year).

Phil Niekro and Pedro Ramos were the starting pitchers, and Niekro had the better day, allowing just 2 earned runs and striking out 7 in 8 innings, as the Sox took a 4-3 lead to the ninth, only to have Cecil Upshaw blow it when Tom Paciorek singled in Aurelio Rodriguez (Au-Rod) in the top of the 9th.  Upshaw did his best to end the game in the 10th, serving up a solo homer to Dick Allen, but the Sox knotted it up on Vada Pinson's RBI single and the score stood at 5-5 for 12 more innings--that's more than a full game for those scoring at home.

Finally, at 1:35am, a full six hours and 30 minutes after the first pitch, Pete Ward settled the tilt with a two-run blast into the dead of night--or early morning--off Detroit's Wayne Granger, who had pitched five shutout innings to that point.  "Hell," Tex Clevenger groused in the locker room, "I could've done that 11 innings ago and we'd all be asleep by now."  Pete Ward earned the odd distinction of becoming the first player with 5 hits in a game who was also hitless for four straight at bats (his hits came in  the 3rd, 4th, 7th, 20th, and 22nd innings).

In another odd twist for the Gray Sox, within a week of the game, two Rons were hur running the bases.  On May 26, Ron Hunt suffered a high ankle sprain on his "high ankle" (we think that means "knee"), and two days later Ron Santo tore a quad.  Both players are expected to miss six weeks, and Hunt's injury came just a week after inking a $19 million, 3-year extension with the club.  Manhattan GM Eric Holthaus immediately fired the groundskeepers, even thought the first injury happened at Griffith Stadium.