Kiner, Westlake, and Restelli

Pittsburgh's 1949 Murderer's Row

Kiner, Westlake, and Restelli

The 1949 Pittsburgh Pirates weren’t exactly a great team in real life. That makes this article even more humorous:

From The Pittsburgh Press, June 20, 1949, page 20

Now, it’s kind of ironic to call the heart of the lineup of a 7th place team “Murderer’s Row.” However, for a brief period of time in the summer, Wally Westlake and the unheralded Dino Restelli combined with Ralph Kiner to terrorize National League pitching.

In the end, the trio formed what was basically the heart of the Pittsburgh offensive attack. Kiner was ridiculously good, of course — but both Westlake and Restelli could hold their own:

Now, the Pirates have overachieved in my 1949 Diamond Mind Baseball replay to date. They’re still in second place, though the Giants have opened up a bit of a lead at the top.

Westlake and Kiner are hitting well — though, sadly, Dino isn’t quite doing what he did in real life:

In fact, with his 29 home runs in only 64 games, you could argue that Ralph Kiner is the entire offense.

Now, Restelli has struggled, though he hasn’t played many games so far:

This is one of those situations where I have to ask myself whether it’s worth keeping him in the lineup.

I actually have kept him out of the lineup for the time being. Dixie Walker has been having a great season, and it makes more sense to keep him in right field and Westlake in center:

But I don’t know how long this will last.

One issue with games like Diamond Mind is that there really is no incentive to stop starting players in their late 30s who have caught fire. If I were playing something like Football Manager, I might be convinced to give the kid more playing time to help with his development. Here, though, there’s no real future to think of and no worries about older players running out of steam.

It’s not realistic, but it will do.