Ugly Game

Senators at White Sox, May 3, 1949

Ugly Game

This is one of the ugliest games I’ve ever played. It was actually somewhat painful to play through.

As a result, this writeup will be a bit different than normal.

Legions of Men Left On Base

Take a look at the boxscore:

Yes, I know that this was an 11 inning thriller, one that the hapless Senators barely pulled out of the fire. This was only Washington’s third win all season, and it showed.

And, man, they sure did it in ugly fashion.

Washington left a grand total of 20 men on base in this game, which is incredible even for an 11-inning contest.

The Senators left the bases full 3 times in this one — including the top of the 10th inning, after they had managed to score a run to pull out ahead.

John Simmons gets the credit for driving in the winning run with the bases loaded:

That sacrifice fly came with the bases loaded. Incredibly, Bud Stewart, the next batter, walked — but the Senators still couldn’t drive another one in.

Simmons, incidentally, was probably better known as an early professional basketball player than for his extremely short major league career.

Bad Pitching

Neither team pitched well.

That’s an understatement, actually. Both teams pitched poorly, but the White Sox pitched abysmally poor.

Three White Sox pitchers combined for 13 walks, which is horrendous, even if the game did go 11 innings. I put Billy Pierce in the game in a rare relief role near the end, and watched him constantly try to peck around the strike zone, pitching in an extremely fine manner reminiscant of somebody who wanted not to lose more than he wanted to win.

In the bottom of the 11th, in what felt like poetic irony, the White Sox leadoff hitter Don Wheeler was the recipient of a walk of his own:

That brought up none other than Cass Michaels, who we know well from previous posts. I thought something big might happen, and, well, I guess you could say that something happened:

That was one of 4 double plays that we experienced in this one, giving further fuel to my suspicion that Diamond Mind’s 1949 season simply features too many double plays.

Anyway, it was close, I guess, but, man, this one was painful to play through.