Baseball Back in Beantown
"Save Fenway" Campaign Scores UL Commitment
A citizens’ group in Boston organized to save Fenway Park from the wrecking ball, eliciting the support of the United League’s top brass to preserve the revered old ballpark and bring baseball back to Boston after a three-year hiatus.  A demolition team was poised to knock down the stadium 50 years to the day after it hosted its first major league game in 1911.  An alliance of unlikely bedfellows, including baseball fans, historic preservationists, and neighborhood associations, has embraced the cause of saving Fenway, raising nearly $5 million that would be used to renovate the stadium were a major league team to return to Boston.   Owner Charles Benson Qualls moved the Beacons to Cleveland for the 1959 season, leaving Boston without major league baseball for the first time since the founding of the National Association in 1871.

     League President Timothy J. Smith made the surprise announcement on the banks of the River Charles, with the old stadium as his backdrop.  “Today, the United League has reached an agreement with the City of Boston to bring major league baseball back to a major league metropolis,”  Smith said to the cheers of local boosters.  Fenway Park was home to the Boston Red Sox from 1911-1950, the Boston Braves from 1914-15, and the Boston Beacons from 1951-1958, before Qualls skipped town after a run of eight dismal seasons.  Qualls’ name is mud in all of New England, and Boston fans are eagerly awaiting the Cleveland Barons’ first game at Fenway next spring.

     The league is adding two teams in 1962, to bring the total to 12 teams.  The UL last expanded in 1955, adding teams in Los Angeles and San Francisco, making the national pastime truly bicoastal.  UL officials and club owners expressed an early preference for further extending the sport beyond its traditional Northeast core, but the vacancy in Boston was a gaping hole the league could not ignore, according to a senior league official who spoke on condition of anonymity.  Insiders say Atlanta remains a favorite for the second expansion team, though no formal announcement was expected until later this summer.

Boston Beacons (1951-1958)
     Boston was one of eight cities chosen for a founding franchise in the United League, successor to the AL and NL after both big leagues went bankrupt after the 1950 season. 

     In their eight seasons, the Beacons were a perennial second-division team, both on the field and at the box office.  The Beacons drew the league’s fifth biggest gate in 1951 and 1952, but the club’s fifth place finish in 1952 was the best the team would do until 1958, by which time owner Charles Benson Qualls had already signed the dotted line on a deal to move the team to the Buckeye State.  By 1954, Boston had the lowest attendance in the league, even below small-market Louisville, and over the course of their eight seasons, the club drew 9,176,608 fans (only 1.15 million per year), just a sliver ahead of Louisville over the same period.

     1956 was the club’s nadir.  After 86 and 85 losses the previous two seasons, the Beacons became the first (and so far only) team to lose 100 games.  The Beacons were cursed by a weak pitching staff that never seemed to get better.  First round pick Warren Spahn was a huge disappointment.  The big lefty posted just one decent season, in 1953, when he was 21-11 with a 3.94 ERA, but ended his career with a losing record (87-89) and a decidedly unimpressive career ERA (4.50).  The club’s pitching staff entered a free fall from 1953, when they already had the league’s second worst pitching, to 1956, when they posted a 5.41 ERA, the second worst team ERA in league history (1951 Louisville Colonels).  Boston’s best pitcher that year was Harvey Haddix, who was 12-18 with a 4.70 ERA, and the other three starters (Al Worthington, Frank Hiller, and Hank Aguirre) combined for a 24-41 record and 5.34 ERA.  Hiller never again pitched in the majors, retiring in 1958.  Worthington has appeared in just 12 games in the last five years, and has fared even worse.  And Aguirre, a highly-touted prospect and Boston’s first round pick that year, was released at the end of 1958, and headed west to join the Outlaws just as his teammates headed west to Ohio.

Outlaws Grab First Place
Timely Hitting Overtakes Colts
LOS ANGELES (June 1) -- Los Angeles won 10 of its last 13 games to overtake the Chicago Colts and move into first place in the West Division on May 30.  Led by 29-year-old righthander Jim Bunning, who won four of his last five starts, the Outlaws sit atop the tightly-packed West Division despite the league’s lowest scoring offense, thanks to timely hitting and a solid bullpen.  The club has scored 33 fewer runs than it has allowed, and is outperforming its Pythagorean record by five games.  (Based on its scoring ratios, the club should be tied for last place). 
   Bunning is 4-0, 2.21 in his last five starts, and leads the staff with 6 wins and 73 strikeouts, and Jim Owens’ 3-0, 2.30 leads a much-improved bullpen.  Clutch hitting has played a key factor as well.  Bill Mazeroski leads the league with 12 clutch hits, 8 clutch doubles, and 8 clutch RBIs, and Frank Robinson leads the lead with 14 clutch walks (if I may coin a new stat).  Eight of L.A.’s last 10 wins have been by two runs or less, including three in extra innings, and the club leads the league in both extra-inning wins (6) and one-run wins (15).

Some highlights:
May 17 vs. New York – Outlaws score twice in the 11th to tie the game, then win it in the 14th on Ted Lepcio’s sacrifice fly.
May 19 vs. Detroit – Bill Mazeroski’s two-run double breaks a 1-1 tie in the seventh.
May 20 vs. Detroit – The Outlaws squandered a four-run lead in the ninth after Bill Mazeroski’s eighth inning grand slam, but win it on an 11th inning double by rookie Charlie James.
May 24 vs. Brooklyn – The Outlaws turn back a 4-2 Brooklyn lead with three runs in the ninth, capped by Frank Robinson’s two-run single.
May 26 at New York – The Gothams build a 9-6 lead, but the visitors rally to tie the game, and win it on Billy Martin’s pinch hit home run in the 10th.
May 30 vs. Louisville – Frank Robinson homers off Herm Wehmeier in the sixth to tie the game 1-1, and Mazeroski hits a game-winning single in the ninth. 

Mays Milestones and a New Home Run King?
WASHINGTON (June 1) -- Washington slugger Willie Mays reached several career milestones this month, becoming the first player in UL history with 100 triples and 1,000 runs, and moving within one home run of the career milestone of 300.
   Mays joins Cleveland's Gus Zernial in the race to surpass all-time home run leader Ralph Kiner.  Kiner, 37, is clearly in the twilight of his career, hitting .196 last year and 1-for-10 (.100) in his first 8 games this year.  After sitting out for a full month, Kiner homered against St. Louis May 29, his first homer of the year, and #321 of his career.
   Single-season home run king Gus Zernial, 36, co-leads the league with 14 home runs this year, and has slice the margin between he and Kiner from 18 to 5 home runs, and is likely to grab the career home run title sometime in June.  Mays is fast on Zernial's heels, with 299 dingers, just 22 behind Kiner and 17 behind Zernial.  At age 29, the prospects are excellent for the "Say Hey Kid" to eventually accede to the thrown of league home run king.  Others to watch are Brooklyn's Mickey Mantle (271 home runs, age 28), Cleveland's Eddie Mathews (235 home runs, age 29), and Chicago's Ernie Banks (201 home runs, age 30).

Pierce’s Back Strain Postpones Quest for 200th Win
Billy Pierce strained his back on May 10, postponing his run for 200 career wins by a few weeks.  The 33-year-old southpaw had 191 career wins coming into 1961, and is 6-2, 2.82 through his first nine starts this year.  In January, Pierce was given the league’s highest honor to date, when he was named the UL’s Pitcher of Decade.  Pierce is the UL’s all-time leader in wins (197) strikeouts (2,592), complete games (153), and shutouts (27, tied), and is just 4.2 innings shy of 3,000 career innings pitched.


Joe Torre Out for Season
Rookie Maroons catcher Joe Torre, the third overall pick of this year’s draft and arguably the biggest catching prospect in the league’s history, will sit out the rest of 1961 with a torn ACL suffered on May 23 in a game with Triple-A St. Paul.  Torre, 20, was drafted by Los Angeles and dealt to St. Louis in a five-for-two deal involving fellow first-round catcher Jim Pagliaroni.  Torre joins Joe Garagiola as the second St. Louis catcher to suffer a season-ending injury.