SUPER-REGIONAL E:  With 768 teams now having competed in regional action, that is the equivalent of 12 NCAA March Madness tournaments of 64 teams; I'm calling these groups of 64 "super-regionals".  Years ago I played out the first four of these super-regionals, with an eclectic group of winners that included two greats and two shockers:  the 1953 Dodgers, 1948 Indians, 1975 Giants, and 1971 Padres.  So now it's time for Super-Regional E, a matchup of 8 regional winners (Regionals 33 through 40) from a pool of 64 teams that originally included eight different pennant-winners.  Of those, only one survives; among the mighty squads that were eliminated in this group were the infamous 1927 Yankees, as well as the 1920 Indians, 1964 Cards, and 1980 Royals.   Note that the first round of the super-regional is the 4th game for these teams, meaning it's time to see just how deep their starting rotation is with their #4 starter on the mound.  To me, the obvious choice to win is the lone remaining pennant winner, the great 1931 A's; the ELO ranks agree, although they predict a challenging semifinal matchup for the A's against the 1950 Red Sox.  However, all of these teams have proven they can come through when necessary and it would be dangerous to underestimate any of them.   

Round 4 action:  

The 1983 Giants were a 79-83 team (ELO rank 1143) but they won three 1-run games to claim Regional #33, with their most impressive win involving a 4-3 victory over the 1975 Reds and the Big Red Machine, with Jeff Leonard, Chili Davis, and Joel Youngblood providing most of the offense.  Their 4th-round opponent was a near-contemporary, the 89-73 1982 Braves (ELO rank 1027), the NL West winner who had perhaps the toughest path to a regional victory as they defeated two pennant winners that included the legendary 1927 Yankees as well as the 1920 Indians to capture Regional #34, with 2 homers and 6 RBI from Dale Murphy leading the charge.  Starting pitchers Rick Camp for the Braves and SF's Mark Davis looked like the #4 starters that they were, and I think the ELO ranks accurately reflected that the two teams were more evenly matched than their W-L records would suggest.  The Giants quickly scout out the weak spots on Camp's card in the 2nd, when Leonard misses a HR split on Camp's 5-9 but doubles and then scores when Jack Clark finds a SI** result on Camp.  In the 3rd, Joel Youngblood finds his own solid HR result for a 2-run blast and it's 3-0 Giants, and Fulton County Stadium is eerily quiet, although the fans make some noise in the 4th when Claudell Washington finds Davis's solid 4-4 HR result to make it 3-1.  When Darrell Evans nails Camp's 5-10 solid HR result in the 6th, the Braves turn in desperation to Gene Garber to try to keep the game within reach, but the Giants get to Garber in the 7th when Chili Davis races home on a Lemaster single and it's now 5-1 Giants.  In the bottom of the 8th, it's Terry Harper's turn to find Davis's solid 4-4 HR to narrow the gap to 5-2 and with Gary Lavelle burned, the Giants nervously eye Greg Minton in the pen.  They let Davis begin the bottom of the 9th, but when with one out Chambliss hits a liner to left that Leonard can't reach, Minton is throwing hard in the pen.  However, Washington makes it moot by hitting into a double play to end the Braves run and wrap up the Giants 5-2 win with a 4-hitter by Mark Davis.

Tim:  Walk this guy

For the 4th round matchup between the 1977 Royals (ELO rank 213) and the 1961 White Sox (ELO rank 864), I had to invite my longtime leaguemate Tim to roll on behalf of the Royals, as it was his favorite team from his childhood, and the White Sox of that era were mine, with Luis Aparicio being my favorite player as a kid.  So, Tim and I connect over Zoom and set our lineups for this grudge match; being round 4 we're down to the #4 starters, Billy Pierce (who allowed too many hits) against Marty Pattin (who allowed too many homers).  But these are two very good teams; the Royals went 102-60 to win the AL West but famously lost to the Yankees in the final game of the ALCS when Larry Gura and Mark Littell couldn't hold a 3-2  Royals lead entering the 9th inning.  The 1961 White Sox went 86-76, but were just two years removed from winning the AL pennant and they had uncharacteristic (for the Sox of that era) expansion-year power, with Roy Sievers, Al Smith, and Jim Landis all knocking more than 20 homers.  The Sox go down quietly in the top of the 1st, and in the bottom of the frame Pierce is looking shaky, as he loads up the bases with a Brett hit and a couple of walks, but escapes with no damage.  However, the Royals come through with two more hits in the 2nd, one an Amos Otis RBI single driving in Patek, and it's 1-0 Royals.   Pierce is raked for three more hits in the 3rd (two off his own card), Darrell Porter and John Mayberry (both long-time Trash players) drive in runs, and it's 3-0 Royals, and Pattin seems to be settling in nicely, tossing 6 shutout innings.  Things get a little more interesting when Jim Rivera finally leads off the top of the 7th with a solo HR, and then get a lot more interesting in the 8th when Pattin allows a leadoff double to Aparicio and Robinson singles him home. At that point, Tim has seen enough and summons Gura from the pen.  But Gura allows two hits, and Mingori has to come in to close out the inning, but the Royals' lead is narrowed to 3-2.  When Mingori allows a hit and a walk in the 9th to put the tying run in scoring position, Tim summons Littell from the bullpen, who promptly walks three consecutive Sox batters--the last two of them with the bases loaded.  Littell is yanked and Doug Bird ends the inning, but the Sox take a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the 9th.  An exhausted Pierce starts the inning, but he issues his 6th walk of the game to leadoff hitter Brett and then Nellie Fox boots a Hal McRae grounder, and it's time for Turk Lown to come to try to preserve the win.  Porter flies out, and the Royals bring in John Wathan to pinch hit--and he does his job, lacing a single into CF.  The 3rd base coach furiously motions Brett to go home with the tying run, and he's safe, and then sends McRae to third--but Lollar snaps a strike to Carey and McRae is out by a step.  Fox then commits his second error of the inning and the Royals have men on 1st and 3rd, but Lown gets Frank White to pop out and we head to extra innings.  In the 10th, Bird records two quick outs and then yields two singles to the bottom of the Sox lineup, but Aparicio flies out to end the threat.  The Royals begin their half of the inning with Patek pulling a hamstring trying to run out a grounder, and he's gone for at least the next few games; Lown then quickly dispatches Otis and Cowens and it's on to the 11th.  Fox leads off the inning with a single in an attempt to atone for his horrible fielding miscues in the 9th, and a Robinson groundout moves Fox to 2nd.  With powerful Roy Sievers up and 1st base open, Tim elects to pitch to Sievers and.....big mistake.  2-9 roll, and Sievers puts it into the fountains at Kauffman Stadium; the Sox take the lead 6-4.  A Landis single and Tim is looking down at a nearly empty bullpen, but Bird recovers and ends the inning without further incident.  So it's down to Lown and the heart of the Royals order:  Brett/McRae/Porter, but two quick groundouts and then there is no joy in Royalville as Darrell Porter has struck out.  Final score:  White Sox 6, Royals 4; the Sox move to the super-regional final four, and the Royals go home.

The 1931 A's won 107 games and the ELO ranking list them as the 25th best team of all time; they cruised through their regional outscoring their opposition 16-4 with Al Simmons knocking in 5 of those runs.  However, if this team had an Achilles heel, it was their #4 starter, and after much deliberation Connie Mack decided to go with Eddie Rommel for the start.  The 1972 Astros went 84-69 (ELO rank 836) and had an Astrodome-enhanced pitching staff coupled with a lineup boasting Wynn, Cedeno, Bob Watson, and Lee May, although unsung DH Norm Miller had been pivotal in the regional with 2 HR and 5 RBI.  Things don't start well for Houston starter Ken Forsch when Max Bishop walks, Cochrane singles him to 3rd, and then Jimmie Foxx crushes one into the depths of the 'dome to give the A's a 3-0 lead.   The Astros had never trailed in any of their regional games, and their hurdle got larger in the 4th when the A's rattle off another four runs, two on a Cochrane triple.  When Mule Haas leads off the 5th with a solo HR, the Astros try Fred Gladding on the mound to see if that can change their fortunes, and he does a fine job, throwing four hitless innings against the powerful A's.  Houston finally converts a run on a Cedeno single in the 8th, but the A's rake over Gladding's replacement, George Culver, for three more runs in the top of the 9th and the Astros face an 11-1 deficit going into the bottom of the 9th.  Rommel sets the Astros down in order, and the A's move on to round 5 in impressive fashion.

A super-regional Battle of the Soxes matched the 1950 Red Sox (ELO rank 86) against the 1978 White Sox (ELO rank 1708).  On cardstock the matchup looked lopsided:  Boston won 94 games and had a killer lineup, with 7 hitters batting over .300 (the lowest BA in the lineup:  Bobby Doerr at .294) and Doerr, Ted Williams, Walt Dropo and Vern Stephens all with over 25 HR.  In contrast, the White Sox lost 90 games and had a lackluster lineup that still managed to win three straight games against teams with much better records in their regional.  With Chicago throwing 16-game loser Ken Kravec against Boston's Chuck Stobbs and his 5.10 ERA, the fans at Fenway were expecting offensive fireworks, and they erupted quickly when in the top of the 1st Stobbs allows doubles to Garr, Soderholm and Nordhagen before he can record an out, and Chicago leads 4-0 before the Red Sox have swung a bat.  The White Sox add two more in the 3rd on a 2-run shot from Nordhagen off Stobb's card, but there may not be a worse bullpen than that of Boston's and it looks like Stobbs is in for the long haul.  When Ted Williams leads off the bottom of the 4th with a HR, Kravec is badly rattled and the Red Sox bat around to narrow the score to 6-5.  A Birdie Tebbetts single ties it in the 5th, and Chicago isn't wild about its bullpen options either, but when Kravec puts the first two men on the 6th they summon Lerrin LaGrow to try to slow the bleeding, and he sets Boston down in order--including a 5-4 roll that would have been a solid HR on Kravec's card.  Buoyed by LaGrow's success, the Sox get their first two men on in the 7th, but Nordhagen hits into a double play to end that threat.  Then Goodman leads off the bottom of the 7th with a HR off LaGrow's solid 6-10 HR result, and back-to-back doubles from Dom Dimaggio and Williams add two more runs, and it's 9-6 Boston and Stobbs need to just last two more innings to secure the win.  The Red Sox batter LaGrow for another 4 runs in the 8th, Stobbs sets Chicago down in order in the 9th, and the Red Sox move on with a 13-6 mauling of the Chisox.

Super-Regional Semifinals:

In setting up the round 5 matchup between the 1983 Giants against the 1961 White Sox, I discovered that in the distant past I had elected to start the Sox #4 starter, Ray Herbert, in the first round, presumably because they had an easy opponent and difficult projected later matches in the regional.  The downside to that strategy is that here in round 5 Herbert is matched against Fred Breining, the Giants #1 starter, and Sox closer Turk Lown was burnt in the previous round's extra inning thriller.  The White Sox score a run in the 1st and the 5th, both on RBI singles past the glove of the Giants' 2B-4 Joel Youngblood, and in the 7th Nellie Fox hits an improbable HR off Breining's card, so Gary Lavelle comes in from the pen to try to keep it close.  And the Giants come alive in the 8th, as Brenly leads off with a HR and Youngblood drives in Lemaster to make it 3-2, so the Sox bring in Russ Kemmerer to try to save the lead.  However, Jack Clark opens the top of the 9th with a 1-7 roll:  HR 1-19 DO....and rolls a 20 on the split.  However, the next batter, Chili Davis, singles off Kemmerer's card, Clark scores, and we enter the bottom of the 9th with a tie game.  With one out, Sox #9 hitter Andy Carey singles, Aparicio grounds him to 2nd, and it's up to Nellie Fox, with 2 RBI in the game already, to try to win the game.  The roll: 6-5 on Lavelle, DO 1-6/SI**, and the Sox get the walk-off win 4-3 to reach the Super-regional finals.

10 innings, no problem

The 1950 Red Sox had averaged 11 runs in their 4 games in this tournament, boasting one of the best top-to-bottom offensive lineups I've seen.  However, in round 5 they face 31-game winner Lefty Grove and the 1931 A's, who have a few hitters themselves, meaning that this matchup looked to be one of the most interesting in recent memory.  A Mickey Cochrane single drives in Bishop in the top of the 1st to give the A's a 1-0 lead, and they add another in the 5th when Todt doubles and Bishop singles him home.  But Boston starter Mel Parnell is keeping the Red Sox within range, and in the 6th they finally get to Grove, with doubles from Zarilla and Dropo tying the score at 2-2.   From there, both Grove and Parnell are in command and after 9 innings the score remains tied 2-2, with neither team eager to go to their bullpen with their #1 starters in.  So Parnell goes out to start the top of the 10th, and the A's rake him for 4 hits and 3 runs, only avoiding another when Cochrane is cut down trying to score on a Haas single.  Thus the A's are up 5-2, and Grove has one more inning in him by tournament rules:  he allows a Goodman single and a walk, and with two out it's Al Zarilla (.915 OPS) at the plate as the tying run and Ted Williams staring at Grove from the on-deck circle.  But Grove strikes out Zarilla, sealing the 5-2 A's win and putting them into the super-regional final, where they will attempt to be the 3rd Old-Timer team to win a super-regional in 5 tries.

Super-Regional E Final:

The excitement was palpable at Shibe Park for the Super-regional final between the 1931 A's and George Walberg against the 1961 White Sox and HOFer Early Wynn.  The A's had outscored their opposition in the first five rounds 29 to 7; the Sox margin was 23 to 14 with multiple close calls.  In the top of the 1st Walberg walks three to load the bases but the Sox can't push any runs across; in the bottom of the 3rd, Jimmy Dykes misses a HR 1-2/DO split by rolling a 3, and Wynn strands him at 2nd to keep the game a scoreless tie.  Al Simmons breaks the ice in the 4th with a solo HR, and the A's add another in the 5th when Dykes hits his second double of the game and Todt singles him in.  The Sox miss a chance to score when Floyd Robinson (1-14) is cut down at the plate, which seems to take the wind out of Wynn's sails as he allows four straight hits to open the 6th, and the A's move out to a 5-0 lead.  Al Simmons adds his second HR of the game in the 7th, a 2-run blast, to make it 7-0, and the clutch hitting that the Sox had displayed throughout the tournament is stymied by the excellent A's defense.  Walberg retires Aparicio in the 9th to seal a 7-hit shutout and the 7-0 win, and the 1931 A's stand alone as the sole survivors of 64-team Super-regional E.

Interesting card of Super-Regional E:  As the long-time Strat players on this forum probably know, the original Old-Timer teams came in a variety of colors and sizes before the modern perforated abominations took over.  Over the more than 50 years that I've been accumulating Strat cards, I've ended up with versions of those original die-cut Old-Timers that have blue ink, red ink, blue ink on yellow cards (a favorite of mine), but the VERY original Old-Timers were just the same as the then-current season cards--black ink on cream-colored cardstock.  That was the version that I used here to roll the 1931 A's to the Super-regional title.  As you can see from the condition of these cards, this wasn't Al's first rodeo--my buddies and I played the heck out of these Old-timers when we were kids, and it's nicely satisfying to take these guys out of the storage drawers, set that lineup once again, and watch them still be just as awesome as they were for us, a half-century ago.