REGIONAL #115:  This regional is one of the more old-school draws I’ve had lately, with only one 21st century team represented, and that’s my favorite kind of bracket.  There were two teams in the regional that were close in proximity to two of the Strat Old-Timer teams that I’m so fond of--the 1934 Giants (the year after their ‘33 pennant winners) and the 1920 Browns (two years before the 1922 Old-Timer squad).   However, both of those Old-Timer teams had been eliminated in the first round by more modern squads, so I was skeptical these lesser variants would get very far.  Another team that caught my eye was the 1970 A’s, which Charlie Finley was building into a group that would capture three consecutive pennants in a few years, but I thought they might not be quite ready for prime time.   No, in spite of my preference for the older teams (and despite the previous regional final featuring a 1950 team defeating one from 2019), I was picking the lone 21st century squad, the 2008 Dodgers, over the A’s in the final.  This was in part because these modern teams tend to have power and depth lacking in older teams, plus I remembered how formidable the 2006 version of the Dodgers was in winning Regional #106.  The ELO ranks appropriately predicted a much more old-school final, with the 1934 Giants favored over the 1924 Pirates, who had not been on my radar.  I have to confess that I’d probably prefer the ELO version over my selection.

First round action

The 1934 Giants won 93 games to finish in 2nd place two games behind the Gas House Gang, and they were clear ELO favorites in this regional with four Hall-of-Famers on the team, fronted by league ERA and WHIP leader Carl Hubbell on the mound.  They faced the 77-75 1938 Braves (actually the “Bees” that year), whose only HOFer on the roster, Al Lopez, got in as a manager.  Still, the B’s did have Elbie Fletcher, MVP of Regional #102 and Boston was hoping he could recapture that magic.  However, B’s starter Lou Fette gets raked for four hits in the top of the 1st, including a 2-run triple from Lefty O’Doul, and the Giants jump out to a 3-0 lead before Hubbell has thrown a warm-up pitch.  However, the Braves get two of those back in the 3rd when Giants CF-4 George Watkins plays a flyball into a double, while Fette seems to have settled down, tossing three straight 1-2-3 innings.  The Giants do threaten in the 6th, pinch hitting for Watkins to get his glove out of the lineup, but B’s SS-3 Rabbit Warstler turns a key DP to keep the score within one.   By the 7th, the Giants have their best defense out on the field in support of their ace, and Hubbell comes through to finish out the narrow 3-2 win, tossing a 6-hit CG to allow the Giants to survive and advance.  

I had picked the 2008 Dodgers sight unseen to win the regional, so I was interested to actually take a look at the team to see what I’d chosen.   Turns out they had won the NL West (although with only 84 wins) and made the NLCS, with weapons like Manny being Manny in the lineup and a solid rotation of adequate if unspectacular starters.  It didn’t look to me like they would exactly need Cy Young to defeat the 1972 Rangers, who went 54-100 for manager Ted Williams and according to the ELO ranks were among the 150 worst teams of all time.  Even so, the Rangers strike first, putting up a run in the 3rd off LA starter Derek Lowe when Ted Ford singles in Lenny Randle.  The Dodgers can’t do anything against Texas starter Rich Hand until the bottom of the 5th, when Randle can’t get to an Andre Ethier grounder and Rafael Furcal scores to tie the game.  Things remain quiet until Toby Harrah smacks a one-out double in the top of the 8th, and the Dodgers go to Hong-Chin Kuo out of the pen, who promptly allows a single to Ford and Harrah races home to give the Rangers the lead.  That leaves Hand to try to finish things out in the 9th, but he allows a leadoff single to PH Garciaparra, with Juan Pierre coming in to pinch run.  Furcal advances Pierre to second on a groundout, bringing up Manny with the tying run in scoring position.  Hand is cautious with Manny and walks him, so Ethier--who was the MVP of Regional #106--now comes to the plate with the winning run at first.  And….boom, 3-4 roll, solid HR on Ethier’s card and his 3-run walkoff homer gives the Dodgers their first and final lead in the game as they advance to the semis with the 4-2 win.

The 1969 Dodgers sought to make it 2 for 2 for LA in this regional, although this 85-77 team was quite different from the 2008 squad that won the previous game.  The ‘69s did have a Manny (although Mota, not Ramirez), but their main claim to fame was a strong rotation that included two 20-game winners.  They were still ELO underdogs against the 90-63 1924 Pirates, who sported Hall of Famers at four of their eight positions and had 18-3 Emil Yde (not sure what happened to the rest of his last name) on the mound to counter LA’s Claude Osteen.  The Dodgers get on the board first when Andy Kosco leads off the bottom of the 2nd with a long HR, but the Pirates tie it promptly with Max Carey singling, stealing 2nd, and scoring on an Eddie Moore single.  Both teams then struggle to score, so when Carey leads off the 8th with a single and again steals second, the Dodgers eye Jim Brewer in the pen but decide to stick with Osteen for a while longer, fearing that Brewer might be needed in extra innings.  That move almost went south, as Pie Traynor rolled a SI* 1-10 on Osteen’s card that would have put the Pirates ahead, but he missed the split and the Dodgers escape the inning.  Sure enough, the game heads into extra innings with neither starter showing signs of weakness, but in the bottom of the 10th Wes Parker leads off with a walk and Kosco singles him to 3rd, so in comes the infield and Yde tries to get out of his jam.  A walk to Willie Crawford loads the bases with nobody out, and then Bill Sudakis crushes a flyball deep--Dodger Stadium holds it in, but Parker dashes home for a sac fly and a 2-1 victory, one in which they mustered only five hits.

The two teams matched up in this first round game were on the verge of some of the best years for their franchises.  For the 89-win 1970 A’s, the pieces were there to drive them to 2nd place in the AL West, with Joe Rudi and Don Mincher wielding big bats and Reggie there to stir the drink, along with a colorful rotation staffed by guys with names like Catfish, Mudcat, and Blue Moon.  The 76-77 1920 Browns were also starting to put together what would become the best squad in Browns history, with Baby Doll Jacobson and Ken Williams supporting .407-hitting George Sisler, and Urban Shocker won 20 games and had one of his finest seasons.   The A’s countered Shocker with young swingman Rollie Fingers, who might be spending some time in the bullpen in the future.  The A’s score an unearned run in the bottom of the 1st when Ken Williams misplays a Rudi flyball, allowing Campaneris (who had stolen 2nd) to score.  The Browns promptly threaten in the 2nd, but that threat ends when Jacobson (1-17) is cut down at the plate trying to score on a Hank Severeid single.  In the bottom of the inning, another unearned A’s run (courtesy of a two-base error by STL SS-3 Wally Gerber) and a Rick Monday solo shot make it 3-0, and when the A’s add three more in the 3rd, keyed by a 2-run Frank Fernandez double, some Browns fans are already starting to shuffle sadly out of Sportsman’s Park.  Monday leads off the 4th with his second HR of the game, but then in the 6th the Browns come to life, narrowing the score to 7-3 on a pair of RBI singles from Sisler and Jacobson.  However, that inning proves to be the only real lapse from Fingers, who ends with a 5-hitter and the A’s coast to the 7-3 win. 

The survivors 

For the 1934 Giants, a dropoff in starting pitching after Carl Hubbell was unavoidable, but having 23-game winner Hal Shumacher as their #2 was not a bad option to send against Chad Billingsley and the 2008 Dodgers, who were still buzzing from their walk-off win in the first round.  The Dodgers ride that momentum in the bottom of the 1st with a Rafael Furcal double followed by an Andre Ethier flyball to center that Giants CF-4 George Watkins misplays, allowing Furcal to score to put LA up 1-0.  Watkins then gets some satisfaction in the 4th by smacking a fly to his LA counterpart Matt Kemp, who misplays it for a 2-base error and ultimately Watkins scores on a Gus Mancuso sac fly to tie the game.   The Giants then move ahead in the 5th when Jo-Jo Moore doubles and Bill Terry singles him home, a pattern that repeats itself in the 7th and NY now leads 3-1.  From there on out it’s Schumacher in control, and when the Dodgers come up in the bottom of the 9th looking to recapture their 9th inning heroics, Hal sets them down in order and the Giants head to the finals, seeking a 9th regional win for the franchise.

Stirring two drinks

The semifinal between the 1969 Dodgers and 1970 A’s featured two California contemporaries that were both pretty good teams that had vanquished opponents from the Roaring 20s.   The Dodgers trotted out their second straight 20-game winner, Bill Singer, to face 18-game winner Catfish Hunter, who had a solid year but had some frightening areas on his card.  The game begins auspiciously for the Dodgers with Maury Wills working a leadoff walk but getting caught stealing by Frank Fernandez, and then in the bottom of the 1st the A’s begin their at-bats with three straight doubles, followed by a colossal Reggie Jackson homer and it’s 4-0 Oakland early.  A Rick Monday homer in the 4th makes it 6-0, and Jackson leads off the 6th with another huge blast and Singer gives way to Jim Brewer, but Sal Bando takes Brewer deep for a 3-run homer in the 7th and the A’s are in double digits.  Meanwhile, the southern Californians are getting Catfished, not putting anything on the scoreboard until a Manny Mota RBI single (no doubt on a bad pitch) breaks the ice in the 8th, but that’s all she wrote for LA as Hunter finishes out a 5-hitter and the A’s move on to the finals with a blowout 10-1 win.  Meanwhile, two Dodger squads from 40 years apart both get bounced in the semis.

The two teams in the regional final, the 1934 Giants and the 1970 A’s, were both good 2nd place teams during their seasons, but they reached the third round in very different ways, with the Giants allowing only 3 runs to opponents and the A’s belting six homers in their two games.  The Giants were starting 18-game winner Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons, while the A’s decided to try their luck with Diego Segui.  The A’s home run prowess is evident early as Don Mincher belts a 2-run shot in the bottom of the first to give Oakland a quick 2-0 lead, continuing their trend of scoring in the 1st.  However, Mel Ott responds with a solo shot in the 3rd to narrow the lead, and a sac fly by Blondy Ryan in the 4th ties the game, and the A’s are confronting a team that counterpunches against their early onslaughts for the first time in the regional.  Undaunted, in the bottom of the inning Frank Fernandez hits an RBI single, as he has in every game thus far despite his .214 average, and the A’s move back in front 3-2, but the Giants tie it again in the top of the 5th when their own Jackson, Travis, scores Moore on a sac fly.  Again the A’s answer, this time with Mincher’s second HR of the game that puts Oakland up 5-3, but wheh the Giants begin the 6th with three straight hits--including a Ryan RBI single--the A’s decide to yank Segui (who allowed 10 hits in 5 IP) for Bob Locker.   Locker retires three in a row, but one of those is a Hughie Critz sac fly and the score is once again tied, 5-5.  At that point Locker and Fitzsimmons settle into a battle of nerves, but in the 8th the A’s put two runners on and decide to pinch hit for Fernandez with Gene Tenace, who pays off with an RBI single to put Oakland up by a run with the Giants down to their last three outs but with the top of the order coming up in the 9th.  Locker, down to his last inning of eligibility, retires Moore, but Bill Terry singles to bring up Ott as the go-ahead run.  The pitch--gbA, double play, game over and the A’s capture their 5th regional crown with the hard-fought 6-5 win.  

Interesting card of Regional #115:   There really didn’t seem to be a lot of unique cards in this regional, but I thought I would bring out the Catfish from the regional winners to illustrate some changes in Strat card-making over the years.  Hunter shut down a pretty good Dodgers team with a 5-hitter to get the A’s to the regional finals, but I have to admit that I was very reluctant to send Hunter out in the second round over other options.   Something about that HR/TR split at 4-8 and a solid DO at 4-7 just seemed to invite disaster, but nobody on the Dodgers found those results and Hunter pitched like the All-Star that he was.  One bit of Strat-card trivia that is highlighted by this card is that for this ADV 1970 set (released I think in 1984) the Basic side of the card was exactly the same as the original 1970 Basic-only set (the final year of one-sided cards).  Back then, information about doubles allowed and triples allowed by pitchers was not readily available, and so the game company made those chances strictly a function of home runs allowed--if you allowed lots of HRs, then your card would allow lots of DO and TR as well.  Catfish had a tendency to be taken deep throughout his career (3rd most in the AL in 1970, although he did lead the league in 1973 and 1976), hence the other extra-base hits on his card also would pile up.  I wonder:  if there is ever a SADV reissue of 1970 backed by new research on extra-base hits allowed, will his card finally be better?