SUPPLEMENTAL REGIONAL A2:  A group evenly divided between the 1952 season and modern squads, my experience is that the greater depth of the latter tends to work to their advantage in this format.  Even so, the ‘52 Giants were just coming off a shot heard round the world, but they might face competition from a Rangers team that themselves were a follow-up to a Series win.  My guess was that these two would meet in the finals and that the modern Rangers would prevail, particularly with Willie Mays seeing limited action because of military duty.  However, the ELO rankings portrayed things differently, marking the ‘52 Giants as the only strong team in the bracket, and predicted an all-Giants finale with the elder squad defeating their 2024 counterparts.

First round action

It was 50’s night at tournament central as the 1952 A’s and their middling 79-75 record were nonetheless favored over play-in survivor 1952 Reds, who would thus need to send out their #2 starter in the form of swingman Frank Smith (12-11, 3.75).  The A’s felt confident enough that they would preserve their MVP-winning ace for the next round, going instead with a solid Harry Byrd (15-15, 3.41).  However, both pitchers looked like MVPs once the game got going, with neither team able to score through the first seven innings, and Smith was no-hitting the A’s until there was one out in the 7th.  But in the bottom of the 8th Billy Hitchcock, who had one homer in the regular season, converts Smith’s HR result for a solo shot and a slim lead.  After a walk, Joe Astroth doubles for another run, and that is all Byrd needs as he wraps up a 5-hit shutout to send the A’s on to round two with a 2-0 blanking of the Reds.

The 1952 Giants were the bracket favorite with a 92-62 record that was good for 2nd place in the NL, but Willie Mays was not his usual self with a year largely occupied by military service.  The 2025 Reds were 83-79, and made a brief postseason appearance in which they were swept as a wildcard team; Andrew Abbott (10-7, 2.87) received some Cy Young votes while the Giants’ ace Sal Maglie (18-8, 2.92) had some MVP support himself.  Maglie proves a bit wild in the bottom of the 1st as a couple of walks set up an RBI single by DH Miguel Andujar; Austin Hays adds a solo shot in the 5th and the Reds move out to a 2-0 lead.   Meanwhile the Giants are getting runners on base, but they leave the bases loaded on the 4th with nothing to show and Abbott seems to gain confidence after escaping that jam.  Maglie ends up the victim of some sloppy fielding in the 7th, as an error sets up a Gavin Lux RBI single and the Barber gives way to super-reliever Hoyt Wilhelm out of the pen.  That seems to provide the Giants offense with a shot in the arm, as Bobby Thomson cracks a 2-run shot heard around the midwest, chasing Abbott for reliever Connor Phillips and making it a one-run game.  Phillips returns to the mound in the 9th to close things out, but things don’t quite go that way; Willie Mays hits a solo homer to tie the game, and after a walk, pinch hitter Dusty Rhodes comes off the bench and sends one out of the park for the 5-3 lead.  Wilhelm holds serve in the bottom of the 9th and the Giants escape with a come-from-behind win to advance in the bracket.

The 2025 Cardinals survived a play-in game but would now have to go deeper into their rotation with Matthew Liberatore (8-12, 4.21) and a bullpen that had seen some use.  I thus decided that even though the 2025 Giants had only two more wins than the Cards in their respective seasons, they could afford to preserve their best starter since Logan Webb (13-10, 3.47) was appreciably better than the Cards’ #2.  That decision quickly looks unwise as Willson Contreras slaps a 2-run homer in the top of the 1st for an early St. Louis lead.  Then Lars Nuutbar leads off the 2nd with a double on a missed HR split, and he scores on a 2-base error from Giants SS-3 Tyler Fitzgerald that is followed by Victor Scott RBI single and it’s 4-0 Cards.  The Giants respond in the bottom of the inning as a Michael Conforto double sets up a run-scoring fielder’s choice and a sac fly narrows the gap to 4-2.  Webb continues to struggle but manages to escape jams, but when he walks the leadoff batter in the 6th the Giants have seen enough and Ryan Walker and his 1.91 ERA come in to end any threat.  The Giants then make him the pitcher of record as Conforto converts Liberatore’s HR split for a 2-run shot to tie the game and Jojo Romero is summoned from the pen and he retires the side.  However, in the bottom of the 8th Mike Yastrzemski crushes a 2-out solo homer to give San Francisco their first lead, and Walker wraps up a perfect relief outing for the 5-4 win, although the prolonged outing will render him unavailable for the remainder of the regional.

In a matchup of two exactly .500 teams, I recruited brother Chuck to manage the 77-77 1952 Cubs to try to avoid my tendency to roll well for the rival franchise. I would instead roll for the 81-81 2025 Rangers, who finished nine games worse than their projection partially due to injury issues.  It was a strong pitching matchup, with Texas’ Nathan Eovaldi (11-3, 1.73) against the Cubs’ Warren Hacker (15-9, 2.58) who received some MVP votes for his season.  However, in the top of the 1st Wyatt Langford smacks a 2-out solo homer for a quick Rangers lead, although for the next several innings there is no further scoring and few baserunners.  Hacker then has a lapse in the 6th, as Jake Burger cooks an RBI double off Hacker’s card, and then Adolis Garcia converts Hacker’s HR split for a 2-run shot and the game is looking out of reach for the Cubs.  They manage to get the leadoff hitter aboard for the last three innings but each time Eovaldi bears down and the Cubs come up empty; Eovaldi thus finishes out a 6-hit shutout and the Rangers eliminate these Cubs with a 4-0 win and move on.

The survivors

The old-school regional semifinal matched the bracket favorite 1952 Giants against the 1952 A’s, years before it could have been a bay-area showdown.  Although the underdog, the A’s had anticipated this matchup and saved MVP Bobby Shantz (24-7, 2.48) for the Giants, who had a swingman Dave Koslo (10-7, 3.19) on the hill.  At first, it appears that the strategy backfires as Shantz is touched for two runs in the bottom of the 2nd, driven in by future managers Whitey Lockman and Alvin Dark.  Although A’s DH Kite Thomas hits a solo shot in the 6th to draw within a run, in the bottom of the inning Dusty Rhodes hits his second pinch-hit homer of the regional and the Giants lead 3-1 heading into the 7th.  However, a triple by Elmer Valo scores one in the 7th, and in the 8th Koslo gets into trouble as runners reach 2nd and 3rd, but Hoyt Wilhelm is unavailable after an extended appearance earning the round one win.  The Giants figure that Koslo is the best they’ve got, but it’s not good enough as Allie Clark raps a 2-run single and the A’s take the lead.  From there Shantz pitches like the MVP he was, and the A’s sneak back to take the 4-3 win, eliminating the favorite and heading to the regional final.

In the more modern regional semifinal, it was the 2024 Giants against the 2025 Rangers, with a couple pretty high-profile starters facing off:  a healthy Jacob deGrom (12-8, 2.97) for the Rangers while Blake Snell (5-3, 3.12) was on the hill for the Giants.   And the game proceeded as one might expect with this pair; a scoreless tie after six innings with each squad only recording three hits.  However, when an error puts the leadoff hitter in the top of the 6th aboard, deGrom issues a walk and is then pulled for reliever Phil Maton; that doesn’t go well, as consecutive RBI singles by Patrick Bailey and Thairo Estrada push the Giants ahead 2-0.  The Rangers do respond in the bottom of the inning with an RBI double courtesy of Josh Smith, but Snell buckles down and finishes out a 6-hitter as the Giants squeak into the regional final winning a 2-1 pitching duel. 

The regional final matches a 1952 A’s team that was barely over .500 with a 2024 Giants team that was barely under the break-even mark.  As tends to be the case with these mediocre teams, the #3 starters for these squads were undistinguished, with Alex Kellner (12-14, 4.36) and Kyle Harrison (7-7, 4.56) for San Francisco both sporting hittable cards.  Kellner starts off the bottom of the 1st with no ability to throw strikes, loading up the bases and setting up a succession of RBI singles that quickly put the Giants up 3-0.  In the 2nd Kellner throws a strike to Matt Chapman, who deposits it into McCovey Cove and it’s looking like a Giants blowout.  However, it’s Harrison’s turn to lose control in the 4th, and he issues four walks, two hits, plus an error makes matters worse as the persistent A’s accept the gifts and tie the game.  Undeterred, the Giants plate two in the bottom of the inning to regain the lead, and in the 5th the teams exchange solo homers with Kite Thomas and Michael Conforto providing the fireworks.  By the sixth, both teams have gone to their pen, with San Francisco having the luxury of a much deeper, modern bullpen; however, neither of the Rogers brothers are able to keep the A’s off the basepaths, as bases on balls and Giants’ errors lead to three runs and an 8-7 lead in the top of the 6th.  A two run homer by Chapman, his second longball of the game, quickly ends that advantage in the bottom of the inning and once again the Giants hold a one-run edge.  However, 44-year old Bobo Newsom comes in and manages to recapture his youth, holding the Giants at bay, while a two-run homer by Elmer Valo and a Gus Zernial sac fly provide the A’s with a lead that Newsom preserves, giving the A’s a hardfought 11-9 victory and the regional title, sending them to round four as a persistent, potential tournament dark horse.

 Interesting card of Regional A2:  Willie Mays’ career in the traditional majors began impressively in 1951, as he took Rookie of the Year honors as a 20-year old and it seemed he was poised for big things to come.  However, he got off to a slow start for the 1952 season, although he was never in danger of losing his starting job, as manager Leo Durocher had no doubts about this young prospect.  Unfortunately, he never had a chance to get untracked, as he was drafted into the US Army and reported for duty after playing only 34 games.  That was it for his 1952 season, reflected in the card that you see here, and it is arguably the worst card of his career, or perhaps second only to his 1973 card for the Mets as a 42-year old goodwill ambassador.  However, even in 1973 he made the All-Star team; inspecting Mays’ BBR page reveals that the 1952 season is the only one in his 23-year career where the “Awards” column is blank, with multiple MVPs, Gold Gloves, and All-Star appearances liberally scattered across his page.  Despite the relative disappointment that I experienced when I found his card after sifting through the ‘52 Giants for the Say Hey Kid, playing the team made me appreciate just how valuable he nonetheless was to that squad.  Inf fact, at the time that Mays left for the military, the Giants were in first place with a 2½-game lead over the Dodgers.  However, they promptly lost eight of ten after he left, and they were never again a real factor in the pennant race.