1952 Season
April- A very pleasing 17-9 record to start the season, good for a 2 game lead on the Braves. Irvin is having his typical great season and Roy McMillan is doing a good job out of the 2 hole. Campanella is hitting .370 and Greengrass has clocked 9 homers and 33 RBI, which lead baseball. Our pitching has been tremendous save for rookie Troy Herriage.
May- We end a down month 31-22 and a game behind the Giants. Lew Burdette will miss a month with a collarbone break, damnit.
We get a very tempting offer from Detroit who is willing to give us power hitting Vic Wertz, in the prime of his career and locked in at a nice salary for 6 seasons. They want Day & Held though. Jesus. I'd be giving up on the season if I traded Day, but I'm gonna lose him anyway. And Held is the glue to our bullpen. I hate decisions like this. I don't think I'm winning this year. I do it. We're essentially trading a closer for a stud, power hitting OF/1B.
Wertz is currently 2nd in baseball in hits and 3rd in RBI, he's legit. We move Dick Fowler from the pen to the starting rotation till Burdette is healthy. Ed Blake becomes the closer. The back end of the pen is very weak and the starting staff obviously takes a blow but the offense is really bolstered. Wertz & Greengrass in the heart of the order is going to be monster. Roy McMillan really tailed off in May.
June- We finish the month 45-35 with a half game lead on the Giants. Man, the NL sucks this year.
Greengrass and Wertz are tied for 3rd in RBI. You can see Irvins slight decline but he's still getting on at a .400 clip. We're a solid team right, hopefully getting Burdette back will push us over the top.
We're slowly coming out the hole money wise. I'd really like to get out of debt before the season ends so we don't get gutted.
Pittsburgh got Roberto Clement 1st in the draft and Al Kaline went 2nd to the Tigers. We took Hank Aaron with our 1st rounder.
July- We're 60-46, 2.5 games behind the surging Reds. Curt Simmons missed a couple of weeks with a shoulder issue but he's back.
August- We have a very strong August and finish it 80-55 with a 6 game lead on the Giants. Curt Simmons has a balky knee and might miss the rest of the season but barring a collapse it looks like we're going to win the pennant. And YAY, we're out of debt!
September- We end the year 89-65 and win the pennant by 7 games over the Giants. The league was weak this year but I'll take it any way I can get it. We'll play the AL champ Yankees who went 93-61 and won the pennant by 6 games over the White Sox.
Wertz & Greengrass tied for 2nd in the league with 30 homers each. Wertz also drove in 112 and Greengrass 108. Irvin went .324/24/56 and scored 122 runs for 3rd in the league. Lew Burdette was our stud this year as his 2.26 ERA is good for 1st in the league, we'll be relying on him heavily in the world series. Closer Ed Blake was also phenomonal, posting a 1.41 ERA over 63 innings.