1970 Baseball Season

 

Highlights:

The league missed the excitement of the wild card team so we re-instituted the practice and expanded it to include two wild cards rather than a play-in as is common in MLB today.  The two division winners with the most wins were seeded #1 and #2 for the post season tournament while the two non-division winners were selected as wild cards and played the two remaining division winners in a best of seven game series to advance against numbers 1 and 2.

​

West Deer continued its grip on the yearly MVP award as Carl Yastrzemski won his second MVP in four years, and first since 1967, thereby terminating teammate Frank Howard's two-year run in 1968-69.  West Deer's Jim Palmer won the Cy Young award and became the second pitcher to win 30 games (31-4) in a season tying former Crimsonite Sandy Koufax in 1963.  West Deer's Wilbur Wood won his third Fireman of the Year trophy as he continued a five year run for the West Deer team who certainly know how to spell R-E-L-I-E-F!  Finally, Philadelphia's Bernie Carbo was voted the top rookie of the year as Philly bounced back to reach the post season as a wild card.

​

Presley Division:

The Meadowbook Phillies rolled to their fourth division title overall and first since 1962.  The Phillies were a dynamo home and away as the posted identical 53-28 marks in either venue.  Off-season acquisition Dick Bosman led the second best pitching staff in the league with a 22-5 mark and 2.08 ERA.  Fritz Peterson (18-9 3.04), Andy Messersmith (15-6 3.01) and Jim McAndrew (14-6 2.62) rounded out a solid rotation while Darold Knowles (29 saves, 1.56 ERA) headed a solid bullpen.

​

Willie McCovey led an awesome offense for the Phils.  Big-Mac batted .302, scored 118 runs, drove in 117, had 51 doubles, a triple and 40 homers to simply punish opponents.  He was more than ably aided by Dick Allen (.256-36-94), Alex Johnson (.333-17-73, and 59 extra base hits in total), Frank Robinson (.281-27-89), Bill Melton (.270-26-76) and Johnny Callison (.234-89-23).

​

Philadelphia parlayed the second best offense into the second wild card slot for the post season.  The Freedom averaged 5.5 runs per game, second only to the 5.7 from the powerful West Deer crew.  Injuries limited top batsman Rod Carew to 60 games, but he made the most of his opportunities as he batted .408.  Rusty Staub (.280-30-111), Bob Bailey (.261-33-106) and Billy Williams (.279-29-102) formed the heart of the order.  Bernie Carbo (.308-29-83) followed while Tommy Harper (.289-27-73) got things started at the top.  Harper led the team in runs scored with 125 and stole 27 bases.  Ray Fosse (.281-16-83) handled the backstop duties while part timers Willie Horton (.298-12-47) and Chuck Hinton (.357-14-49) filled in where needed.

​

Ferguson Jenkins (22-9 3.24) was the ace of the staff while Jim Merritt (17-10 3.78), Stan Bahnsen (14-8 3.06) and Wayne Simpson (10-5 3.02) filled out the rotation.  However, it was the bullpen that played a key role for the Freedom and was their strength.  Jim Grant led the corps with and 8-3 mark, 23 saves and 2.27 ERA in 117 innings pitched.  Tom Hall (6-2 3.29) tossed 112 innings while Stan Williams (12-11 3.42) hurled 121.  

​

Brando Division:

Mars Hill repeated as champion and for the fifth time overall.  After a bit of a round robin in the first three season where the winners were the Providence, Crimson and Lansing franchises, the past 13 seasons has been a struggle between five time winner Mars Hill and eight time winner Crimson with Mars Hill winning in 1970 by 8 games over Crimson.

​

The Mules boasted the leagues best defense and their pitchers benefited.  Dave McNally led the staff with a 25-11 record and 2.22 ERA.  Rick Wise (13-6 3.36), Jerry Koosman (14-12 3.06) and Don Wilson (14-6 3.37) were the team of mules who pulled the staff to a 3.32 team ERA, fifth best overall in the league.

​

Boog Powell was not quite the Boogeyman he was in 1969 but the big first baseman did bat .275 with 35 homers and 90 RBI.  Newcomer Cito Gaston led the offense and complemented Powell to form a left-right kick to opponent pitching staffs.  Cito led the team with a .310 average while smacking 23 homers and driving in 109 runs.  Jim Northrup (.248-22-83), Bob Oliver (.285-18-98) and Bill Freehan (.210-16-56) filled out the lineup while part-timer Bill Sudakis batted .299 while smacking 21 homers in 264 at bats.

​

Dean Division:

Highland and West Deer roared through the season and both finished at the top of the Dean Division with 112 wins.  Highland was declared the winner of the division due to their 13-9 record against West Deer while the Wranglers entered the post season tournament as the #1 seed. 

 

In an almost see-saw manner the teams balanced out evenly in the statistics.  West Deer was #1 in runs scored per game while Highland was #3.  Highland was #1 in team pitching while West Deer was #3.  Neither team was especially impressive on defense as Highland finished 10th in team fielding while West Deer was 16th.

​

Highland was led on the mound by a pair of 21 game winners, Ray Culp (21-7 3.12) and Clyde Wright (21-5 2.51).  Mike Cuellar (18-17 3.47) and Claude Osteen (10-5 4.17) filled out the rotation.  The Flyers did boast an impressive bullpen led by Ron Perranoski (7-3 1.82 21 saves), Lindy McDaniel (11-2 2.05 10 saves), Pete Richert (4-3 1.15 5 saves) and Marcel Lachemann (5-1 0.40 and 3 saves).

​

As has been the case since the inception of the league, the offense was led by Henry Aaron who batted .285, smacked 52 homers ( the second time he has topped 50) and 138 RBIs.  Jim Hichman (.301-33-109) and Joe Torre (.309-26-106) teamed with Henry to form the heart of the order while Ken Henderson (.315-22-85), Bob Robertson (.283-27-73), Billy Grabarkewitz (.281-18-76) and Jim Fregosi (.260-13-65) added more muscle to the lineup.

​

West Deer has already been noted for their trophy winners at the top of this page.  

​

Their pitching might easily be thought of as starting with Cy Young winner Jim Palmer (31-4 2.46) and ending with top Fireman Wilbur Wood (2.04 ERA and 57 saves).  However, Sam McDowell (23-7 2.45) and Mel Stottlemyre (23-7 3.15) would easily be aces on any other team.  

​

Carl Yastrzemski (.360-46-132) led the offense on the way to MVP honors.  Bobby Bonds (.308-22-82 and 40 steals) topped the lineup with Joe Morgan (.271-15-66 and 23 SBs) followed.  If those guys did not scare you then Harmon Killebrew (.288-54-136) and Frank Howard (.264-51-134) would.  It is quite a group that can turn Reggie Jackson (.262-28-94) into an afterthought but this group did.

​

Holly Division:

The Cincy Pops squeaked by the Delmarva Dogfish to win the Holly Division by a single game.  Cincy became our first division winner to do so with a losing record but the juggernaut that was Delmarva in 1969 came back to the pack in 1970 and Cincy popped to the top.  Delmarva was still the big fish in the division as they posted a 41-25 record but Cincy was better against the rest of the league.  Delmarva was especially hurt by the Brandoites who snared the fish 24 of 32 times.

​

Cincy was led by Jim McGlothlin (14-13 3.20) and Jim Kaat (11-11 2.95) but also got solid work from Doc Ellis (9-10 3.01), Dave Roberts (9-13 3.15) and Marty Pattin (8-11 3.22).  Clay Carroll (24 saves, 2.23 ERA) was the closer.  

​

Outfielders Vada Pinson (.278-24-78) and Jose Cardenal (.288-6-61 with 28 steals) were the players the offense coalesced around.  Part timers Duke Sims (.305-24-71) and Carlos May (.251-10-35) provided depth while Graig Nettles (.221-25-89) provided pop at third base for the Pops.

​

Post Season:

We have used the wild card team format in 15 of the 16 seasons we have played in 3RBL.  This season marked the very first time a wild card team won the post season tournament.  Philadelphia, our second wild card, quickly disposed of Mars Hill 4-1 with their first three wins coming through the fine relief efforts of Stan Williams (twice) and Jim Grant.  After Fergie Jenkins dropped the fourth game, Stan Bahnsen went the distance to advance against Presley Division winner Meadowbrook.  

 

The bullpen was again the decisive factor for Philly in the next round as Tom Hall both won and saved a game and  Jim Grant saved the fourth game to give Philly a 3-1 lead in the series.  Stan Williams applied the coup de gras in the 7th game to beat off a Meadowbrook comeback.

​

On the other side of the tournament, West Deer dispatched Cincy in five games but were ousted by Highland in a seven-game battle.

​

Philly dropped the first two at Highland to open the finals but swept the final four for the championship.

​

West Deer's Bobby Bonds led all post season batters with a .408 mark in 52 plate appearances.  Meadowbrook's Willie McCovey led in slugging with a 1.115 percentage including 4 doubles and 5 homers and hit safely in all seven games in which he appeared.

​

However, the Most Valuable "Player" is an award to be shared among the Philadelphia bullpen.  Jim Grant appeared in 10 games and hurled 16.1 innings; Stan Williams went to the hill 11 times for 14.2 IP and Tom Hall 6 for 11 totaling 26.4% of the total innings hurled by Philadelphia pitchers.  They posted a collective 5-0 record, saved 5 games and combined for a 1.50 ERA.

​

Individual game box scores can be found on the Record Book page.