SPB II May 1958 Newsletter

The South River
Gladiators took a commanding four game lead in the American League while the
National featured a tight three team race with the Surfers, Bishops and
Cruisers separated by only one game.
The disappointment of the year so far are the
Evanston Elephants, in sixth place, a sickening nine games back.

The Gladiators
had a wild series with the Portland Beavers before winning 3 of 5.  In Game One the Beavers scored a 1-0
victory in 13 innings and then turned around and won an 11-9 slugfest in Game
Two before losing the next three.
The Route 66 Hot Rods continued to surprise as they posted a 14-11
record for the month and are now 28-22 overall, but still four games back of the
high flying Gladiators.  Included in
May was a stunning 4 of five near sweep over the World Champion Surfers, a feat
also achieved in April.  The Rods
pitching is holding up well, but how long can they keep it up?

Larry Jackson
of the Aces won two games in a series with the Bishops, but lost the other
three.  Leon Wagner and Roy Sievers
had two homers each for Goshen
in the series.  The Dayton Flyers
were pitiful against the Aces, losing four of five and scoring only six runs in
the series, three of them coming in their only win.  The Frankfort Fortress continued their
domination of the Elephants, winning four of five at home to compliment a
similar result in April at the Evanston
home park.  But then they ran into
the red hot Bishops and proceeded to lose four of five.  The Southport Saints shocked the highly
rated (but poor performing) Elephants by winning five straight at Evanston.  Rookie Vada Pinson broke in with a bang
in May as he went 11-18 (.611 BA) with 8 runs scored in 6 games.

The Hampton
Road Cruisers continued their hot hitting as they scored 86 runs in 15 home
games but gave up 85 but were able to post a respectable 9-6 home record and
were 15-10 overall.  The Bishops
were awesome at home winning 12 of 15 and pulling to within one game of the
league leading Surfers.  The Surfers
have the second best record in SPB II at 31-19 but if you take out the 2-8
record versus the supposedly lowly Hot Rods, they are a sizzling 29-11.

The
Saints’ Pete Runnells leads the AL
with a .384 average and Rocky Colavito of the Fortress has 16 homers to lead in
that category.  Five pitchers are
tied with 6 AL
victories.  In the NL, Frank Torre
of the Flyers leads with a sizzling .408 BA while Mickey Mantle of the Surfers
and Roger Maris of the Cruisers were tied with 13 homers.

Whitey Ford of
the Cruisers leads with 9 pitching victories.