Week 14 is in the books and it was another exciting week of 1957 baseball. Both pennant races are interesting and with ten weeks to go anything can happen. Most teams have passed the 90-games-played mark, several more will be there in the next day or two, and even the Cubs will get there by the end of the week.
The race in the NL has certainly tightened up
as Milwaukee has been on a roll and the Miracle Pirates continue to hang in
there all while the Cardinals have recently stumbled, leaving St. Louis and the
Braves tied (the Cardinals leading only by percentage points) and Pittsburgh
one-half game behind them both. Pittsburgh actually only had 62 wins in 1957
and they are currently sitting at 53 wins and they show no signs of slowing
down. Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati are still fighting for fourth
place but all three are having problems getting back to .500 and then staying
there once they get there.
1957 Chicago Cubs
The White Sox became the first team to reach
the 60 win mark and even though their performance has leveled off to some
degree they still maintain a 5.5 game lead over second-place New York. The
Yankees are playing well, but they still make the occasional stumble that
prevents them from further closing that gap. In the upcoming week, Chicago will
be playing their two main nemeses in New York and Baltimore … I am not going to
make any predictions, but if the Yankees can’t start making a move, even a
minor one pretty soon, they are going to start running out of season.
Ted
Williams just had his on-base streak broken at 80 games earlier this week.
As a point of reference, this occurred in Boston's 88th game of the season. The second-longest on-base streak of the season is owned by Bobby
Morgan (Chicago - NL) at 35 games, followed by Gil Hodges
(Brooklyn) at 31 games. The longest active on-base streak is Mickey
Mantle (New York - AL) at 27 games.
Chicago (NL) Manager
Bob Scheffing
Beyond that, Williams is hitting .420, well
ahead of Mantle (.361). Williams is second in runs scored (76) behind Mantle
(77), Mantle leads in RBI's (78), ahead of Jackie
Jensen (75) and Williams (74), and
Williams is second in homeruns (26) behind Roy Sievers
(28). Can Williams still hit over .400? He actually hit .388, so it is not out
of the question. Can he win the triple crown? I kind of doubt it, but he is
certainly well within the necessary ranges on all three categories to win them
all.
The upcoming week starts with a travel day
and no games are scheduled for Monday, but then a full schedule of games
resumes on Tuesday. Things have already tightened up in the NL, can the AL be
far behind? Let's go find out.
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