Week 17 Summary (08/05/1957 - 08/11/1957)

Week 17 of the 1957 replay is in the books and the end of season push is on but exactly who will respond is not yet known. Only a few teams have not yet reached the 110 games played mark but they will all be there in the next few days. Players on all teams are struggling with the normal accumulation of bumps and bruises so it is not unusual to see players drop out of the starting lineup for a few days here and there. All teams will be bringing up minor leaguers over the remaining weeks to get some experience at the major league level, so there is plenty of interesting ball left for all of the teams regardless of their placement in the standings. All that, plus Week 17 included three homerun games from Hank Sauer and Ted Williams and Duke Snider hit for the cycle, the first cycle of the season.

NL President
Waren Giles

In the AL the White Sox have opened an 8.5 game lead over the second-place Yankees as the Yankees continue to play well but every time they start to get close to the top they stumble and the White Sox continue to refuse to fold. If the White Sox win their next game their winning percentage will be at .700. In a 154-game season a team with a .700 winning percentage will end up with 108 wins - that would require the White Sox to finish with a 32-13 record over the final seven weeks. Of course, the Yankees actually won the AL in 1957, and again, the Yankees really are playing well as they have a better record than any of the NL teams, but if the White Sox don't slow down the Yankees will never make it to the top.

In the NL, Milwaukee and St. Louis continue to duel for the top of the NL. The Braves took 2-of-3 in St. Louis at the end of the week and currently has a 1.0 game lead over the Cardinals. These two teams may swap in and out of first for a little longer, but I think the Braves are just hitting their stride and the Cardinals have already gone through their hot streak a month ago.

AL President,
Will Harrdige

The other NL comment is on the overachieving Pirates. The Dodgers went into Pittsburgh at the end of the week has gone 2-11 versus the Pirates so far this season, but Brooklyn went on a hot streak and won all four games in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh currently has 60 wins, whereas they only had 62 in 1957, so they have already far exceeded their expectations and I expect they will continue to hang around, but they have likely slipped out of the pennant race. On the other hand, the fourth-place Dodgers have now opened a 4.0 game lead over fifth-place Philadelphia and more importantly, have moved to within 3.0 games of third-place Pittsburgh. Getting involved in the pennant race is likely a bit beyond their grasp, and they do have a tendency to run hot and cold, but they might have finally turned the corner on their troublesome season.

Do I think the pennant winners are likely set for both leagues? I may be hinting in that direction, but there are seven weeks remaining and this season has already had its share of ups and downs, so anything can happen and probably will.

Ted Williams continues to rock. Williams is currently hitting .426 (Minnie Minoso is second with .371), leads in RBI's with 97 (Mickey Mantle is second with 90), and has 34 homeruns, second behind Roy Sievers with 36. I was hesitant to provide triple crown coverage as it is still pretty early, but it is Ted Williams and he really is in an actual position to possibly pull it off.

The triple crown question as well as the pennant questions will all be resolved in the next seven weeks of play, so let's go play.

Note: I decided last week that 1911 would be my next replay. I ordered and received that disk and the cards already, thanks to a quick response from APBA and some seriously dedicated work from UPS (among all the delivery services at this time of year). Other than moving the cards into their envelopes I haven’t done anything with this yet. I haven’t even loaded the disk yet. I would like to get 1957 finished first and don't want to get distracted. I was able to go online and download PDF version of the 1912 Reach and 1912 Spalding Baseball Guides though.

Why 1911? So far, I have completed 1901, 1930, 1949, and 1957 (soon). I am expecting 1911 to be a fun replay, plus adding 1911 and seasons from around 1920 and 1940 will allow me to basically have completed a replay from seasons that are all (more or less) ten years apart through the first half of the century. This wasn't my original goal, but it has evolved that way so that is where I am headed. ATMgr has a lineup file for 1911 as well, which was also part of my consideration.