![]() The Browns had battled back from a 2–1 deficit to get runs in the fourth and sixth innings. A crowd of 7,649 was on hand to see Vern Stephens’ eighth inning home run win the game 3–2. Sewell sent Sig Jakucki, who had started the fourth game of the 1944 World Series, to the mound against the Cardinals’ Blix Donnelly, who had won the second game in relief. ![]() The teams would alternate the home-team role in Sportsman’s Park with the Browns getting the honors in Game One. But it will be something to see a big league ball player who has overcome the handicap of having only one arm and no doubt Pete will help no little to make the turnstiles click.” St. He has made good as a ball player, not as an unusual figure in a uniform. “They also will be able to present the league’s outstanding box office attraction…. ![]() “The Browns will be a better box office attraction as champions of the league and in Pete Gray,” reported the Post-Dispatch. The City Series would get underway on Saturday, April 7 and all eyes would be on the Browns’ new left fielder, the one-armed Pete Gray who had been named the Southern Association MVP while hitting. If we had played about five more games I would have been better satisfied.” As to his team, he added: “So far as physical condition is concerned, we are probably just as well off as we were this time last year, or perhaps a little better.” St. I would like to have been able to play more games…. Louis Post-Dispatch, “…I’m a little disappointed the way things have gone in the last week or 10 days. Manager Luke Sewell was not totally pleased. All of the exhibition games were against Toledo, as a three game series with the Cubs had to be cancelled because of travel restraints. The defending American League champions broke camp on the afternoon of April 6 after defeating their Toledo farmhands 7–6, finishing spring training with a 7–1–3 record. While some other clubs whiled away inclement days waiting for sunshine, the Browns trained hard.”Mead, op. They used the gymnasium at Southeast Missouri State Teachers College an arena built for horse shows, that had a dirt floor and thus could be used for infield practice an outdoor baseball field and a sandstone quarry, protected from the wind, with a running track.” He added, “Batting cages were set up in the arena with nets to stop batted balls. Bill Mead described the scenario this way: “…he Browns were blessed with a superb spring training camp. While weather conditions were not always desirable, other aspects were. As in the previous year, the Browns would be joined by their minor league affiliate, the Toledo Mud Hens. Louis, both teams restricted to Midwestern locations because of wartime travel constraints. The Browns assembled for their second consecutive spring training at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on March 12. ![]() ( Editor’s note: For a history of other regional City Series, visit .)Īs World War II wound down in Europe in the spring of 1945, American forces surged into Germany and were on the “Sands of Iwo Jima” in the Pacific. The practice survives to this day through the Los Angeles-Los Angeles (Anaheim) and San Francisco-Oakland preseason series. Series between crosstown rivals were also held in other places, most notably Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, cities where both major leagues had a team. ![]() The games were held most often in the spring before the beginning of the regular season, though some were held in the fall. Louis City Series originated in 1903 and was played 60 times with the Browns winning 26–13 over their rivals, with 21 ending in ties. The fact of the matter is that when the Browns and Cardinals went head-to-head in the annual City Series, the Browns came out on top. Mead Even The Browns: The Zany, True Story of Baseball in the Early Forties (Chicago: Contemporary Books, Inc., 1978) 186. It would have been a disgrace to lose to the Browns.”William B. As related in Bill Mead’s Even the Browns, they found Cardinals owner Sam Beardon, who responded boorishly: “If we’d lost this Series to the Browns. Louis Cardinals captured the sixth and clinching game of the 1944 World Series, Browns owner Don Barnes and general manager Bill Dewitt made their way to the victor’s offices to extend congratulations. ![]()
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