Round One S08


Willie Mays

Kicking off week two of Round One, we see top seed Willie Mays faceoff against Hall-of-Famer Harry Heilmann, Augie Galan, Mark Grace, Red Murray, Johnny Pesky, Tim Salmon, and Mike Smith. Who moves on to the next round?

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Willie Mays retired with 660 Lifetime HRs – 2nd All-time
PlayerWinsLossesPct.GB
Willie Mays10252.662*WON*
Harry Heilmann8272.53220.0
Augie Galan8272.53220.0
Mike Smith7876.50624.0
Johnny Pesky7480.48128.0
Tim Salmon6787.43535.0
Mark Grace6688.42936.0
Red Murray6589.42237.0
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Heilmann batted over .390, four times and had a .342 lifetime average

Say Hey, Willie Mays won this one in handy fashion, winning on opening day and never looking back. He finished a healthy 20 games ahead of the pack. Harry Heilmann and Johnny Pesky tied for the batting average lead with .243, 20 points ahead of the league as a whole.

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3-time All-Star Augie Galan

As evidence of the pitching heavy nature of this round, a Harry Heilmann led the league with a .260 batting average and the best Willie Mays led the league with 22 homers. One Tim Salmon struck out 5 times in 5 at bats in a 13-inning game; I bet that was frustrating! One thing I am tracking is Hit By Pitch totals. Since this is not based on statistics but is the same chance for every player, I am curious as to what the breakdown will be. One Mark Grace had 10 HBP on the season. There were four no-hitters and again, Cy Young tossed a perfect game.

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Mike Smith batted .310, lifetime

Mays and Heilmann are joined in Round 3 by Augie Galan, Mike Smith, and Johnny Pesky who made it in based on having a positive run differential. The others get a second chance in Round 2.

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Three years of WWII might have cost Pesky a slot in the Hall-of-Fame

Tim Bruno

Tim has been a baseball fan for most of his life and has played a great deal of baseball and softball over the years. Although his playing days are long behind him, he remembers back when he was an extremely fast catcher with an extremely bad arm. He has been playing Strat-o-Matic baseball since he was 14. Tim is currently living in southwest France and writes A LOT about coffee at Procaffeination.com. He has also written Procaffeination: A Coffee Lover's Dictionary, which will be available soon. You can find out more about Tim's writing at TimothyBruno.com and if you want to contact him about the tournament, drop him an email at Tim@BaseballsGreatestPlayerPlayoff.com

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