The Day Yale and Bush Lost to Cal

Forty years ago today, on June 22, 1947, the University of California defeated Yale, 8-7, to win the first College World Series at Kalamazoo, Mich.

The Bears were led by pitcher-outfielder Jackie Jensen, later an American League most valuable player with the Boston Red Sox.

In a second-round game, matching pitchers who also won All-American honors in football, Jensen and Cal beat Bobby Layne and Texas, 8-7.

Cal won two straight in a best-of-three series with Yale to win the championship. The score of the first game was 17-4. The Yale first baseman was future Vice President George Bush. He went 0 for 7 in the two games.

Note: In 1948, Bush and Yale again lost in the finals, this time to USC. The Trojan batboy was 14-year-old George Anderson. Today, most people call him Sparky.

Trivia Time: Scott Simpson, a two-time NCAA golf champion at USC, is the third former NCAA champion to win the U.S. Open. Name the other two. (Answer below.)

Watch It, Mac: Mac O’Grady and Mark McCumber had a brief confrontation on the first green Sunday.

O’Grady whistled his second shot onto the green of the par-5 hole, the ball hitting McCumber’s caddie on the elbow, landing near McCumber, who was putting at the time. The two exchanged words briefly.

Telling-it-like-it-is dept.: Benito Santiago, 21-year-old rookie catcher for San Diego, told The Sporting News: “Except for Goose Gossage, Ed Whitson and Andy Hawkins, these pitchers here stink.”

From Richard Justice of the Washington Post: “Detroit’s signing of Bill Madlock is the best indication yet they will win the American League East. In 1979 he was traded from San Francisco to Pittsburgh and hit .328 the rest of the year to help the Pirates win a World Series. In 1985 he was traded to the Dodgers, and he hit .360 to help them win their division. This year, as of last weekend, he was hitting .380 and the Tigers had gone 9-4 since his arrival.”

Here’s what Bill James had to say about Phil Garner, the newest Dodger, in his “Baseball Abstract” of 1986 as he rated him ninth among National League third basemen: “What can you say, Phil Garner is still Phil Garner. He’s always been Phil Garner, and he’ll always be Phil Garner.”

Add Garner: With Oakland, Pittsburgh and Houston, his three previous clubs, he made it to the Championship Series and went to the World Series with the Pirates.

In the 1979 World Series against Baltimore he got 12 hits and batted .500. His batting average tied a Series record for a seven-game series.

The irony, of course, is that he now replaces ex-Pirate teammate Madlock at the Dodger hot corner.

Trivia Answer: Jack Nickalus of Ohio State in 1961 and Hale Irwin of Colorado in 1967.

Quotebook

Detroit Manager Sparky Anderson, after the Tigers hit five home runs Sunday: “If you get the ball up on a hot day it’s a home run. It gets up there and never comes down. It’s like an astronaut; when he gets out of the plane he just stays there--drifts around.”