BLATTNER HITS FOR CYCLE, BUT GIANTS FALL TO DODGERS

4 Brooklyn HRs Lead to Club’s 6^th Straight ‘W’

NEW YORK, Aug. 8 (AP) – Buddy Blattner became the third player this major league season to hit for the cycle, but it wasn’t enough as the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the New York Giants 8-5 at the Polo Grounds.  It was Brooklyn’s sixth consecutive victory and 10^th in the club’s last 12 games.

The Dodgers, who hadn’t hit more than two home runs as a team in a single contest thus far this year, belted four homers in the game.  The clubs combined to hit six long balls in the contest.  There have been a total of 11 National League games this season where the two teams involved have combined to hit at least five homers.  The Giants have been involved in nine of those games and seven of them—fully half—have been played at the Polo Grounds.  For the year to date, the average game held at the Polo Grounds is experiencing 2.35 home runs, more than twice the average number hit in any other NL ballpark.

Blattner wasted no time completing the cycle, needing only four plate appearances to do so.  He led off the game by grounding a double down the right field line, homered into the lower grandstand in straight away left field in the third inning, lined a single to left in the fourth and tripled off the wall in right leading off the sixth.

The Giants hit a pair of solo home runs, by Blattner and Willard Marshall, in the bottom of the third to open the scoring.

Trailing 2-0 in the top of the fourth, Dixie Walker followed one-out singles off the bats of Augie Galan and Pete Reiser with an opposite field shot that hit the façade of the upper deck down the right field line.  The three-run homer gave Brooklyn a 3-2 lead, and Galan’s RBI double in the fifth made it 4-2.

But RBIs from Walker Cooper and Sid Gordon in the bottom of the fifth knotted the score at four runs apiece.  Blattner’s triple in the bottom of the sixth was followed by Mickey Witek’s run-scoring single, allowing the Giants to retake the lead, 5-4.

In the top of the seventh, Eddie Stanky singled with one out and, after Galan Flied to left, Reiser belted a long home run to right, putting the Dodgers back on top, 6-5. It was a lead they wouldn’t surrender.

In the top of the eighth, Pee Wee Reese and Bruce Edwards both hit solo home runs off Giants reliever Junior Thompson to give the Dodgers some breathing room.  Brooklyn relievers Hugh Casey and Kirby Higbe combined to toss three scoreless innings of relief, preserving the win for starter Vic Lombardi, who struggled throughout but still emerged with his 10^th victory of the season.

8/8/1946, Brk46-NYN46, Polo Grounds

                       1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9     R  H  E   LOB DP

1946 Dodgers           0  0  0  3  1  0  2  2  0     8  9  1     5  0

1946 Giants            0  0  2  0  2  1  0  0  0     5 14  1    12  0

Dodgers              AB  R  H BI   AVG    Giants               AB  R  H BI   AVG

Stanky            2b  4  2  1  0  .266    Blattner          2b  5  2  4  1  .238

Galan             lf  4  1  2  1  .310    Witek             3b  5  0  1  1  .230

 Medwick          ph  1  0  0  0  .385    Marshall,W        cf  5  2  2  1  .303

 Whitman,D        cf  0  0  0  0  .268    Young             1b  4  1  2  0  .295

Reiser            cf  5  2  2  2  .255    Cooper,W          c   5  0  3  1  .202

Walker,D          rf  4  1  2  3  .322    Gordon,S          lf  5  0  2  1  .313

Stevens,E         1b  4  0  0  0  .210    Rosen,G           rf  4  0  0  0  .248

 Schultz,H        1b  0  0  0  0  .314    Rigney,B          ss  3  0  0  0  .235

Reese             ss  2  1  1  1  .302    Trinkle           p   3  0  0  0  .045

Lavagetto         3b  3  0  0  0  .252     Lombardi,E       ph  1  0  0  0  .292

Edwards,B         c   4  1  1  1  .317     Thompson         p   0  0  0  0  .000

Lombardi,V        p   3  0  0  0  .167     Kennedy,M        p   0  0  0  0  .143

 Casey            p   1  0  0  0  .000                         40  5 14  5

 Higbe            p   0  0  0  0  .074

                     35  8  9  8

Dodgers                          INN  H  R ER BB  K PCH STR   ERA

Lombardi,V       W 10-6          6.0 12  5  5  3  0 108  65  4.18

Casey            H 4             2.1  2  0  0  1  1  32  21  1.67

Higbe            S 2             0.2  0  0  0  0  0   5   3  3.02

                                 9.0 14  5  5  4  1 145  89

Giants                           INN  H  R ER BB  K PCH STR   ERA

Trinkle          L 5-3           7.0  7  6  6  5  5 140  86  3.39

Thompson                         1.0  2  2  2  0  1  24  17  4.60

Kennedy,M                        1.0  0  0  0  0  0   9   5  2.81

                                 9.0  9  8  8  5  6 173 108

Brk: Medwick batted for Galan in the 9th

     Whitman,D inserted at cf in the 9th

     Reiser moved to lf in the 9th

     Schultz,H inserted at 1b in the 9th

NYN: Lombardi,E batted for Trinkle in the 7th

E-Edwards,B, Witek. 2B-Galan(12), Blattner(18), Witek(8). 3B-Blattner(5).

HR-Reiser(8), Walker,D(5), Reese(5), Edwards,B(1), Blattner(5),

Marshall,W(7). RBI-Galan(22), Reiser 2(60), Walker,D 3(67), Reese(38),

Edwards,B(17), Blattner(27), Witek(16), Marshall,W(40), Cooper,W(14),

Gordon,S(37). CS-Reese, Rigney,B. K-Stanky 2, Galan, Reiser, Stevens,E,

Lavagetto, Witek. BB-Stanky, Walker,D, Reese 2, Lavagetto, Young, Rosen,G,

Rigney,B 2.

GWRBI: Reiser

Temperature: 75, Sky: clear, Wind: out to center at 12 MPH.

Attendance: 10,792

Game Time: 2:23