Week 16 Summary (07/28/1941 - 08/03/1941)

1941 Chicago Cubs
Week Sixteen of the 1941 BBW Replay is in the books and we have hit the two-thirds point in the schedule. Teams still lag slightly behind the two-third point in games played, but not by much as doubleheaders are now a regular occurrence as teams continue to make up that difference. Four teams in the AL have reached the 100-games-played mark with only one team in the NL there, but by the end of this coming week, all the teams will be in the triple digits for games played. 

The big news of Week Sixteen was the second no-hitter of the season as White Sox hurler Thornton Lee no-hit the Washington Nationals on Friday (08/01/1941). Lee did walk a batter (Jake Early), but Early was immediately erased in a double play, so Lee only faced the minimum of 27 batters in the game.

 

Much like last week, both New York and St. Louis continued to play well and continued to sit atop their respective leagues, all the while watching the teams behind them battle it out for the crumbs of second place. At one point early in the week, it was Boston in fourth place in the AL, but by the end of the week back in second place, but neither Boston, Cleveland, nor Chicago was able to make up any ground on New York.

 

Chicago Cubs Manager
Jimmie Wilson
In the NL, similar to the AL, Cincinnati and New York have cooled off slightly following their red-hot rise that propelled them to second place if only for a few days, and now Brooklyn has resumed its ownership of the second slot. However, Brooklyn, just like Boston in the AL, finds itself 12.5 games behind the league leaders and time is starting to dwindle. With only ~50 games remaining in the season, a comeback certainly isn’t impossible, but as each day passes it becomes more and more unlikely.

Ted Williams ended the week hitting .486, with Joe DiMaggio second at .363. It seems pretty certain Williams will hit .400, so the question is exactly how high will he end up at? In my 1911 BBW replay Joe Jackson had a batting average over .500 for most of the season and ended up at .473, so while I do expect Williams' average to sag a little before the end of the season, I expect it will be better than the .406 he actually hit in 1941. How does this happen? I don't know. After all, it's BBW, the computer game. It's not like I can go back and fudge dice rolls. It is what it is. It does make for a fun replay though.

 

With the pennant winners all but decided at this point, the teams are starting to look forward to next season already. Expect to see plenty of young players making their major league debuts over these final two months, as well as several long-time players making way for new blood on their team. Of course, whatever plans any of these players and teams have for the future already have the dark cloud of the war in Europe hovering over them. All that being said, let's go play!

 

Wrigley Field 1938 Digital Art by Gary Grigsby - Pixels





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