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The 1940 Season
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Season Highlights & Events
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Wecome to the AFL
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Goodbye
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1940 AFL players who played in the majors:
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The Troy Trojans’ pre season was a rough one. A couple days before the season
started, a tornado ripped apart their stadium. As if that wasn’t enough, before the season’s first pitch was thrown manager Ellis Johnson was released. The Trojans played three games without a manager before Hal Fehrenbacher was hired. Once the season got going, the Trojans demonstrated lots of power with 6 players with 10 or more home runs, but a weak pitching staff kept them in the lower half of the league. |
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The fifth AFL season was actually the first for the Alabama State League. After
Panama City left the league and were replaced by Brewton, Alabama, it didn’t make sense to reference Florida in the league name anymore. The league played a 130 game season, although the newpapers reported in March that a 120 game schedule would be used. 1940 saw the return of Yam Yaryan: Away for just one season, Yaryan came back to manage and catch for the new Brewton Millers. Yaryan was now 47 years old and started the season as the team’s only catcher. Leaving the league after a very successful stint was Doc Wingard, who moved over to Montgomery to manage the Southeastern League Rebels. It was a short absence though, as Wingard was back by August after being |
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sacked as the Rebels’ skipper. He accepted a position as first baseman for
the Tallassee Indians and helped them clinch the league title. 1940 also saw a new league president, Eric Ballard, who replaced C.T. Laney mid-season. Ballard was a man with new ideas: He proposed a post-season playoff series with the Class D Kitty League to extend the season, and hopefully the profits (if there were any) for both leagues. He also lead efforts to create a more interdependent relationship between the various minor leagues. The playoffs Ballard envisioned never came about, but his forward thinking and willingness to experiment made Ballard an unusual and interesting League President. The fans got a chance to watch two of the league’s all-time best hitters during the 1940 season: Gordon « Cotton » Goodell, the center fielder for the Tallassee Indians was a pure hitter who seemed destined for the pros but never made it, and John Ostrowski, the Troy Trojan’s left-fielder, who worked his way up to the Chicago Cubs in 1943.Goodell, a young, hard-hitting center fielder, was a natural |
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hitter with a sweet left-handed swing. He could hit for power and possessed
excellent speed. Goodell got off to a great start and by May 12th, he was batting .418 with 12 homers. League watchers took notice, especially of the younster’s home run power. The league record of 20 homers was destined to be beaten since Goodell’s pace would have given him 40 at year’s end. By June 1st, Cotton was in a batting race with Ostrowski. Goodell was second to Ostrowski in hitting, even though he was batting an amazing .390, with 15 round-trippers. An explosive June gave Goodell the home run record, hitting his 24th before the All Star break. By mid-July, he was batting .398 with 29 homers and 39 stolen bases. The scouts had all taken notice and Goodell’s big break was on it’s way. He was sold to Chattanooga on July 19th, and was schduled to report August 1st. The news seemed to affect Cotton a bit and he slumped for the rest of July, ending his ASL tenure with a .376 batting average, 31 homers, 86 RBIs, and 44 stolen bases. It seemed that the majors were just a year or so away but for some reason, Cotton could stand the prosperity. Nine days later, he jumped out of his Lookout contract and ended up in Flint, Michigan, playing semi-pro ball. He spent a short time in 1942 playing for Milwaukee (American Association) and Portsmith (Piedmont League) and in 1945 he hit .229 splitting time between Atlanta and Little Rock (Southern Association). He finished up his career at Anniston in the Southeastern League, but he never returned to the glory days he had in the AFL. Ostrowski ended the season with a .341 average, 30 homers, and 120 RBIs, and by season’s end, Ostrowski was sold to Macon. Ostrowski spent the next few years in Macon before getting the call to the majors. Both players brought a lot of excitement and attention to the league. Their record-breaking power hitting and home run race was similar to the Sosa/McGwire battle almost 60 years later. The previous record of 20 homers was washed from the record books and the league was able to showcase some legitimate prospects for the higher leagues. |
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Goodell And Ostrowski
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The season’s pennant race was basically a two-team race between Greenville and Tallassee
up until mid summer. Greenville stayed with the Indians through July, but Tallassee was an extremely talented and powerful team and they they put forth a late summer surge that left the Lions in the dust. The Indians clinched the pennant on August 14th and zoomed to a 13 game lead by season’s end. The Dothan Browns and Troy Trojans both played above .500 ball, but neither could get any closer than 17 games. Tallassee was poised to cakewalk through the playoffs, but as in past seasons, the champions couldn’t pull off the double. The Indians were eliminated in the first round of the « Shaughnessey » playoffs by a weaker Dothan team. Greenville beat Troy in their playoff, and then the surprising Browns sent Greenville home and captured the playoff title 4-2 in six games. |
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Elsewhere in 1940
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ELSEWHERE IN 1940: George Jeffcoat of Nashville in the Southern Association
struck out 18 Chattanooga batters. |
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Former Union Springs star, George Kovach, lead the Class C East Texas League in its
andRBIs |
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Former Evergreen Greenies pitcher, Bruno Shedis, lead the Class B Quebec Provincial
League with 18 wins |
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Harry Rice, former major leaguer and Evergreen player-manager, is selected Wisconsin
State League’s All Star manager for his success lskippering the Fond du Lac Panthers. |
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Tallassee’s Mal Morgan
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Virgil Trucks, pitching for the Beaumont Exporters of the Class A Texas League, throws
the 3rd no-hitter of his career. |
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Houston Hotel, Dothan
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Bob Ferguson
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John Ostrowski
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Royce Lint
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Mickey McGowen
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Ernie Wingard
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Yam Yaryan
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Confederate Monument, Troy
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