Flashback Friday: End of Season (1967)
We have a pair of brief articles from the end of the 1967 season for this Flashback Friday.
The first article is a stats round-up that gives the leaders in the various categories. The '67 batting champion is a current major league manager.
The second article by Tim Petermann of The Post-Crescent is about the off-season plans for most of the 1967 Appleton Foxes.
Ortiz Steals 64 Bases
Manuel Captures ML Batting Title at .311
Wisconsin Rapids outfielder Chuck Manuel finished as the 1967 Midwest League batting champion, according to final statistics by the Howe News Bureau of Chicago.
The slugging right-fielder from Virginia was the lone hitter in the circuit to wind up above the .300 mark at .311. Third-baseman Bruce Davis of Quad Cities was runner-up with a .292 mark, followed by shortstop Marty Perez of Quad Cities at .289; Rafael Robles of Decatur at .287; and Appleton's Jose Ortiz ended the season at .282.
Manuel's heavy hitting enabled him to take firsts in two other departments - total bases with 200 and runs scored with 74.
Scored 73 Runs
Ortiz, a swift center-fielder who helped Appleton to the ML championship, scored 73 runs to rank just behind Manuel and took one crown uncontested - stolen bases. Ortiz swiped 64 bases for the year, 10 short of the league record.
Outfielder Jim Williams captured two power titles. He socked 17 home runs, two ahead of Burlington's Bob Brooks and three in front of Manuel, and was also kingpin with 70RBI. Bruce Davis rapped out the most doubles with 32, and the Foxes' Roy Radmaker legged the most triples, 9.
Decatur's Bob DeLong finished as the pitcher with the best earned run average at 1.97, while Appleton's Durant Cooper was one percentage point behind at 1.98. DeLong, Ray Jarvis of Waterloo, and Jerry Lyscio all garnered 15 wins over the season as league highs. Lyscio completed 18 games for another mark.
DeLong struck out the most men, 191, and Lyscio proved to be the iron man of the loop with 198 innings pitched.
Wisconsin Rapids took the team batting honors for the second half with a .264 average, while Decatur was second at .262. Appleton hit at a .252 clip. Cedar Rapids turned in the best fielding effort with a .988 mark. Appleton finished sixth at .956.
6 Attend School; 3 Will Teach
11 Foxes to Play Winter Ball
For more than half of the Appleton Foxes, winning the Midwest League pennant concluded just one segment of their baseball season.
Eleven of the 21 players who were on the team when the ML campaign ended will take a brief rest before reporting to winter ball camp late in September or October.
The Chicago White Sox Sarasota team in the instructional league is the drawing point for eight of the players including George Hunter, Joe Monty, Orville Hollrah, Al Fitzmorris, Steve Kokor, Durant Cooper, Roy Radmaker, and Jose Ortiz.
Pedro Rivera, a native of Guayama, Puerto Rico, will play ball for Ponce in his home country.
Willie Hooker will return to his native country of Nicaragua after a 2-week vacation in Mexico to play for Boer. The five teams in the Nicaraguan league each draw eight players from United States and the play is equivalent to Triple A ball, Willie reports. He also stated that he starts every fourth day on the Boer team.
6 to Attend School
Veteran player-coach "Deacon" Jones will remain in Appleton for a few weeks to allow his wife Tiki to recuperate after a recent hospital stay in Milwaukee. He may then play ball in Ponce, Puerto Rico, depending on what the White Sox have in store for him.
Six of the remaining 10 players will be attending school, and three more will be teaching.
Ken Murphy will attend Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Fla., where he is a math major studying to be a high school teacher. His wife attends Polk College in Lakeland where she is working to be a registered nurse.
Stu Singleton, at 18, the youngest player on the team, will be a freshman at Washington State. German-born Karl Simon will be a sophomore at Valparaiso University in Indiana, Appleton native Neil Weber will return to the University of Minnesota, where he is a sophomore. Ken Frailing, the Foxes' only other Wisconsin-born player will return to Wisconsin State University at Stevens Point for his second year. Jeff Kolb will attend Northern Illinois University where he is a second semester senior.
Chuck Brinkman and his wife will go home to Cincinnati where they will both begin their first year of teaching, Chuck as an elementary phy ed teacher and his wife as a junior high math instructor. Both were graduated from Ohio State, where Chuck was an All-American in 1966.
Carl Champion, who finished the last two weeks of the season with the Foxes but was not eligible for the playoffs, will begin his first year of full-time teaching as a junior phy ed teacher in Gary, Ind. He is a graduate of Florida A & M. Utility player Bob Mewes will be a high school math instructor in Colorado Springs, Colo. He earned his diploma from Colorado State College.
Tom Rowe, the Foxes' hard-luck player who was beset by injuries all season and is still recovering from a popped knee, has said he will journey to Chicago where he will attempt to arrange some singing engagements.
Manager Alex Cosmidis will join Cedar Rapids manager Jack Krol and Winston-Salem, N.C. field general Bill Slack in working for McLean Freight lines in Winston-Salem.
The players participating in winter ball will probably return to the White Sox spring training camp in February, while those teaching or attending school are not sure whether they will make spring training.
Several players have service hitches to take care of while others could be called at any time and do not know what's in the future for them.
NOTES:
Chuck Manuel is Charlie Manuel, the current manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Foxes had a pair of players finish above Manuel in average, but they did not have enough plate appearances to qualify for the title. Deacon Jones hit .352, but in only 122 at bats. Carlos May hit .338, but had 207 at bats.
May also hit ten home runs in his 207 at bats.
Another Appleton Fox was above .300, but did not have enough plate appearances to qualify for a mention in the article. George Hunter hit .304 in 194 ABs during the 1967 season.
The Foxes defeated Wisconsin Rapids in the best-of-three MWL Championship Series in 1967. You can read about the Game Three victory in this Flashback Friday from November of 2011.
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