Reno vs. Vegas, Round One

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Reno vs. Vegas.

Outsiders never seem to understand the North's aversion to all things South. The preference for snow shoveling over air conditioning. The political divisions that run deeper than any party line. The nails-on-the-chalkboard reaction to hearing the letters "UNR". The complete and utter aversion to wearing red on football Saturdays. (Kaepernick's 49er jersey is fine on Sundays, of course.)

 

The latest round in the feud begins tonight at Cashman Field in Las Vegas, as the Reno Aces and Las Vegas 51s begin a five-game series to determine the PCL's Pacific Conference champion. Surprisingly, it's only the second time that pro sports teams from Reno and Las Vegas have faced one another in the playoffs (and believe it or not, postseason play between the cities has never happened at the collegiate level.)

 

RISING IN THE SUNSET LEAGUE

The first playoff meeting between the two cities was quite a while back--when brand-new Moana Stadium was on the outskirts of town; when UNLV wasn't even a pipe dream; when Louis' Basque Corner was serving up its first round of picon punch. It was 1948, and the Reno Silver Sox and Las Vegas Wranglers battled it out for the Sunset League championship.

 

The Silver Sox and Wranglers were the first organized sports teams in either city. Both teams were charter members of the Sunset League in 1947, with Reno as an affiliate of the New York Giants and Las Vegas with the Boston Braves. But with thousands of miles between the Sunset League teams and the nearest Major League teams--and no Eisenhower Interstate Highway System for another decade--neither parent club was willing to send much in the way of talent out to the wild, wild, mostly-inaccessible West. So while the Silver Sox held on to the Giants' affiliation into 1948, the rest of the league went independent.

 

Still, the affiliation didn't give Reno a leg up on the rest of the league. The Silver Sox finished the season in third place, with Las Vegas in second. Both Nevada teams qualified for the playoffs.

 

Reno swept the first-place Mexicali Aguilas in the first round, three games to none. Las Vegas took down the fourth-place Riverside Rubes, three games to one. The stage was set for an all-Nevada championship series. The 1948 Sunset League President Cup Series would be a best-of-five affair, with two games at the original Cashman Stadium in Las Vegas and the final three at Reno's Moana Stadium.

 

 

GAME ONE - MON, SEPT 27

With the Sox already leading 5-1 in the seventh, Reno's rookie left fielder Bill Rogers put the game out of reach with a 420-foot homer over the center field fence to drive in three. Al Corwin, the only player on either team who would eventually play in the bigs, gave up just five hits and struck out 17 in Reno's 9-2 victory.

 

GAME TWO - TUE, SEPT 28

Lefty Robert "Buzz" Knudson got the start in Game Two for Reno. He had started the season with the Wranglers, was traded to Reno midway through the season, and racked up 20 wins between the two squads. His old teammates remembered him well, knocking him out of the game before the fifth inning. The Wranglers headed north with a 12-3 win and a 1-1 series split.

 

GAME THREE - WED, SEPT 2

Back home at Moana Stadium, Reno roughed up the Wranglers' pitching staff for a 13-9 victory. Rogers homered again, as did Tom Lloyd, Reno's catcher and manager. The Silver Sox' win went to the appropriately-named Theodore Silvery, who gutted out a nine-run, ten-hit attack for a complete-game victory. It was the final appearance of Silvery's brief one-season professional baseball career.

 

GAME FOUR - THU, SEPT 30

Reno sent Corwin, the Game One winner, to try to close out the series. The Reno Evening Gazette noted that "a good crowd of 745 paying fans" was on hand, hoping to see a championship. Las Vegas batted around in the first to take a 5-0 lead and chased Corwin from the game, and cruised to a 14-11 victory to set up a winner-take-all Game Five.

 

GAME FIVE - FRI, OCT 1

Both Nevada squads took the field on Friday night with a championship--and $750 in prize money--on the line. Knudson got the call for Reno, but gave up three runs in the first. Lloyd called in the relatively well-rested Corwin to bail out the Silver Sox, and Corwin rediscovered his Game One form. He gave up 6 hits and struck out 12 through 8+ innings as Reno took the 11-6 victory and a 3-games-to-2 series win.

 

TIME FOR A REMATCH

Sixty-six years later, Reno and Las Vegas are set to square off on the diamond once again. A few things have changed since then. Reno's not the big city anymore--Las Vegas' population surpassed Reno's in the 1950s. We've gone through a few Arches. We learned (most of the time) to hate the color red.

 

But this Pacific Conference Championship Series has several similarities to the 1948 playoffs. The series starts Wednesday night on the same plot of land where the Silver Sox and Wranglers began their series. It's still a tight five-games-in-five-days schedule. It's still the same old civic rivalry.

 

Can Reno pull off another series win, or will Vegas get their long-overdue revenge? Reno vs. Vegas, Round Two. Let's play ball!

 

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