Photograph of Miami Stadium by Kurt Schweizer |
The Miami Sun Sox drew an amazing crowd of 170,000 in 1949 as they played their final
games at Miami Field on their way to new Miami Stadium. Only the Havana Cubans
(who were playing at Gran Stadium which still stands today), put together
a finer gate receipt (226,000). The Sun Sox would make the playoffs but lose in
the first round to the Tampa Smokers. In 1950 however, the team would find its
groove as they were now able to finally make this their full time home. The hitting
of the 1950 Sun Sox wasn't terribly good. In fact, there was only one relatively
good player named Charles Rotzell (25 2B, 11 3B, 9 HR, .304). The pitching
though was some of the best that the league would ever see, as the 1950 Sun
Sox featured not one, but two 20 game winners! A nearly perfect starting rotation
was led off by Elisha Dean who put together a stunning 24-11 record (leading
the league) behind an equally impressive 1.90 ERA. Right behind him, with an
even lower ERA was Vincente Lopez who went 20-6 with a 1.82 ERA. In the 3rd hole
was Billy Darden who had only half the wins, finishing at 10-8, but an equally
impressive ERA of 1.93. Arturo Seijas was in the number 4 hole going 14-8 with
a 2.25 ERA and #5 was Dick McCoy who, though in the 5 hole, would have been #1
on any other team in the league with a 16-5, 3.24 record. Not surprisingly, the
Miami Sun Sox finished the season nearly reaching the 100 mark in wins as they
put up a 98-55 (.641) record. What was surprising was, this was not the best
record in the league. The Havana Cubans would finish 101-49. They also had excellent
pitching as they featured Julio Moreno who led the league in ERA going 16-4
with a 1.47 ERA and Gil Torres who would go 6-1 with a 1.27 ERA. |