PLAYER of the MONTH

The Player for the Month of April 1945 is the Right Fielder of the Montgomery Burns Tommy (Kelly) Holmes.  Tommy in his fourth season in the DBS is having his best start after being the third overall pick in 1934.  Tommy led the league in several offensive categories including Batting Average (.425), On-base Percentage (.506), Hits (31), Runs (19) and Total Bases (49).  He was impressive with his eye at the plate collecting twelve walks and not registering a strikeout.  Tommy was also second in Slugging Percentage at .671 with five doubles, two triples and three home runs and also had twelve RBI.  Tommy collected two game winning RBI and had a ten game hitting streak to end the month.  He appeared in 17 games had at least one hit in fourteen of those games including nine games with at least two hits.  Tommy had back-to-back four hit games April 22 and April 23 where he was a combined .889 (8-9) with six runs, three RBI, four doubles and a home run.

Other Player of the Month Candidates:

1B	Joe Kuhel of Freemont who was once traded for HOF Lou Gehrig batted .393 (22-56) with a slugging percentage of .607 with two doubles, two triples and two home runs.  Joe also amassed ten runs scored, knocked in 12 RBI and was walked nine times.

1B	Phil (Philliabuck) Cavarretta of North Dallas who has been a backup most of his career since being drafted in the second round in 1934, is sure taking advantage of so many DBSers being part of the war effort.  Phil batted .382 (21-55) with three doubles, one home run, ten runs scored and fourteen RBI.

CF	Oris (Brown) Hockett a sixth round pick in 1938 batted .359 (28-78) with a slugging percentage of .513 collecting six doubles and two home runs.  

The Pitcher of the Month of April 1945 is the Starting Pitcher of the North Dallas Forty Nels (Nellie) Potter.  Nels the seventh pick in the 1936 draft has helped propel the Forty to one of the best starts by a team in DBS history.  He accomplished this by winning all four of his starts, completing two of them with a shutout.  Nels finished with an ERA of 1.91 with seven earned runs in 33 innings of work and struck out fourteen while only walking eight.  His WHIP for the month was 1.08, not allowing more than eight hits in a game.

Other Pitcher of the Month Candidates:

RP	Ken Holcombe of Brooklyn a fourth round pick in 1945 is paying quick dividends.  Ken was 1-0 with four saves in seven appearances in April with an ERA of 0.87.  Ken only allowed one earned run in 10.33 innings with three strike outs and not allowing a walk.

SP	Roger Wolff of Muskegon a third round pick in 1941 is getting some extra playing time now that so many DBS pitchers are overseas.  Roger was 3-1 in four starts with two complete games with an ERA of 1.89.  

SP	Dutch Leonard of North Dallas who was the number one pick in 1933 by Hattiesburg and later traded to North Dallas for Luke Appling.  Dutch was 4-0 in April with an ERA of 2.57 in four starts with three complete games and one shutout.  He allowed ten earned runs in 35 innings of work with fourteen strikeouts.  He was hurt by the long ball however surrendering four home runs.