Great Falls Daily Tribune

By van.

The 1920 baseball season in the west will be officially opened tomorrow (Tuesday), when the Pacific Coast League will start play. The initial games will be as follows: Portland at Salt Lake; Seattle at Sacramento; Vernon at San Francisco; Oakland at Los Angeles. The season will close on October 17.

All of the clubs will begin play tomorrow with some of the best lineups they have ever had. Some promising youngsters have been secured from bushes by the teams.

Seattle, which finished last season with a percentage of .365 at the bottom of the league, is considered by some this year, however, to have a chance to come in near the top.

Vernon, the pennant winner of the league last year, when she finished with a .613 percentage, is one of the biggest bets for the 1920 season. She has retained most of the old pitching staff, and practically all of the outfield. The final standings of the teams at the close of the season last year follow: Vernon, .613; Los Angeles, .600; Salt Lake, .515; Sacramento, .506; Oakland, .473; San Francisco, .472; Portland, .48; Seattle, .365.

Vernon Big Bet.

At the close of the season last year Vernon, and the St. Paul club, winner of the American Association, played a series of best 5 out of 9 games at Los Angeles, and Vernon won 5 to St. Paul's 4 games.

With a playing schedule of 154 games, the National League baseball season of 1920 will begin on Wednesday, April 14, and close on Sunday, October 3. The initial games of the pennant race have been arranged as follows: Boston at New York, Philadelphia at Brooklyn, Pittsburgh at St. Louis, and Chicago at Cincinnati. The other half of the circuit will have opening games on Thursday, April 22, with Cincinnati at Chicago, St. Louis at Pittsburgh, Brooklyn at Philadelphia and New York at Boston.

The American League will also open on April 14 and close October 3. The schedule shows a restoration of the 154 game chart which was curtailed last season because of the war. The four western clubs will open in the west, while the clubs of the east will inaugurate the season at the eastern end of the circuit. Opening games are listed as follows: Detroit at Chicago; St. Louis at Cleveland; New York at Philadelphia, and Washington at Boston. Boston is scheduled to close the season before the other clubs. The final curtain for the Red Sox will be rung down on September 25. A double header, with Washington, billed as the opponent, is scheduled for that day. The following day New York will close its season at Philadelphia. The last of the western clubs to quit for the season will be the Senators and the Athletics, who meet at Philadelphia on October 2.

Showing Up Well.

The White Sox and the Reds, pennant winners last season, are conceded to have an excellent chance to repeat their performance again this year. A number of the other clubs of the big leagues, however, have been showing up well in exhibition games at the southern training camps, and possible pennant winners for the 1920 season may not be singled out until the season is well under way.

Because of the fact that the war has assumed a place in the background, baseball will come to the front this year stronger than ever. Returned service men are more enthusiastic than ever over the great American game, because of their war experience with baseball. One of the roughest features of army life abroad was the drudgery and dreariness of life back of the front. Those who were fighting along the line had all they cared to handle for the moment until the armistice was signed, but those back of the lines had none of the excitement that goes with an attack at dawn or comes from making quick dives into shell holes.

It was necessary, however, to maintain the army morale back of the fighting front at all times in order to put through the proper sort of training for the new comers on foreign soil, and to see that adequate supplies were furnished the line.

Baseball Morale Builder.

In the building up and maintaining of this morale baseball played a big part in the war, as it was one of the soldiers' chief recreations from the time he landed at a baseport until he was under fire.

The fields, of course, were not modern and up to date but merely stretches of level ground, but as they were the only places available they were put to constant use. Many of the big training camps had several improvised diamonds, and a half dozen ball games on a Sunday afternoon was not an uncommon sight. Every regiment had its ball club, and amateurs, semi-professionals, minor and major leaguers could be found. One club had Grover Cleveland Alexander for its pitcher.

As the front lines advanced, the game would follow. A ball game was played only a trifle over 2 miles back of the front line of the Argonne just before the drive started September 26, 1918, by two teams from the Thirty-fifth division. While the game was being played several German shells dropped near the players. One of the men stepped up and cracked out a two bagger just after a shell had dropped back of second base. Instead of scattering, the crowd ducked until the shell splinters had fallen, the pitcher turned to see what had happened, and the man at bat yelled, "Aw, come on and pitch." A clean double followed as if nothing had happened.

With the interest in baseball quickened by its war service at home and abroad, there is little doubt but what the 1920 season will be the biggest in the history of baseball.