The 1948 Boston Braves season was the 78th consecutive season of the Major League Baseball franchise, its 73rd in the National League. It produced the team's second NL pennant of the 20th century, its first since 1914, and its tenth overall league title dating to 1876.
Led by starting pitchers Johnny Sain and Warren Spahn (who combined for 39 victories), and the hitting of Bob Elliott, Jeff Heath, Tommy Holmes and rookie Alvin Dark, the 1948 Braves captured 91 games to finish 61⁄2 paces ahead of the second-place St. Louis Cardinals. They also attracted 1,455,439 fans[1] to Braves Field, the third-largest gate in the National League and a high-water mark for the team's stay in Boston. The 1948 pennant was the fourth National League championship in seven years for Braves' manager Billy Southworth, who had won three NL titles (1942–44, inclusive) and two World Series championships (1942 and 1944) with the Cardinals. Southworth would be posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame as a manager in 2008.
However, the Braves fell in six games to the Cleveland Indians in the 1948 World Series, and would experience a swift decline in both on-field success and popularity over the next four seasons. Attendance woes—the Braves would draw only 281,278 home fans[1] in 1952—forced the team's relocation to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in March 1953. (It later moved to Atlanta in 1966.)
After playing .500 baseball in April and May 1948, the Braves vaulted into first place on the strength of a 39–21 record during June and July. Hampered by second baseman Eddie Stanky's broken ankle and center fielder Jim Russell's season-ending illness, the club slumped slightly in August, going only 14–17 and falling out of the lead August 29. But then it righted itself to win 21 of its final 28 games, regain the top spot September 2, and clinch the NL flag on the 26th. Meanwhile, the city's American League team, the Red Sox, ended their season in a first-place tie with the Indians and lost a playoff game to Cleveland at Fenway Park on October 4; this ruined the prospect of what would have been the only all-Boston World Series, now an impossibility since the Braves left Boston after the 1952 season. (The Tribe were doubtlessly very unpopular in Beantown after defeating both of their teams in the post-season.)
For both the Braves and Red Sox, the 1948 season was the first in which their games were broadcast on television, with telecasts alternating between WBZ-TV and WNAC-TV and the teams sharing the same announcers. The first-ever telecast of a major league game in New England occurred on Tuesday night, June 15, with the Braves defeating the visiting Chicago Cubs 6–3 behind Sain's complete game.[2][3]
^ abBaseball-Almanac.com
^Halper, Donna L., June 15, 1948: Televised Baseball Debuts in Boston. Society for American Baseball Research
^Retrosheet box score:1948-06-15
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