THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO, PART 2 ...
A POWERFUL RED SOX TEAM FAILS
IN THE WORLD SERIES ...
Dave Ferriss loses a 1-0 pitcher's duel

June 18, 1946 ... The bothersome St. Louis Browns in general, and Bob Muncrief in particular, rubbed it into the staggering Red Sox tonight. St. Louis management sweated out a torrential downpour and finally started tonight's game 59 minutes late. When it ended, Muncrief had bettered Dave Ferriss 1-0 in a thrilling pitcher's battle, thus inflicting a sixth setback in seven starts.

The solitary run of the contest was scored in the third inning. Ferriss had retired the first six opponents, four of them by strikeouts, when Mark Christman opened the third with a triple that landed inches fair in the right field corner and just out of reach of the right fielder Johnny Lazor. Christman came across when Hank Helf, a .164 batter, got a clean single to center field.

In beating the Red Sox, Muncrief picked up his first victory of the year. One of the leagues better pitchers, he had cracked an ankle in spring training, and was slow in coming back. Muncrief let down the slumping Sox with four hits to six off Ferriss. He didn't walk a man and struck out four.

It was the sixth inning that the Red Sox were able to get a man past first base. Dave Ferriss smashed a two bagger to deep center field. Leon Culberson bunted Ferriss over to third and Ted Williams unloaded. But the wind and Walt Judnich ruined his plans, as he sailed back to the 400 foot mark in dead center field and gathered the fly ball in.

The Browns were playing the game under protest. Since the Sox had no pregame practice because of the wet field, they received permission from the umpire to be allowed to warm up for close to 15 minutes while the field was being made ready. St. Louis manager Luke Sewell immediately protested to umpires Joe Papparella, Cal Hubbard and Red Jones, but he was paid no heed.  The rules say that no team shall be allowed more than eight pitches between innings.  Finally Sewell was called over to the owners box and came back to tell the umpires that the game was being played under protest. Of course St. Louis won the game so the protest was withdrawn.

When the torrential downpour that started all the controversy, started an hour and 10 minutes before the scheduled start of the game, general manager Bill DeWitt of the Browns came to manager Joe Cronin and asked about the possibility of playing it on Thursday night. Cronin, knowing his team had to face Bob Feller in Cleveland on Friday, refused but said he would play the game during the day to give his team enough time to rest before the Cleveland series. The St. Louis management thought it over, but refused because of the amount of revenue they would lose by playing a day game.