Baseballville

Jack Littrell, on the left, was playing at Portland in the Pacific Coast League along with Frank Ernaga. Littrell had three previous tries at the big league level with the Athletics. For Ernaga, upper right, it was his first test of major league pitching. Both were summond to the Chicago Cubs in mid May. Ernaga broke in with a bang and Littrell was suppose to help the Cubs keystone and was thought of enough that the Cubs moved Ernie Banks to 3rd base. Actually the Cubs had tried two others who were not vary good either. One was Casey Wise playing second base while the then Cub thirdbasemen was Gene Baker, now since traded to Pirates. Ed Winceniak was tried at thirdbase and he had troubles picking up the ball and throwing it across the diamond. Bobby Morgan was purchased about a week before Littrell and Ernaga came on board. Morgan was given the secondbase job and was doing a pretty solid job at .250. Ernaga broke in against Warren Spahn and the Braves in real life and hit a homerun and a double against the Braves lefty. Well in this replay, both are struggling along with major league pitching. Littrell is hitting a miniscule .059 and Ernaga didn't have that great opening against Spahnie that he actually had. Ernaga did hit a 3-run homerun the other day and his average was raised today (.133) with his rbi double in the Cubbies loss to the Cardinals. Littrell batted .190 in sixty one games for the Cubs that year and Ernaga with 35 official at bats finished at .314 with two homers and 2 triples to go with 3 doubles. Frank still has a shot of making those numbers, especially if he faces more lefty pitchers. While at Portland, Littrell had 5 homeruns and was batting around .250 Ernaga had three dingers at triple A and he too was around the .250 mark. It was to be Littrell's last call to the big leagues. He was still playing in the Pacific Coast in 1961 with the Minnesot Twins organization at Vancouver and that's all I have on him. Ernaga came back for a very short stint with Cubs in 1958 and was out of the Major Leagues after that.