Williams: Southworth was smoke-screening for Cooper never looked better
By Joe Williams
New York –
The big guy came through in the big moment. We are referring to Mort Cooper, the Cardinals pitcher.
And he came through under very trying circumstances.
First off, his manager had lost confidence in him. To make it so much worse, his dad died some hours before he went to the mound. Third: This was the game the National League champs had to win to stay in the Series.
It must be assured the big moon-faced fellow went to the mound with a heavy heart and you want to keep in mind he was pitching to his brother.
You probably will be reading today about the masterminding of his manager, Billy Southworth.
Forget it. There was only one reason Southworth didn’t start Cooper against the Yankees in the first game. He was afraid to.
And he had reason to be afraid: Cooper started twice against the Yankees last fall and was knocked out twice. What’s more, he had started twice in All-Star Games against American League hitting and failed to survive.
Quits on Cooper
It was on the occasion of the last All-Star Game that Southworth said:
He’s still my pitcher. If we get into the World Series, he’ll start for me.
All of a sudden Southworth quit on Cooper. He went into one of those vague Rickey-like St. Louis smokescreens which apparently are designed to kid people, in short, a white lie.
Southworth tried to lead everybody to believe Cooper had a sore arm. On top of that, he was sick, or so it was stated.
In the light of what happened yesterday when the Cardinals, back of Cooper’s superlative pitching, even the Series, this was strictly a gag – any anything Southworth tries to tell anybody today here in New York must be laughed off.
It must be laughed off for several reasons, the most important of which is that Cooper never looked better, and it is not in the book that a pitcher gets over a sore arm and incidental ailments overnight.
The obvious answer is that Southworth quit on Cooper, whose record tells you he is the Cardinals’ best pitcher.
There was only one reason Southworth didn’t start him in the opening game and that was he lacked confidence in him.
Why Lanier started
You read so much about masterminding in baseball, particularly in a World Series.
The Yankees’ extra-base power, for example, is left-handed. In the great wisdom of the dugout, the circumstances must call for a left-handed pitcher. This explains why Southworth started Max Lanier in the first game. It so happened Lanier was beaten. It also explains why Southworth didn’t start Cooper, a right-hander. It will never be explained why Southworth tried to kid people. Perhaps it’s the Rickey training. In any event, we will know him from now on.
Even Cooper was mystified. Our Mr. Joe King asked him about his mystical sore arm. All Cooper could remember was that he had had it rubbed down. He explained:
I don’t know where it’s sore, but they worked on it.
It is so easy to see what happened. Southworth was getting himself off a spot. If Cooper was beaten – well, he never could beat AL hitting anyway. If Cooper won – well, he took the big generous chance. What price masterminding?
Cooper complete master
As things worked out, Cooper took complete charge pf the ball game. He didn’t surprise any of us who knew he was a truly great pitcher. It was just one of those things that the AL hitters always clubbed him around. His day was sure to come.
One pitch made him stand out with gallantry and courage. It came in the fourth inning. The Yankees had Crosetti and Johnson on base. The score was 4–0 against them.
Keller, the Yankees’ siege gunner, was at bat. There was only one out.
Cooper pitched carefully to him. It didn’t look as if he wanted any part of them. The count got to be three balls and nothing.
One of the press box pundits commented:
That Southworth was right. This Cooper doesn’t like it.
The big pitch
But posterity the count was worked to three and two. The next pitch had to be the big pitch. It would have been so easy to waste the next one, to make it an obvious hall.
Cooper didn’t. He came in there with a low sweeping curve that clipped the corner of the plate. Keller didn’t like it, but he had to swing. He got just a piece of the ball. It drifted languidly to center field and a run came in. the run meant something only in mathematics. If the Yankees were to win, a lot of runs had to come over. This had to be a real big inning. It wasn’t, and that was the ball game. What happened later meant not very much.
And thus it was that the greatest pitcher in the National League, the pitcher who had just received news of his dad’s death, the pitcher who had to know his own manager had given up on him, the pitcher who must have given some thought to the jinx which supposedly kept him from winning against AL pitching – thus it was that Mort Cooper scored one of the greatest pitching victories in the history of the World Series.
Sometime today we must remind ourselves to ask Mr. Southworth what he thinks about masterminding.