1944 World Series

[NormanStewart]

Williams: St. Lou agog, but not over the Cardinals

By Joe Williams

St. Louis, Missouri –
There is a great deal of agoging out here. Practically all the citizens are agog. This is understandable. The town is about to enjoy its first in-the-family, exclusive, all-ours World Series. Beginning tomorrow, the St. Louis Browns play the St. Louis Cardinals for the world’s championship. Only a captious person would stop to ask how St. Louis playing St. Louis could possibly hope to settle a world issue. Certainly no one from New York, where similar fiction is commonplace, should bring up the report.

The difference here is that the Browns never before have been cast in a global role. This is the first time they have ever been in a World Series. It is interesting to study the reactions. The Browns are led by one Luke Sewell, rather undistinguished in baseball up to now, beyond his contributions as a first or third base coach and as a fair sort of catcher.

Who’s Eisenhower?

From what you read and hear here, Mr. Sewell has just completed a campaign which makes blushers of Eisenhower, Patton and Montgomery. There is a description of him as he sits in the clubhouse following the all-decisive victory over the Yankees on the final days of the season which would stir the memories of Carl Sandburg; it would make him feel close to the tired, weary and stricken Lincoln at Gettysburg.

This is not meant to be too cynical. Rather, to picture the emotion and attitude of a town that for so many years was denied a place among American League winners, and what could be more natural, in the zone of sports, than that the manager would take on a spiritual quality and that it would be accepted as such by citizens, frustrated for almost two generations?

It’s different now

Pennants are not unknown out here but were unknown to the Browns, achieving their first in 43 years. It is not difficult to imagine how a faithful follower of the Browns must have felt and how he feels today. All at once the sun has started to shine for him; he is no longer the underprivileged or the “little man,” to whom Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Wallace and Ma Perkins refer with such sympathy, from now on, even to the end of time, nobody can say his team never won a pennant, and if there is an implied suggestion here that the New Deal has improved its position in the election, all I can say is that Governor Dewey’s broad strategy must make the best of it.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Roosevelt’s handlers would be smart if they capitalized on the Browns’ victory. One incident alone would be of material help. The pitcher who won the pennant-winning game never pitched in the big leagues before. A year ago, at this time, he was pitching semi-pro ball in the Southwest. Today he is the hero of St. Louis. From mediocrity to magnificence! And he beat the Yankees, blasted Hoover’s symbol of capitalism in baseball. Even Stalin couldn’t ask for a better natural.

[NormanStewart]

Landis to miss Series; breaks long record

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Judge Kenesaw M. Landis will miss the World Series for the first time during his 24 years as baseball commissioner when the annual classic opens tomorrow.

The 78-year-old baseball czar’s office announced that “because of illness, which, although not serious, prohibits the Commissioner from traveling in the judgment of his physician, the Judge will be unable to attend the series.”

Landis appointed Les M. O’Connor (secretary and treasurer of the commissioner’s office), William Harridge (president of the American League) and Ford Frick (president of the National League) as his representatives to supervise, control and direct the series.

[NormanStewart]

[NormanStewart]

Game 1

The Pittsburgh Press (October 4, 1944)

Browns and Cards battle in Series

Americans get no hits in three innings

Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
The Cardinals and Browns were in a scoreless deadlock in the third inning of the opening game of the World Series this afternoon.

A crowd of 35,000 watched the two St. Louis pennant-winners in their first world championship in history.

Big Mort Cooper, the Cards’ star righthander, had not allowed a hit up to this point, the Browns getting two men on bases through walks. His mound rival, Denny Galehouse, had been nicked for three hits, including a double in the second by Martin Marion.

Mort Cooper blazed through the first inning, striking out Mike Kreevich and Chet Laabs after Don Gutteridge had lifted an easy pop fly to Marty Marion at short. The big righthander’s fast ball was working well.

Galehouse also retired the side without damage in the last of the first inning, but yielded a hit of Stan Musial – a drive that Stephens got back of second too late to make a play. Hopp had lifted to Laabs in left center and Ray Sanders had fanned before Musial reached first. Walker Cooper then flied to Kreevich in short center.

Marion doubles

A base on balls to Gene Moore after Stephens had topped the ball in front of the plate and had been tossed out by Walker Cooper, was all the action in the Browns’ second. McQuinn then flied to Litwhiler in short left and Mark Christman was Morton Cooper’s third strikeout victim.

The Cards made their first serious threat with two out to their half. After Kurowski had flied to Moore and Litwhiler fanned, Marty Marion lined a two-bagger to left and went to third and took third on Emil Verban’s infield scratch to Gutteridge. Galehouse struck out Morton Cooper to end the budding rally.

Galehouse walks

In the Browns’ third, Hayworth grounded to Kurowski before Galehouse waited around for a base on balls – Cooper’s second of the game. There were two down when Gutteridge flied out to Hopp, and Kreevich followed with a high bounder to the box and was thrown out by M. Cooper.

GAME INCOMPLETE AT PRESS TIME.

[NormanStewart]

Weather clears for Series opener

Crowd gathers slowly as Cooper, Galehouse battle on mound
By Leo H. Petersen, United Press sports editor

Probable lineup

Browns	Cardinals
Gutteridge, 2B	Hopp, CF
Kreevich, CF	Sanders, 1B
Laabs, LF	Musial, RF
Stephens, SS	W. Cooper, C
Moore, RF	Kurowski, 3B
McQuinn, 1B	Litwhiler or Bergamo, LF
Christman, 3B	Marion, SS
Hayworth, C	Verban, 2B
Galehouse, P	M. Cooper, P

Umpires: Sears and Dunn (NL), Pipgras and McGowan (AL)
Grounds: Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis
Opponents: St. Louis Cardinals (NL) and St. Louis Browns (AL)
Time of game: 3:00 p.m. EWT
Weather forecast: Cooler, no rain
Probable crowd: 38,000 (capacity)
Betting odds: Cards 1–2 to take WS and 11–20 to take first game if Morton Cooper pitches.
Broadcast: MBS

St. Louis, Missouri –
The Cardinals and the Browns met in the opening game of St. Louis’ first intracity World Series today at Sportsman’s Park under clearing skies after rain had threatened in the morning to wash out the contest.

Manager Billy Southworth of the National League champion Redbirds sent his pitching ace, Big Mort Cooper, to the mound to oppose Denny Galehouse, husky righthander of Manager Luke Sewell’s American League standard-bearers.

The rain kept the crowd back and the pavilion and bleacher seats, sold on a first-come-first-served basis, were slow in filling. Less than 5,000 persons were in the park two hours before game time.

Scalpers unload at cost

Scalpers were offering reserved grandstand and box seat tickets at cost because of the rain, but the weather prospects became so much brighter that a capacity throng of about 38,000 was expected by game time – 3:00 p.m. EWT.

The sun was breaking through intermittently as the Cardinals began batting practice. The Cardinals will be the home club for the first two games and also the sixth and seventh if that many contests are necessary to decide the best four-of-seven classic.

The Cardinals who coasted to their third straight pennant but ran into a later season slump, had trouble finding the range of the park fences.

Crown nonpartisan

The crowd appeared nonpartisan and had increased to about 10,000 with vacant seats still left in the bleachers when the Browns began their batting drill. It was their first taste of modern World Series atmosphere as the 1944 pennant was the first they had won since the American League began operations in 1902. Before that, however, they had won some titles as a member of the old American Association.

The Cards, who coasted to their third consecutive National League pennant, were 1 to 2 choices over the Browns, who won the American League title by one game in a stretch battle with the Detroit Tigers.

With the fast-balling Cooper going, the Cards were 11 to 20 to win the first game, although Mort has always had trouble against American League hitters.

Galehouse selection surprises

Sewell’s selection of Galehouse was a surprise for he had been expected to shoot with Nelson Potter, his leading winner this season with 19 victories. Galehouse has won only nine while losing 10 and has never been better than a .500 pitcher in his 10 years in the major leagues. But he won some of the clutch games in the tight pennant race and is probably the closest thing the American League has to the pitching style of Cincinnati’s Bucky Walters. The latter was poison to the Cards this year, beating the Redbirds six times, four of them by shutouts.

It was also Galehouse’s first World Series experience along with every other member of the Browns except their manager and coaches.

Cooper has started four World Series games, winning one last year when the Yankees defeated the Cardinals, and losing two in the 1943 series which the Cards won. Until he beat the Yankees in last year’s series, American League hitters appeared to have him jinxed, for in addition to his series failures he was hit freely in all-star games.

Cooper confident

Cooper won 22 games while losing seven this season and expressed confidence that he would win. “I feel I’ve got it,” Cooper said after a workout yesterday.

Galehouse was delighted with the starting assignment.

“It’s the biggest thrill of my life,” said Galehouse, who for the first part of the season was only a Sunday pitcher for the Browns at home while working in a war plant. “I’ve yearned for this through the 15 years I’ve been playing ball but never came close.”

Sewell did not explain why he chose Galehouse over Potter, merely commenting, “Galehouse is my man.”

[NormanStewart]

Maybe it’s all a dream –
Williams: St. Louis fans fear Yanks still may appear on scene

By Joe Williams

St. Louis, Missouri –
Even as game time approached and this old river town settled down to its first exclusive World Series, many of the citizens remained unconvinced. They still expected the Yankees would show up to shatter the illusion.

The first customer to enter the park was one Art Felsch from Milwaukee. He had been in line for four days and nights. This is proof enough the manpower situation is not as critical as McNutt says.

The mayor of the town tossed off an official document proclaiming this to be “Baseball Week.” Which is something like Stalin setting aside a special week for communism.

Old Judge Landis didn’t show up, either. At his age he can’t be expected to stand the shock of seeing the Browns in a championship for the first time in 43 years.

Our most distinguished guest for the opening game was Governor John Bricker of Ohio, who unashamedly admits he wants to be Vice President. “I’m for the underdog,” he said, quickly explaining he meant the Browns, not Fala. When asked if he would throw out the first ball, the Governor begged off. “I’d much prefer to throw out Hillman,” he stated. The Governor used to pitch for Ohio State in his college days. They say he had a plenty good delivery and if you’ve heard him speak, you know he still has a pretty good delivery.

There isn’t enough grass on the local diamond to make a toupee for a billiard bill. Like everything else out here the grass gets tired in late summer and just quits working.

Both managers waited until the last minute to name their pitchers. It’s a good thing this is a ball game, and not a christening. Brownie fans appeared wearing victory buttons the size of a frying pan. It was the first time in history they didn’t mind being recognized in public.

The local sheets quote everybody on the outcome of the series, including ZaSu Pitts, who is here in a Broadway play. Miss Pitts says: “I pick the Allies.” It is amazing how these professional humorists can think up such priceless comedy.

The Giants’ official family, composed of Horace Stoneham, Mel Ott and Eddie Brannick are here. A nice pleasant family it is, too – no headaches, no friction, and, regretfully, no ball club.

Ed Wray, sports editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is the only writer in the country who picked the Browns to win the AL pennant and lots of folk scoff at Henry Wallace because he is a dreamer!

There was considerable eyebrow raising over the fact that Luke Sewell finally elected Denny Galehouse to pitch the opener. Everybody thought it would be Nelson Potter, but Sewell thought otherwise. And Sewell is one guy in this series who is entitled to his own opinion. He has been thinking for the Browns all year and it seems to have worked out all right. This will be the first World Series that Galehouse has ever seen. Outside of the newsreels, of course.

The deliberation Southworth spent before deciding to name Mort Cooper as his opening pitcher was as unnecessary as the nominating speeches at the Democratic Convention.

[NormanStewart]

Literati not happy –
Sewell stumps experts with mound choice

By Dan Daniel

St. Louis, Missouri –
Those amazing Browns continued fairly bedizened in exclamation points.

They just won’t do things the expected way. They started their then-derided drive for the pennant with nine consecutive victories, seized it from Detroit’s grasp with a climactic four-game sweep against the Yankees, and now they have called on Dennis W. Galehouse to carry their pitching burden against Morton Cecil Cooper of the Cardinals, in the inaugural battle of the World Series.

Actually, there was no technical, social, physical or political reason why the crafty Cornelius McGillicuddy Luke Sewell should not have named Galehouse over Nelson Potter, Jack Kramer and sinister Sigmund Jakucki, all of whom achieved superior records in the American League race.

But the baseball experts, who are not too happy with the new champions of Mr. Harridge’s circuit anyway, don’t like to be crossed up. They had decided to start Potter, with his 19 victories, six straight, three shutouts, and lethal slider and screwball.

Violates Cardinal principle

It is conceivable that by nightfall, Cornelius McGillicuddy Luke Sewell will have been proved one of the most astute tacticians and profound strategists in the history of what is known as the blue-ribbon event of the great American pastime.

But, irrespective of the outcome of this first contest, Sewell has earned the enmity of the legalists. In naming the pitcher with worse than a .500 record for the opening struggle of a World Series – Galehouse won only nine and lost 10 in the pennant fight – Sewell has violated the Cardinal principle of the great unwritten laws of the classic.

It is quite evident that Sewell’s naming Galehouse came of reading The Life and Times of Connie Mack, with its copious appendix on the percentage system of working pitchers.

Mack got away with it

Mack pulled the greatest surprise in the history of the World Series against Joe McCarthy’s Cubs in 1929. He opened with the ancient, creaking, reportedly retired Howard Ehmke, whom the experts had ignored completely in their pre-classic calculations. Ehmke had been sidetracked with a bum arm, and had spent the last month of the season scouting the National Leaguers. The general opinion among the diamond literati was that Howard could aid the Athletics best by going home. You know what happened in that opener. The doddering Ehmke set a World Series record by striking out 13 Cubs. He outpitched the more robust Charlie Root, won by 3–1, and gave the Chicago club a body blow from which it never recovered in that series.

However, in picking Ehmke, Connie Mack did not violate the code. Howard had turned in only two complete games that season, but he was no sub-.500 pitcher. He had won seven and lost only two.

[NormanStewart]

Swing in favor –
Sports scribes favor Browns

St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
The last-ditch stand which gave the St. Louis Browns the 1944 American League pennant apparently caught the fancy of baseball writers as well as fans the country over, for a United Press survey today showed many of them favoring the Browns over the Cardinals, a 1 to 2 favorite.

Here is the way the “experts” stuck their necks out:

• Dan Daniel, New York World Telegram – Browns in 6.
• Franklin Lewis, Cleveland Press – Browns in 6.
• Herb Simon, Chicago Times – Cards in 6.
• Jack Hand, Associated Press – Browns.
• Leo H. Petersen, United Press – Browns in 6.
• Oscar Fraley, United Press – Browns in 6.
• Gordon Cobbledick, Cleveland Plain Dealer – Browns in 6.
• Sid Keener, St. Louis Star-Times – Browns in 5 or 6.
• Eddie Munzel, Chicago Sun – Cards in 6.
• Bill McGoogan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch – Browns 4 straight.
• Arthur Patterson, New York Herald-Tribune – Cards in 5.
• Buck O’Neill, Washington Times-Herald – Browns.
• John Carmichael, Chicago Daily News – Browns in 6.
• Joe Trimble, New York Daily News – Cards in 6.
• Rud Rennie, New York Herald-Tribune – Cards.
• Sid Mercer, New York Journal-American – Browns in 6.
• Ken Smith, New York Mirror – Cards in 6.
• Stan Baumgartner, Philadelphia Inquirer – Browns in 6.
• Arch Ward, Chicago Tribune – Cards in 6.
• Red Smith, Philadelphia Record – Cards in 6.

---

Scanlon, bat boy for both teams, in tough spot

Astride a fence with Bobby Scanlon, Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
The unhappiest and at the same time the happiest kid in St. Louis today, is Bobby Scanlon, who stands to win a lot of gold and lose a lot of face in the World Series.

Bobby happens to be the batboy for both the St. Louis Browns and their intracity rivals, the Cardinals, when they play at home.

Step right up and pick a winner, Bobby.

You pitch something like that at this slim, nervous, black haired, 18-year-old kid and he ducks behind a huge pile of trunks.

“And lose my job – two jobs?” he shouts.

“Listen.” he pleaded, “can’t we talk about something else? The Cubs or the Yankees, or something. I’m in an awful tight spot.”

[NormanStewart]

The Village Smithy

By Chester L. Smith, sports editor

Let’s run down the line and see why the Cardinals are the pick of the smart money to win the World Series.

Smart money, you must remember, disregards hunches. It plays the records and the percentages and collects from the soothsayers and the guys who run around peering into crystal balls.

Smart money may go for a ride this time because it disregards the patent fact that the Browns, at the finish of the season, were on the rise, had won nine of their last 10 games and could very well carry on their drive with such success that they would win. But if smart money loses on this number, it will get it back on the next, and the next.

Smart money notes that the Cardinals, as a team, batted .268 and the Browns .252. To this it adds the footnote that the American League was admittedly weak in pitching this year, while the Nationals turned up with an assortment of casters that was below pre-war level beyond doubt but was far from bad. Putting it another way, the Redbirds had stouter stuff to face on the mound and still out-batted their rivals.

Smart money also does not overlook a 10-point difference in the fielding averages, in favor of the Cards. The figures on defensive play are apt to be misleading, in that a player may wind up with a near-perfect mark simply because he doesn’t have the ability to get close enough to hard chances to fumble them, but there they are, anyhow, and can’t be laughed off.

Smart money surveys the infield and learns that the Redbirds are hitting heavier than the Browns at three of the four positions. Sanders has it on McQuinn at first, Verban on Don Gutteridge at second and Whitey Kurowski leads Mark Christman at third. That leaves the shortstop in the hands of Luke Sewell’s team, Vernon Stephens, one of the great young players of the day, over Martin Marion. The edge in points is 24. But wait, Marion happens to be generally acclaimed, the peer of all major league shortfielders, a master even though he doesn’t hit .270.

“Marion could bat .200 and play for me every day,” Frankie Frisch remarked one day not long ago. The thin man can come up with plays that are uncanny. So, the conclusion must be that here, if anywhere, the averages don’t quite match the facts. Actually, smart money reasons, because it has seen it with its own eyes, the Cards lose nothing to the Browns with Marion matched against Stephens. It would be a brash critic, indeed, who would not accord the National League something of a margin at this point.

When it comes to the catchers, smart money rests its case on Walker Cooper, the successor to Bill Dickey as the top man in the mask and pad in either circuit. Cooper had an ill-starred series against the Yankees last fall, but that was the law of averages catching up to him. Today, he holds a .317 diploma at the plate and has gone through one of his biggest campaigns. No Brownie backstop has batted as high as .250. Hayworth, Turner and Mancuso are known for their reliability but not their brilliance.

Smart money has to remember that Morton Cooper’s luck in World Series competition has been uniformly bad, but that was one club – New York. The Bombers combed him hard until last fall when he gained an even division of the spoils, winning his first start and losing the second. But “the book” says that the Cardinals can throw more big winners on the hill than the Browns, including Ted Wilks, who dropped only four decisions all summer, and might easily become the pitching star of the series.

In comparing the outfields, smart money sets Stan Musial apart from the others and bets on him. Musial finished behind Dixie Walker for the league batting title, losing any chance he might have had of catching the ancient Dodger because of an injury that kept him out of the lineup for a protracted period. The Donora Dandy is the one terrific outfielder on both sides. He is the type that ranks with the DiMaggios, Slaughters and Medwicks of former years. The Yanks cut him down to a reasonable size in 43, that’s true, but it’s almost too much to expect the Browns to do the same. Natural sluggers of Stan’s stature can’t be handcuffed too long.

Smart money will pay not the slightest attention to what happened in September when the Cardinals went to pieces and were knocked out in something like 20 out of 25 games, including a string of eight they lost to the Pirates. If more than a passing thought is given to this disaster, it will be pointed out that if was merely the inevitable slump, and that the real class of the club was proved when, defeats and all, it still was able to hamstring the other seven teams and stay so far ahead that even Billy Southworth, who can build up a man’s-sized worry on nothing at all, was able to sleep easily.

That’s smart money’s attitude – which should make it a breeze – unless the Browns win.

[NormanStewart]

Game 1

Wednesday, October 4, 1944 2:00 pm (CT) at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, Missouri

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
St. Louis Browns (1-0)	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	2	2	0
St. Louis Cardinals (0-1)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	7	0

St. Louis Browns (AL):

Hitters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	AVG
Gutteridge, 2B	4	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Kreevich, CF	4	0	0	0	0	2	.000
Laabs, LF	4	0	0	0	0	2	.000
Stephens, SS	3	0	0	0	1	0	.000
Moore, RF	3	1	1	0	1	1	.333
McQuinn, 1B	3	1	1	2	0	0	.333
Christman, 3B	3	0	0	0	0	1	.000
Hayworth, C	3	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Galehouse, P	2	0	0	0	1	0	.000
Totals	29	2	2	2	3	6	.069

HR: G. McQuinn (1, off M. Cooper, 4th inn, 1 on, 2 outs to Deep RF).
TB: G. McQuinn 4; G. Moore
RBI: G. McQuinn 2 (2)
2-Out RBI: G. McQuinn 2
With RISP: 0 for 0
Team LOB: 3

Fielding
DP: 1 (Gutteridge to Stephens to McQuinn)

St. Louis Cardinals (NL):

Hitters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	AVG
Hopp, CF	5	0	1	0	0	0	.200
Sanders, 1B	3	0	1	0	1	1	.333
Musial, RF	3	0	1	0	0	0	.333
W. Cooper, C	3	0	0	0	1	0	.000
Kurowski, 3B	4	0	1	0	0	1	.250
Litwhiler, LF	2	0	0	0	1	1	.000
Fallon, 2B	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Marion, SS	4	1	2	0	0	0	.500
Verban, 2B	2	0	1	0	0	0	.500
Bergamo, PH-LF	1	0	0	0	1	0	.000
M. Cooper, P	2	0	0	0	0	2	.000
Garms, PH	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Donnelly, P	0	0	0	0	0	0
O’Dea, PH	1	0	0	1	0	0	.000
Totals	32	1	7	1	4	5	.219

2B: M. Marion 2 (2, 2 off Galehouse)
SH: S. Musial (1, off Galehouse)
IBB: W. Cooper (1, by Galehouse)
TB: M. Marion 4; J. Hopp; W. Kurowski; S. Musial; E. Verban; R. Sanders
GIDP: S. Musial (1)
RBI: K. O’Dea (1)
With RISP: 1 for 8
Team LOB: 9

St. Louis Browns

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	cWPA	acLI	RE24
Galehouse, W (1-0)	9	7	1	1	4	5	0	1.00	37	70			0.606	1.43	19.87%	74.74	3.4
Team Totals	9	7	1	1	4	5	0	1.00	37	70			0.606	1.43	19.87%	74.74	3.4

St. Louis Cardinals

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	cWPA	acLI	RE24
M. Cooper, L (0-1)	7	2	2	2	3	4	1	2.57	26	66			0.062	0.70	1.30%	36.45	1.4
Donnelly	2	0	0	0	0	2	0	0.00	6		0	0	0.044	0.29	1.50%	15.26	1.0
Team Totals	9	2	2	2	3	6	1	2.00	32	66	0	0	0.106	0.62	2.80%	32.47	2.4

Balks: None
WP: None
HBP: None
IBB: D. Galehouse (1; W. Cooper)
Pickoffs: None
Umpires: HP - Sears, 1B - McGowan, 2B - Dunn, 3B - Pipgras
Time: 2:05
Attendance: 33,242

[NormanStewart]

Game 2

The Pittsburgh Press (October 5, 1944)

In World Series –
Cards take lead in second tilt

Lanier and Potter are moundsmen

Bulletin

Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, Missouri –
The Cardinals went into the lead in the third inning when they scored one run with none out.

Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
With the American League Browns leading, one game to none, the Browns and Cardinals went into the second battle of the World Series this afternoon before 38,000 fans.

In the third inning, the score was tied at 0–0.

Nelson Potter, the Brownies’ righthanded ace, faced Lefty Max Lanier on the mound.

Only one hit – a double by Catcher Walker Cooper in the second – had been made off either pitcher. The Browns had put two men on bases through walks, but Lanier was pitching magnificently in the pitches.

Lanier set down the Brownies in order in the first inning. He struck out Gutteridge on a high, fast pitch, Mike Kreevich rolled to Marty Marion, and Chet Laabs lifted a high fly to Johnny Hopp in right center.

Augie Bergamo, who replaced Danny Litwhiler in left field, led off for the Card against Nels Potter and fouled to Catcher Hayworth. Kreevich came in fast to make a nice catch of Hopp’s short fly, and the side was out when Stan Musial was retired, Gutteridge to McQuinn.

McQuinn walks

The Cards showed their respect for George McQuinn, whose home run won yesterday’s game, by giving him a base on balls in the top half of the second after Marion had tossed out Vernon Stephens. But he never got past first, for Lanier bore down and struck out both Mark Christman and Gene Moore.

Walker Cooper’s two-bagger to open the Redbird second put Potter in a tight spot, but the Browns’ righthander got out of it. He struck out Ray Sanders, faced Whitey Kurowski to ground to Stephens at short and Marion was the third out on a good stop and throw by Christman, leaving W. Cooper stranded.

Hayworth had popped to Marion and the latter had thrown out Potter in the Browns’ third when Gutteridge waited around for a base on balls, but he was forced by Kreevich, Marion to Verban.

[NormanStewart]

Browns eye second win over Cards

Redbirds send Lanier against Potter after losing opener, 2–1
By Leo H. Petersen, United Press sports editor

Probable lineup

Browns	Cardinals
Gutteridge, 2B	Bergamo, LF
Kreevich, CF	Hopp, CF
Laabs, LF	Sanders, 1B
Stephens, SS	Musial, RF
Moore, RF	W. Cooper, C
Christman, 3B	Marion, SS
Hayworth, C	Verban, 2B
Potter, P	Lanier, P

Umpires: Sears and Dunn (NL), McGowan and Pipgras (AL).

Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, Missouri –
The St. Louis Browns, hoping to duplicate the feat of another American League hitless wonder team a generation ago, sent Nelson Potter, a 19-gamer winner, to the mound today in an effort to make it two straight over the Cardinals in their first intracity World Series.

Manager Billy “The Kid” Southworth, trying to rally his Redbirds and even the series, chose Max Lanier, a husky lefthander who has been having arm and back trouble, for his club’s hurling chores. He won 17 games until injuries plagued him late in the season.

The Browns, American League orphans for 42 years, played the kind of ball in the opening game yesterday which characterized Fielder Jones and his Chicago White Sox back in 1906. Manager Luke Sewell’s team got only two hits off Big Mort Cooper, the Cardinal’s fastball artist, but one of them was George McQuinn’s home run with a man on base and it was all the margin Dennis Galehouse needed to win, 2–1.

Recall ‘hitless wonders’

Like the White Sox of that other era, the Browns have been short on hitting all year long, but their pitching and fielding was good enough to bring them their first American League pennant and they carried the momentum of that last-ditch stretch drive in which they nosed out the Detroit Tigers by one game into the World Series.

Just like yesterday, the crowd was slow in coming into flag-bedecked Sportsman’s Park. Not even the bleacher seats were filled two hours before game time when the Cardinals began their batting practice.

It was an ideal baseball day with a hot October sun drying up the puddles which a heavy rain last night left on the playing field.

Litwhiler benched

Southworth announced during batting drill that he was benching Danny Litwhiler, his regular leftfielder because of his bad knee, for Augie Bergamo, a rookie. The substitution also changed the Cardinal batting order with Bergamo in the leadoff spot instead of Centerfielder Johnny Hopp.

The Cards were hitting the ball much sharper in their workout and began rattling the fences with line drives.

There were about 10,000 in the park when the Browns began their hitting drill. There were a few scattered cheers, but otherwise the crowd was undemonstrative.

Potter Browns’ ace pitcher

Potter has been pretty much of a baseball traveler until this season. After the Cards let him go, he went back to the majors via the Philadelphia Athletics and, after he was found wanting by no less a judge of baseball talent than old Connie Mack, was picked up by the Browns. It proved to be a gilt-edged pickup. He won 19 games this year to head Sewell’s staff and lost only seven. he won 13 of the 15 starts he made for Sewell after returning from a 10-day suspension for throwing spitballs.

McQuinn’s homer spoils Cooper’s two-hitter

The power that won yesterday’s game for Denny Galehouse came from the Browns only two lefthanded hitters – Gene Moore and George McQuinn – and Southworth figured that Lanier may be the man to tackle them at the table.

Gaslehouse allowed seven hits against the two that Cooper yielded, but that extra mileage the Browns received at the plate was the difference. McQuinn had hit only 11 homers all year and his 11th iced the first game of the crucial Yankee series.

Galehouse, who did not begin taking a regular turn in the box until mid-season because his war plant kept him busy every day except Sunday, turned in a pitching masterpiece. He battled his way out of trouble in the early innings and then shut the scoring door when the Cards made a last ditch stand in the ninth.

Cooper loses another heartbreaker

When the Cards finally broke through his fast low ball and change of pace pitching in the ninth to score their single run and break his streak of scoreless innings at 21 – he had won one of the important Yankee games, 2–0, and had shut out Boston for four innings in another – he had enough left to retire the Cardinals one run short.

It was another heartbreaking defeat for Big Mort when facing American League hitters. His homerun ball plagued him in two All-Star appearances and three previous World Series defeats before he served that “fat” one to McQuinn yesterday.

But the Cardinals were not downhearted. Southworth was sure Lanier would square that account this afternoon and, as Pepper Martin, the old Wild Horse of the Osage, pointed out, the Cardinals lost the first game in 1942 when they eventually defeated the Yankees.

[NormanStewart]

No parades, no burning, but lots of ducats –
Othman: This is sad World Series for ticket scalpers

By Frederick C. Othman, United Press staff writer

St. Louis, Missouri –
The saddest gents in all St. Louis today are those dirty bums, those lowdown crooks, those thieving racketeers in the checkered coats, the ticket speculators. They got what was coming to ‘em.

As of now, a few hours before the second game between the Cardinals and the Browns, the shifty-eyed ones with the pockets full of ducats are going bankrupt. One of ‘em grabbed me and wouldn’t let go and finally said he’d sell me a ticket for today’s game for less than it cost at the box office. Last week he was peddling the same seat for $35. Yesterday he was asking $10. Today he was begging for anything and it serves him right, according to police, who have been chasing him and his pals from Grand Avenue to 12th Street and back again.

Face the facts

We might as well face the facts. This World Series is no sellout. Maybe there isn’t enough bunting downtown; there isn’t any. Maybe there haven’t been enough parades; I haven’t seen one. Or maybe the series has been oversold and the fans are afraid to buck the ticket office.

Truth is that 33,242 patrons, including Mrs. Mary Ott and Harry S. Thobe, saw the first game in a ballpark designed to pack in 40,000 customers. Mrs. Ott, the only lady baseball fan who can neigh like a horse, paid her way in and got her money’s worth. You should have heard her; she sounded like the animal tent of a circus just before its collapse in a cyclone.

Thobe, the liveliest bricklayer that Oxford, Ohio, ever produced, sneaked in behind a truck of bottled beer, but he gave value received. He wore one red shoe and one white one, carried a red parasol and sported a wing collar and a crimson necktie. He danced on the infield for free to the tunes of a sour-sounding band and announced that the Yankees were the only baseballers who did not make him welcome.

Yankees too dignified

“They are very dignified,” Thobe said. “They always chase me out because I make too much noise.”

So all right. That leaves us with Game No. 2, and at this writing there are seats for sale and not much of a line at the bleachers window, or the pavilion wicket, either.

One of the difficulties, of course, is that everybody loves everybody at this ball game and you miss most of the fun unless you’ve got a team to hate. How can a loyal St. Louis fan deliver raspberries to the Cards? Or scream down curses on the Browns?

‘Ain’t no fun’

All he can do is sit there quietly, chewing deluxe 15-cent hot dogs and cheering both sides equally. No matter what happens. St. Louis wins and that, according to Mrs. Ott, a hefty lady in a speckled dress, ain’t no fun.

The situation’s got her down. If only Detroit had come to town, she said dreamily, she could have put some steam behind those neighs. She could have made uncomplimentary noises such as nobody ever heard before. For weeks she’s been practicing, sotto voce, in her bath.

Now look. It just ain’t right and you can take that from Mrs. Ott.

[NormanStewart]

Clutch hitter –
McQuinn beats handicaps

St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
Six weeks ago, Manager Luke Sewell, trying to win his first pennant – and incidentally the St. Louis Browns’ first American League title – was wondering whether he would have to finish out the season with Mike Chartak, a parttime outfielder, at first base.

Today, he was mighty happy that he didn’t have to. Not that he has anything against Chartak, but any manager would be glad to have George McQuinn’s flashy fielding and clutch hitting.

At that time there was doubt whether McQuinn would be able to finish out the season. He was troubled with sciatica and then came the news that his brother was missing in action. He has gone down in the Atlantic.

McQuinn rested

That news, together with sciatica, was too much for McQuinn. Sewell “rested” him for several days, using Chartak, like McQuinn a fugitive from the New York Yankee farm system, at first base.

But, as the season drew toward a close, Sewell called on McQuinn again. And he produced. In one of those four highly important games with the Yankees he hit his eleventh home run of the season and it won a game the Brownies had to win to stay in the running for the American League pennant.

They went on and won it – and today they were off to a winging start in the World Series – thanks to 33-year-old George McQuinn.

All year long McQuinn has been helping Luke’s pitchers out of touch spots with his fielding. He was his usual self in that department yesterday and for good measure, he added his bat.

Hits payoff blow

He struck the payoff blow – a home run in the rightfield pavilion. It came with Gene Moore, who had singled, on base and that made the difference between the final score of the Browns 2 and the Cards 1.

“It was a low fast one,” McQuinn said, “I didn’t hit it particularly hard, but I caught it just right.”

So did one of 33,000 fans sitting in the pavilion. The blow cost big Mort Cooper, the fastball hurler of the Redbirds will testify that McQuinn has the right idea. It cost him a two-hit ball game and the extra mileage on that second hit was the difference.

[NormanStewart]

Fits ‘poor man’s’ series –
Williams: Underprivileged Brownies make two hits go long way

By Joe Williams

St. Louis, Missouri –
A 33-year-old righthander, Dennis Galehouse, who has never pitched better than .500 baseball at any time since he has been in the big leagues, pitched the Browns to victory in the opening game of the poor man’s World Series. The circumstances of the pitcher’s background somehow made this a fitting start.

It was also fitting that the Browns, appearing in the series for the first time in history, and never too well-heeled in any department, made only two hits, yet these, accounting for two runs, proved sufficient to turn back their city rivals, the supposedly much more trenchant Cardinals. This was their way of showing the underprivileged can make a little go a long way.

One of these hits was a home run by George McQuinn which barely reached the rooftop in right field. Two were out at the time and Gene Moore was on first by virtue of a single. McQuinn hit the second pitch, a fast ball, letter high and, as the game was played, this proved to be the payoff. McQuinn, incidentally, is a Yankee discard and it was not surprising he applied the familiar Yankee technique.

Junior Loop jinxes Cooper

Once again Morton Cooper was the victim of an American League assault, Cooper is one of the most able pitchers the game has seen in a generation, In the National League he is feared and respected, a routine 20-game winner; but when he faces an American League entry something happens to him and generally it is not for the best. Only once has he won from the younger league. In all his other starts, in the series and the All-Star games, he has met with failure.

Even when he has all his stuff, which is considerable, Cooper manages to throw one pitch which costs him the ball game. It is usually a homerun pitch, as was the case, in yesterday’s opener. He had pitched three hitless innings and had got the first two hitters in the fourth when Moore broke the spell with a single and McQuinn followed with a homer. That was all the hitting the Browns did all afternoon.

One indiscreet, or unlucky, pitch had ruined an otherwise splendid pitching performance.

Recall ‘hitless wonders’

Cooper was taken out in the eighth for reasons of strategy, so-called, and Blix Donnelly (really, that’s what he calls himself) did not permit another Brownie to reach first base. The Browns are properly called the modern hitless wonders. A week azo they took a key game from Hank Borowy of the Yankees on two hits. They seem to have taken up where the White Sox hitless wonders of 1906 left off and it was the White Sox, as your granddad will tell you, who upended Frank Chance’s great Chicago Cubs in the series, and the Cubs were thought to tower above the White Sox in much the same way the dope describes the Browns’ situation, or did before this series started.

The Cardinals had nine men left on the bases, which is proof enough they had ample scoring possibilities. That they were unable to capitalize on these possibilities was due to the resolute and knowhow pitching of the veteran Galehouse, who was at his best in the clutches, unflustered and markedly self-reliant.

The Cardinals’ most inviting chance came in the third when Hopp and Sanders led off with singles and Musial advanced the runners via a sacrifice bunt. This brought Walker Cooper to the plate and Galehouse deliberately walked him to fill the bases. Then he fanned the long-hitting Kurowski and beguiled Litwhiler into an infield out.

Passes through trial

This was the most trying situation Galehouse faced all during the game but, once past it, he handled the power-packed Cardinals’ batting order with authority. It was the first World Series game he ever pitched, but he has been around so long he knows all the answers: which probably explains why the Browns manager, in a surprise move, handed him the all-important starting assignment.

As for the Browns, they were in the ball game for only one inning, the fourth, in which they got their two runs. At all other times, they looked completely helpless and the innocent bystander found himself wondering how they ever succeeded in winning those four straight from the Yankees. Actually, a base on balls was an explosive rally for them. Three Brownies walked and they, aside from Moore and McQuinn who made the hits, were the only ones to reach first base. They weren’t hitting any loud cuts either. Most of them rolled to the infield or fanned.

[NormanStewart]

Game 2

Thursday, October 5, 1944 2:00 pm (CT) at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, Missouri

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	R	H	E
St. Louis Browns (1-1)	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	2	7	4
St. Louis Cardinals (1-1)	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	3	7	0

St. Louis Browns (AL):

Hitters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	AVG
Gutteridge, 2B	4	0	0	0	1	2	.000
Kreevich, CF	5	0	2	0	0	0	.222
Laabs, LF	4	0	0	0	0	3	.000
Zarilla, PH-LF	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Stephens, SS	5	0	0	0	0	2	.000
McQuinn, 1B	2	0	1	0	3	1	.400
Christman, 3B	5	0	0	0	0	2	.000
Moore, RF	5	1	2	0	0	1	.375
Hayworth, C	5	1	1	1	0	1	.125
Potter, P	2	0	0	0	1	0	.000
Mancuso, PH	1	0	1	1	0	0	1.000
Shirley, PR	0	0	0	0	0	0
Muncrief, P	1	0	0	0	0	1	.000
Totals	40	2	7	2	4	13	.175

2B: R. Hayworth (1, off Lanier); M. Kreevich (1, off Lanier); G. McQuinn (1, off Donnelly)
IBB: G. McQuinn (1, by Donnelly)
TB: M. Kreevich 3; G. McQuinn 2; R. Hayworth 2; G. Moore 2; F. Mancuso
RBI: R. Hayworth (1); F. Mancuso (1)
2-Out RBI: F. Mancuso; R. Hayworth
With RISP: 1 for 6
Team LOB: 9

Fielding
DP: 2 (Stephens to Gutteridge; Stephens to Gutteridge to McQuinn)
E: D. Gutteridge (1); M. Christman (1); N. Potter 2 (2)

St. Louis Cardinals (NL):

Hitters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	AVG
Bergamo, LF	5	0	0	1	0	3	.000
Hopp, CF	5	0	0	0	0	2	.100
Musial, RF	5	0	1	0	0	0	.250
W. Cooper, C	4	0	1	0	0	0	.143
Sanders, 1B	3	2	1	0	2	1	.333
Kurowski, 3B	4	0	2	0	0	0	.375
Marion, SS	3	0	0	0	2	0	.286
Verban, 2B	3	1	1	1	1	0	.400
O’Dea, PH	1	0	1	1	0	0	.500
Lanier, P	2	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Donnelly, P	1	0	0	0	0	1	.000
Totals	36	3	7	3	5	7	.194

2B: W. Cooper (1, off Potter); W. Kurowski (1, off Potter)
SH: M. Lanier (1, off Potter); W. Cooper (1, off Muncrief); W. Kurowski (1, off Muncrief)
IBB: M. Marion 2 (2, 1 by Potter, 1 by Muncrief); R. Sanders (1, by Muncrief)
TB: W. Kurowski 3; W. Cooper 2; S. Musial; K. O’Dea; E. Verban; R. Sanders
GIDP: W. Cooper (1)
RBI: K. O‘Dea (2); A. Bergamo (1); E. Verban (1)
With RISP: 1 for 12
Team LOB: 10

St. Louis Browns

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	cWPA	acLI	RE24
Potter	6	4	2	0	2	3	0	0.00	26	61			0.015	0.97	0.45%	49.84	0.9
Muncrief, L (0-1)	4.1	3	1	1	3	4	0	2.08	18		0	0	0.097	2.40	2.74%	123.14	0.5
Team Totals	10.1	7	3	1	5	7	0	0.87	44	61	0	0	0.112	1.56	3.19%	79.83	1.5

St. Louis Cardinals

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	cWPA	acLI	RE24
Lanier	7	5	2	2	3	6	0	2.57	29	62			-0.031	1.04	-1.57%	53.16	0.8
Donnelly, W (1-0)	4	2	0	0	1	7	0	0.00	15		1	0	0.644	2.41	18.82%	123.86	2.6
Team Totals	11	7	2	2	4	13	0	1.64	44	62	1	0	0.613	1.50	17.25%	77.26	3.4

Max Lanier faced 1 batter in the 8th inning.

Balks: None
WP: None
HBP: None
IBB: B. Donnelly (1; G. McQuinn); N. Potter (1; M. Marion); B. Muncrief 2 (2; R. Sanders, M. Marion)
Pickoffs: None
Umpires: HP - McGowan, 1B - Dunn, 2B - Pipgras, 3B - Sears
Time of Game: 2:32
Attendance: 35,076

[NormanStewart]

Game 3

The Pittsburgh Press (October 6, 1944)

Cards lead 1–0 in third game

Nationals score in first on error and hit

St. Louis, Missouri (UP) –
The Cardinals were leading the Browns, 1–0, in the third inning of the third game of the All-St. Louis World Series today. Both teams were anxious to gain the edge which, for nine times in the last 10 years, has decided the pennant winner in the third game.

The Cards scored in the first on an error and a hit.

Laabs benched

To offset lefthanded pitching which plagued the Browns yesterday, Manager Luke Sewell benched Leftfielder Chet Laabs for Allen Zarilla who was dropped to the sixth notch in the batting order. Gene Moore took the third spot, the others moving up.

Just before game time, Pilot Billy Southworth of the Cardinals decided on Danny Litwhiler, slugging leftfielder, in place of Augie Bergamo.

Cards score one

The Cards led off with a run in the first inning when, after Danny Litwhiler flied out, Stephens let Johnny Hopp’s smash go through him for a two-base error. Walker Cooper singled Hopp home after Musial had popped out. Then Sanders walked and with two on Jack Kramer snuffed the threat by striking out Whitey Kurowski.

The Browns went out in order. Gutteridge struck out, Kreevich fouled out to Sanders and Moore grounded out. Verban to Sanders.

Marion fanned to start the Cards second inning. Verban fouled out to Catcher Hayworth and Wilks also struck out.

The Browns muffed a load of scoring opportunities in their half of the second. Wilks walked both Stephens and McQuinn to open the inning. Zarilla, however, flied to Musial in short right, the runners holding their bases. Christman forced McQuinn at third. Wilks then loaded the bases by walking Hayworth, but then struck out Kramer on a high fast ball.

In the Cards’ third, Litwhiler bounced out, Kramer to McQuinn; Hopp grounded out to McQuinn at first. Musial singled over second but W. Cooper flied out to Kreevich.

GAME IMCOMPLETE AT PRESS TIME.

[NormanStewart]

Series rivals clash in key contest

Cards bank on Wilks against Kramer in battle to gain edge
By Leo H. Petersen, United Press sports editor

Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, Missouri –
A hot October sun, sending the temperature into the 80’s, beat down on Sportsman’s Park today as the St. Louis Cardinals and the St. Louis Browns, all even at one game each, met in the third game of the World Series.

Manager Billy Southworth sent his rookie ace Ted Wilks, who won 17 games while losing only four in his first season in the majors, against Jack Kramer, Pilot Luke Sewell’s nominee.

The heat changed the pre-game odds because Kramer has been a “cold weather” pitcher. Most of his 17 victories came during the cool days of May, June and September and most of his 13 defeats on the hot days of July and August.

Odds favor Cards

The odds on the Cards dropped from 3–5 to 2–5 and increased on the Browns from 7–5 to 8–5.

It was the first World Series experience for both Wilks and Kramer and they were meeting in the critical third game. Nine times in the past 10 years, the club which won the third game went on to take the series.

Fans gathered slowly in the park on hour and a half before game time and practically all of them were in the unreserved bleacher and pavilion seats. There were still plenty of seats available however, and it promised to be another bad day for the ticket scalpers. Neither the first game, won by the Browns, nor the second contest won by the Cardinals, drew capacity houses.

The Browns became the home club for today’s game. The Cardinals will be hosts for the sixth and seventh, if that many are necessary to decide the best four out of seven games series.

Browns kick away second game, 3–2

The Browns kicked away the second game yesterday, 3–2, in 11 innings after winning the opener Wednesday, 2–1. It was the first extra-inning World Series game since the New York Yankees defeated the Cincinnati Reds, 7–4, in 10 innings in 1938.

Sewell shot with his ace, Nelson Potter, in an effort to make it two in a row over their intracity rivals and without three early inning errors would have won, 2–0, over the regulation distance.

Potter was not charged with the defeat, but he had only himself to blame for sending the game into overtime. He had been taken out for a pinch-hitter in the seventh and his relief, Bob Muncrief, was on the mound.

Potter’s errors hurt

After turning back the National League champions for two innings, he yielded a single to Emil Verban, one of the Cardinals’ weakest hitters, to open the third. Then Max Lanier, the starting Cardinal pitcher, trying to sacrifice, popped a fly which dropped at Potter’s feet and which the Brownie pitcher did not pick up in time. And when he did pick it up, he threw wildly past first for two errors on the same play and, instead of having a man on second with one out there were men on third and first with none out. Verban scored an unearned run as Augie Bergamo grounded out.

Potter also set up the second unearned run scored by the Cards in the fourth, but it was his pitching, and not his fielding, this time. With one man out he walked Ray Sanders. Sanders went to second on George Kurowski’s single, and the bases were filled when Mark Christman, Brownie Third-baseman, fumbled Martin Marion’s sure double-play ground ball. Sanders scored after Verban flied out.

Sylvester “Blix” Donnelly turned in one of the best jobs of relief pitching ever seen in a World Series to turn the Browns back.

O’Dea’s hit wins

He received his reward in the 11th when Ken O’Dea broke up the game with a single to right. The Cards’ second-string catcher was batting for Verban and the blow scored Ray Sanders, who singled and had been sacrificed to second.

[NormanStewart]

Thought waves echo –
Williams: Brain trusters dominate second game of series

By Joe Williams

St. Louis, Missouri –
The brain trusters took over the second game of the World Series. Both Prof. Southworth of the Cardinals and Prof. Sewell of the Browns went in excessively for heavy thought waves. There were times when the action of the brain cells was audible all over the park. There has been nothing like it since Tunney addressed Yale on the relative values of the left hook and the Greek root.

In the end Prof. Southworth, who went through the Sorbonne, Harvard and MIT, being a magazine salesman at the time, was the victor. It turned out to be something he had eaten; for breakfast the professor had brains and eggs. “That’s the secret of my academic success,” he admitted, “that, and listening to the quiz kids.” Probably correct, too.

Juggling starts early

The two professors started the game by juggling their lineups and for reasons only the scientific mind would be able to comprehend, although Prof. Southworth, an old vaudeville fan, is known to be personally fond of juggling. As the game progressed, they rushed in pinch-hitters, even pinch-runners. Four times they ordered hitters purposely passed, probably a record.

In order to get the full flavor of this, the purposely passing of a hitter, you must at least suspect the rudiments of masterminding. You must realize deep and searching thinking is taking place, out of which may come, in some indirect way, a formula to revolutionize the American way of life, or at any rate the contemporary system of playing the daily double.

Example: Prof. Sewell ordered Shortstop Marion passed in the sixth. Two were out and a Cardinal runner was on second. The next hitter, Second-baseman Verban, popped out. A clear triumph for masterminding.

Sewell outguessed

Another example: It’s the eleventh inning and the score is tired at 2–0, there’s a Cardinal runner on second, one is out and this here Marion comes up again (incidentally, in the three times they did pitch to him he didn’t get the ball beyond the infield). Well, Prof. Sewell once more orders him passed to get to Verban, but the young man never reached the plate. Prof. Southworth was doing some masterminding of his own; he sent Ken O’Dea in to pinch-hit instead, and this gentleman promptly came through with the whack that decided the exciting game.

Apparently, Prof. Sewell had ignored the possibility his scholarly via-a-vis would cross him by calling on a hitter other than Verban, and a lefthanded hitter (as O’Dea is), at that. Prof. Sewell’s pitcher was a righthander and Marion, purposely passed, is a righthanded hitter. In such circumstances, the percentage is supposed to ride with the righthanded pitcher and this certainly was no time to add to his burden.

So, the second guessers were saying today Prof. Sewell masterminded himself out of the ball game, yet the essential facts are infield errors actually beat the Browns. Even so, maybe there should be a law against thinking on the ball field. Or any place else for that matter. It doesn’t seem to improve things, does it?

[NormanStewart]

Landis hears World Series in hospital bed

Chicago, Illinois (UP) –
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, High Commissioner of Baseball, had to substitute a bedside radio at St. Luke’s Hospital for a box seat at St. Louis for the World Series this year.

The 77-year-old baseball czars physician said today that Landis heard the first two series games on the radio and “appeared to enjoy them very much.”

He was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital for a bad cold and a needed rest, and was forced to miss a series for the first time since he became commissioner in 1920.