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.