America at war! (1941–) – Part 4

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Edson: Congressmen throw the book at Gerald Smith

By Peter Edson

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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Ferguson: Hollywood in politics

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Hollywood dishes up politics these days instead of glamor. The presidential campaign has turned into a free-for-all, with scores of movie stars biffing and biting and gouging.

Both lineups include high-class box-office attractions, plus a bunch of crackpots. To say these individuals will have no influence on the election is to underrate the pulling power of moving picture personalities.

To be sure, if you are a person who has followed the behavior of many Hollywood celebrities, you will shudder for the fate of a nation that might be turned over to them for guidance and inspiration. On the other hand, if you are one who sees the stars as their press agents portray them, you may decide to vote as your favorite advises.

As to talent, the thing is a draw. Don Ameche plugs for Mr. Dewey and Charlie McCarthy is an ardent fourth-termer. But, ah, girls, handsome Cary Grant is against the fourth term. Orson Welles and his wife, Rita Hayworth, are putting on the greatest dramatic effort of their careers to reelect the President. But Lionel Barrymore, Ginger Rogers and Mary Pickford want Mr. Dewey in the White House.

The Democrats seem to have the edge on the Republicans because Frank Sinatra is on their side. He’s moaning for Mr. Roosevelt, and may be able to swing the women’s vote.

Will the crooners decide the election?

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Background of news –
America’s national game

By Bertram Benedict

The 1944 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns rounds out a full century in which baseball has been played according to accepted rules. Such rules were first published at 1845, although the game had been played for a few years previously.

In 1907, a committee of eminent baseball authorities was created to investigate the history of America’s national game. The committee reported that the game developed, not so much from the old English game of Rounders, as from the purely American games of One Old Cat, Two Old Cat, Three Old Cat, and (especially) Four Old Cat. These developed into a game known an Town Ball, which gradually became the modern game of baseball.

However, other authorities believe that the 1907 committee was overanxious to deny a foreign origin for the game. Most Englishmen seeing baseball for the first time explain, “Why, it’s like Rounders!”

Rules drawn up in 1845

In Town Ball, the bases or posts were at first in the form of a square had become a diamond. The year previously., the diagram now used for bases and players’ conditions had been driven up by Col. Abner Doubleday.

In the rules set out in 1845, the first side to score 21 runs was the winner. A batter was out if his hit was caught on the first bounce, or if he was struck while between bases by a ball thrown by an opponent.

The first record of a game dates from 1846. Uniforms appeared in 1849. It was not until 1883 that umpires were paid for their services. In fact, no salaries were paid players until after the Civil War. For a long time, there was a limit only on the diameter of the bat, not on its length. The pitcher was allowed to take a number of steps, as in cricket, before delivering the ball.

After the Civil War, players began to receive money. The first team of full-time professionals was organized in 1869. It often made more than 100 runs in a game. With the advent of professionalism came the use of gloves, and of masks and breast pads for the catchers, also the extensive use of curve balls by pitchers.

Professionals resented

For a time, amateurs resented the professionalization of the game, and a line was drawn between amateurs and professionals, as in tennis today. Four of the early professional teams had names which survived into the modern baseball era – the Red Stockings of Cincinnati, the Athletics of Philadelphia, the White Stockings of Chicago, the Nationals of Washington.

From 1870 to 1875, the game became corrupted with rowdyism and bribery, and popular interest in it died out. To replace the game on a firm and popular basis, the National League was formed in 1876; it calls itself the oldest body of organized sports in the United States.

The present membership of the National League dates from 1900, when it was reduced from 12 clubs to eight. In the same year, the National League was challenged by the American League, formed from the old Western League. Peace between the two major leagues was achieved in 1903, and the World Series was initiated in 1905 (the winners in the two leagues had played against each other in 1903, but not in 1904).

Pearl Harbor report offers points for both sides of argument

Roberts document points to warnings sent Army and Navy commandants

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Roosevelt’s denial rapped by Bricker

Says Communist link too well-known

americavotes1944

Roosevelt registers gain in Cleveland area poll

americavotes1944

Landon calls New Deal failure


Dewey to speak tomorrow night

americavotes1944

Davis faces bitter battle for Senate

Trades punches with Myers in district
By Kermit McFarland

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Perkins: Republicans streamline labor setup

District union groups replace central unit
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer

New York –
What has become of the Labor Division of the Republican National Committee, which has been a tradition part of the campaign organization for many years?

The answer is that there isn’t any, and isn’t going to be any in the accustomed form. The streamlined setup which National Chairman Herbert Brownell, presides over here in the Hotel Roosevelt (named for TR) has adopted a new idea, one of several departures from the usual campaign procedures.

Mr. Brownell explained it just before leaving for Columbus today.

Strong state groups

He said:

In this campaign, we have not adopted the traditional plan of setting up a labor division, because Governor Dewey and I consider the labor field so important that I am giving it my direct attention. But we have something more than the usual labor division.

A strong Republican labor committee has been organized in each of the industrial states outside the solid South. to carry into effect the labor policies of the national committee. In place of the usual formal national labor committee of 20 to 25 members, we have thus enlisted the support of approximately 3,000 union officials and members of the rank and file.

We think that will prove to be the better plan.

The only thing old-fashioned in the political behavior of Mr. Brownell was that he proffered a campaign cigar to his visitor.

Getting back to the labor subject, the chairman said that the proportion of labor support he expects “is all a question of how far the trend goes. There is a very heavy trend now in our favor among working men and women. Governor Dewey undoubtedly will draw a much larger support from labor, groups than recent Republican candidates have had.”

Follow tradition

In the Baltimore Hotel, only a block away, the Democratic National Committee has followed tradition by setting up a labor division under Dan Tobin, head of the Teamsters Union. He is assisted by his son Fred, also an official of the Teamsters Union. Dan shuttles back and forth between Washington and New York, but Fred spends most of his time here.

The Tobin setup has no apparent connection with the political activities of Sidney Hillman, who heads both the CIO Political Action Committee and the National Citizens PAC – the difference being that the latter can contribute money to candidates while the former is prohibited by law from doing so.

americavotes1944

Rally ban denied by White House


Women lose fight for ban on Dewey satire

americavotes1944

Stokes: He means it

By Thomas L. Stokes

Maj. Williams: Landing problems

By Maj. Al Williams


Yanks refloat loaded arms ship

When Germany falls –
GM head sees 70% cutbacks in production

Planning urged now to avoid unemployment


OWI pictures U.S. economy after victory

Job shifts predicted when Nazis fall

Foster: That ‘scared feeling’ over film career still besets a so-called stage star

Dorothy McGuire, given fanfare in Hollywood at outset, still uneasy
By Ernest Foster

The Village Smithy

By Chester L. Smith, sports editor

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Secrecy charged by Republican

‘Perpetual war’ aim laid to Roosevelt


Former reporter to present Dewey on radio

Ex-scribe hits tops hard way
By Si Steinhauser