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Churchill speech puts Roosevelt on spot
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
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Roosevelt asks Petrillo to lift ban on recordings
President enters labor dispute which can’t be solved by seizure
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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.”
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.
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.
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.”
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.