Mid-Season

(See front cover)

Baseball superstition says that the team which is leading each major league on July 4 will come out ahead at the end of the season and play in the World Series. What lends weight to this superstition is that, during the past 25 years, it has been substantiated by fact two-thirds of the time. As July 4 approached last week, the New York Giants topped the National League two games ahead of their nearest rival, the Chicago Cubs. In the American League, the New York Yankees were so placed that Detroit could not overtake them for first place before the fateful Fourth. The rest of the teams were strung out sufficiently close together in both leagues to make it likely that 1934 would be one baseball year when the July 4 superstition would fall to the ground.

In the National League, St. Louis was only two games behind the Cubs. With Jerome ("Dizzy") Dean and his younger brother, Paul, two pitchers who can be counted on to win most of their games, all the club seemed to need was one more of the same calibre. Last week it tried to make up that deficiency by purchasing aging Dazzy Vance from the League's tail-enders, the Cincinnati Reds. The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Braves were still in striking position behind the Cardinals. Brooklyn, which last week won its first game after losing eight in a row, and the Philadelphia Phillies, who have good batters but poor pitchers, were almost bracketed together, a notch ahead of Cincinnati.

Even more exciting than the games in the National League this year have been disturbances of the sort that usually arise from the tension of a close race. Last month the Cardinals' Manager Frankie Frisch exchanged words and blows with portly Umpire Charley Rigler during a game against Chicago. League authorities fined both $100, first time in recent years that an umpire has been so disciplined. A week earlier, the first individual strike in baseball history took place when Pitcher Dizzy Dean refused to play unless the club upped Brother Paul's salary from $3,000 to $5,000. After one day St. Louis owners persuaded Paul to compromise.

The Chicago Cubs have been more troublesome than the Cardinals. Early in June Manager Grimm and Shortstop Jurges were fined $50 and $25 respectively for misbehaving. A few days later Jurges, Root, English and W. Herman were all ejected from the same game. Another day English was fined $25.

In the American League, major surprise so far has been the performance of the Detroit Tigers who were expected to supply competition in the first division but who, under their new Catcher-Manager Mickey Cochrane, have done considerably more. Rated a 15-to-1 pennant choice in April, the Tigers last week were rated 2-to-1. Another surprise has been the performance of Boston, under its new owner, Thomas Yawkey. For his team this year Mr. Yawkey had a rebuilt stadium and an almost completely new roster of players including famed Robert Moses Grove who was Mickey Cochrane's longtime battery mate on the Athletics. Without Cochrane, Grove's pitching has not been up to scratch. Even so the Red Sox, consistent tail-enders in their league for the last nine years, were last week in third place, two games ahead of the hard-hitting Cleveland Indians. Washington was in fifth place. Philadelphia was establishing itself firmly in the lower half along with St. Louis and Chicago.

The only satisfaction that the season has given Philadelphia's old Connie Mack is that his 27-year-old outfielder, Bob Johnson, with 24 home-runs was last week leading both leagues. Jimmy Foxx, who totaled 58 homeruns in 1932, was three behind Johnson. Babe Ruth last week hit the 698th homerun of his career (excluding World Series and exhibition games), with three men on base, in a game against the White Sox, bringing his total to 12 for this year, 14 behind his record year (1927). Lou Gehrig of the Yankees, who was expected to be leading homerun hitter as Ruth declined, was four behind Johnson. Last week in an exhibition game at Norfolk, Va. a pitched ball hit Gehrig on the head, knocked him unconscious. Anxious to maintain his record of playing in more consecutive games than any other player in major-league baseball history, Gehrig next day performed ably in his 1,415th.

All-Star Game. Sports Editor Arch Ward of the Chicago Tribune last year promoted the idea of a game between picked stars of the American and National Leagues to advertise the World's Fair. The game drew a crowd of 49,000, and netted $42,000 for the benefit of indigent members of the Association of Professional Ball Players. This year League officials thought it would be wise to have another all-star game. Managers Bill Terry of the World-Champion Giants, and Joe Cronin of last year's pennant-winning Washington Senators were invited to select and manage the teams, which will meet at New York's Polo Grounds July 10. A nation-wide newspaper poll ending last week indicated the players baseball addicts wanted most to see in action. High scorers:

National League American League

First base: Terry (Giants) Gehrig (Yankees)

Second base: Frisch (Cardinals) Gehringer (Tigers)

Third base: Traynor (Pirates) Dykes (White Sox)

Shortstop: Jackson (Giants) Cronin (Senators)

Outfield: Klein (Cubs) Ruth (Yankees)

Catcher: Lopez (Dodgers) Dickey (Yankees)

Pitcher: Hubbell (Giants) Gomez (Yankees)

To baseball critics, many of the selections on the all-star teams seemed dubious. Obviously Babe Ruth, who at 40 is probably in his last big-league year, would play outfield; he got 114,999 votes. Nonetheless, on the basis of field performance this year either Ben Chapman (Yankees), who got only 19,076, or Heinie Manush (Senators), who got 82,410, was more deserving. Big league managers are not wholeheartedly in favor of an all-star game. They feel that it tires their best players, gives the two special managers an unfair advantage because they may get a chance to spare their own men while using those from rival teams.

There were, however, two selections on the all-star team last week about which no baseball addict was likely to complain. Although both leagues this season are using a uniform lively ball, it has so far been a pitcher's year. Carl Hubbell of the Giants and Vernon Gomez of the Yankees are indisputably the best pitchers in their leagues. If every seat in the Polo Grounds is sold next week it will be because the crowd wants to see them pitch against each other, as they may do in the next World Series. Giant Hubbell, long lean left-hander who last year pitched 46 consecutive scoreless innings two weeks after he pitched an 18-inning game against St. Louis which the Giants won1-to-0, has been recognized as the National League's No. 1 pitcher for the past three seasons. Last year he was voted the League's most valuable player. Last week he got 86,048 votes to 62,201 for his nearest rival, Dizzy Dean. But even Hubbell's margin of popularity was surpassed by that of Vernon ("Lefty") Gomez of the New York Yankees. Gomez' amazing record this season is 13 games won, 3 lost. The Gomez total in last week's poll was 84,712 to 38,327 for Robert Moses Grove.

Popular Pitcher. Thinnest, blondest member of Manager Joe McCarthy's Yankees, Vernon Gomez has succeeded in his profession largely by accident. His father, Francisco Gomez, was a rancher and rodeo performer who settled in Rodeo, Calif. There Vernon was born in 1910. At 13, Vernon Gomez hoped to be a rodeo performer also. He fell off a horse and broke his right arm, took to throwing baseballs with his left. The next spring while a freshman at Richmond High School, he became so expert that a Pacific Coast League team offered him a contract. A member of his high-school basketball and swimming teams for three years, he also played football. Instead of going on to college he played baseball with the San Francisco Seals, went to Salt Lake City for a year's seasoning, returned to San Francisco for the season of 1929, when he struck out 159 batters. The New York Yankees hired him in 1930, sent him to St. Paul for one year. In 1931 Gomez won 21 games and lost nine, struck out 150 batters. Last year he led the American League in strikeouts, with 163.

Smarter than Robert Moses Grove, who depends almost entirely on throwing the ball so fast that batters cannot see it, Yankee Gomez is able to alternate his favorite pitch, a fast ball, with comprehensive curves. He throws a baseball faster and behaves less strangely than the Cardinals' Dizzy Dean, who amuses himself on hot days by lighting a little fire in front of the bench and pretending to be an Indian, who is so popular that when he pitches the club's advertisements say: "Dizzy Dean -- in person." While pitching, Gomez chews gum. He throws with an easy overhand motion, balancing the backswing of his left hand with the upswing of a size-13 cleated shoe. The dignity and competence of his demeanor contrast strangely with the stories of his eccentricities. These are partly true, partly the framework of legend invented to support another one of baseball's superstitions, that all left-handed pitchers are a trifle crazy.

The Gomez eccentricities are neither the result of mild dementia nor a desire to attract attention. He is somewhat absentminded. Pitching against Cleveland in his first year with the Yankees, he was warned to be careful of Averill, who was on a batting rampage. At the beginning of the second inning he whispered anxiously to Catcher Dickey: "Be sure to let me know when Averill comes up." Catcher Dickey informed him that Averill had struck out in the first. The following year the Yankees were playing a crucial game against Washington; there were two men out and three on base; suddenly his teammates saw Gomez run out in front of the dugout and pointed wildly at the sky; he had spied an airplane and wanted them to see it too.

Gomez is proud of his Castilian blood. Once when the Yankees arrived in Detroit he was invited to address a Spanish-American society. He remembered to decline because he speaks no Spanish.

Last year Pitcher Gomez married Dancer June O'Dea (Of Thee I Sing). They spend some time at Rodeo, where Gomez indulges in his hobby of hunting.

Like most baseballers, he has superstitions of his own. He thinks his pitching is hoodooed after he has won his first twelve games. Fortnight ago, after winning twelve in a row, he lost a game against the Cleveland Indians, which dropped the Yankees temporarily into second place. In his next appearance, the Chicago White Sox knocked him out of the box in the ninth. Last week, against the Boston Red Sox, Pitcher Gomez finally won his 13th game-- the one which insured the Yankees first place on July 4.

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