Pitchers' Year

U.S. baseball players cursed the Japs for a special reason. The lively ball which big-league clubs had counted on to make up for the lack of lively players turned out to be a dud that only a pitcher could love. Of the first eleven games of the season, seven were shutouts. Only one player (Yankee Joe Gordon) succeeded in hitting the new ball far enough to get a home run.

The reason, as explained by Ball Manufacturer A. G. Spalding & Bros.: The rubber cement used in the 1943 models is reprocessed rubber. It had unexpectedly hardened and the result was a dead ball. Spalding promised better results with a new cement.

Despite this inauspicious start, big-league baseball expects to hobble through its full 1943 schedule, leaning heavily on sped-up minor-leaguers, near-40s and 4-Fs. With scarcely less enthusiasm than in peace years, experts last week tried to predict how the teams will finish in far-off October. In Betting Commissioner James J. Carroll's odds, as in sportswriters' polls, the Yankees, Cardinals and Dodgers were top-heavy favorites:

National League

St. Louis Cardinals 9-10

Brooklyn Dodgers 9-10

Cincinnati Reds 8-1

New York Giants 10-1

Chicago Cubs 15-1

Pittsburgh Pirates 20-1

Boston Braves 30-1

Philadelphia Phillies 100-1

American League

New York Yankees 3-4

St. Louis Browns 5-1

Cleveland Indians 5-1

Boston Red Sox 5-1

Detroit Tigers 12-1

Chicago White Sox 25-1

Philadelphia Athletics 100-1

Washington Senators 100-1

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