Pennant Parade

It was the hottest pennant race in years. With less than a month to go, four teams were as good as tied for the American League lead. Detroit had the pitching, Boston the hitting. Just what kept New York and St. Louis up there, nobody knew, but it was no secret that Managers Joe McCarthy and Luke Sewell had performed small miracles with mediocre material.

Through August and the Labor Day doubleheaders, the Detroit Tigers had set an eye-catching pace. Nine games back in fifth place on Aug. 1, the Tigers had since roared through 32 games to 22 victories. Now they were only a couple of well-pitched games behind the league-leading New York Yankees and the St. Louis Browns, who had faded badly. The Boston Red Sox were trailing, as they had all season, but they showed no sign of dropping out of the battle.

Best Bets. The odds on the Browns, who had never won a pennant but had led this year's parade almost from opening day, had lengthened from 1-to-6 to even money. The smart money was on the Tigers and the Yankees.

Detroit's two great pitchers, Dizzy Trout (won 23, lost 10) and Left-hander Hal Newhouser (22-8), had a good chance of exceeding Dizzy & Paul Dean's 1934 total of 49 wins. To aid and abet this outstanding pitching, the Tigers had Sluggers Rudy York (16 home runs) and Navy-released Dick Wakefield. Pitcher Trout himself was the sluggingest pitcher in the League, with five home runs to his credit. But if hitting would do it, the Red Sox were in. The club led the League in batting, boasted the three top individual averages. One of the three, however, was brilliant Second Baseman Bobby Doerr, who played his last game on Labor Day before reporting for Army induction. A month before, Red Sox pitching had suffered a body blow when the Navy claimed 18-game winner Tex Hughson. Although $65,000 had been promptly peeled off Owner Tom Yawkey's bulging bank roll for two Pacific Coast League pitchers, Rex Cecil and Clem Dreisewerd (who beat the Yankees in his debut), the experts still figured that lack of pitching would keep Boston among the also-rans.

The Yankees, perennial pennant winners under Joe McCarthy, had pitching trouble, too. All season they had missed the deft touch of longtime star catcher (now Navy Lieut.) Bill Dickey. Last month they also lost veteran catcher Rollie Hemsley to the Navy. But like all Yankee clubs, the present one is giving its pitchers plenty of hitting help.

Meanwhile smart Joe McCarthy, who kept insisting that his Yankees could win, was not missing a trick. He picked up the veteran Paul Waner, released by the Dodgers, for pinch-hitting duties -- and saw him deliver the first time up. From Newark he called up strong-arm rookie pitchers Mel Queen and Floyd Bevens--and already had a 6-1 record for the two to back his judgment. And the apple of McCarthy's managerial eye, speedy Second Baseman George Stirnweiss, was going strong as ever: he had stolen 49 bases in 55 attempts and was leading the League in number of hits (177).

Long Shot. The Yankees and Red Sox would finish the season on the road, the Tigers and Browns at home. It would help the Western clubs, especially the Browns, if they came anywhere near their present 1944 home record of 39 won, 17 lost.

For four months the Browns had clung stubbornly to the League lead, despite all predictions of an inevitable slump. On their final Eastern swing, they got by the Yankees and Red Sox all right. Then they hit the skids. In Washington, they made the tactical mistake of taunting the tail-ending Senators. The jeers stung the Senators to life and they won three of the four games. On the way home, the Browns lost four out of six. Back home, they quickly lost another three out of four to the Tigers.

The deluge had set in. It seemed unlikely that businesslike Manager Sewell could set the house in order again. His none-too-robust pitching staff had sprung a major leak: Bob Muncrief (12-7), out with elbow trouble. The team's only outstanding player, 23-year-old Shortstop Verne Stephens, led the League in runs batted in (91) and home runs (17), but not even the most hopeful St. Louisans thought Stephens alone could turn the tide.

Hot Dogs. The prospect of the Browns winning to give St. Louis its first streetcar World Series (Chicago has had one, New York five) had faded from rosy red to pale, pale pink. St. Louisans, having had a lot of fun while it lasted, sat back to admire the vastly superior Cardinals, riding to their third consecutive National League pennant on a 161-game lead. But there was at least one St. Louis citizen who still believed in the Browns. Blake Harper, concessionaire at Sportsman's Park, was busy preparing a Browns' World Series program, had ordered 10,000 cases of beer and soda pop, 10,000 pounds of popcorn, 180,000 hot dogs. The extent of his confidence was reflected in the preparation of the wieners; he was tenderizing them with a 48-hour soaking in pineapple juice. Luke Sewell might try that.

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