Brave Buy

Although the Boston Braves are only a sixth-place club, they are far from being the pushovers they used to be. Besides Outfielder Tommy Holmes, who is the National League's fancy .402 batting leader, this year's edition offers some promising rookies and a brand-new home-run aptitude (thanks, partly, to a shortened right-field fence). The Braves also have a new boss, Contractor Louis Perini, who seems bent on buying new talent.

Last week, Owner Perini stole off to St. Louis, and quietly swung baseball's biggest deal in four years: for one mediocre pitcher and an estimated $50,000 in cash, he bought the Cardinals' temperamental fork-bailer Morton Cooper (his seven-year big-league record: 106 won, 60 lost). That ended Cooper's six-week salary squabble with the penny-pinching Cardinals, and it might even boost the Braves into the first division for the first time in eleven years.

Cooper's purchase will also give the Braves a box-office attraction equal to their American League rivals--the Boston Red Sox' Dave Ferriss. Discharged from the Air Forces because of chronic asthma, Ferriss has thus far pitched six complete games, won them all (four shutouts) and allowed just three earned runs in 54 innings.

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