Raids over the Border

The man who was last season's American League home-run king thought he was worth more to the St. Louis Browns than they did. So Vern ("Meat") Stephens packed off to see the nice man in Mexico City who said things like: "Bah! What is money? I have forty, fifty, sixty million. . . ."

U.S. baseball magnates, counting up 18 players lost in the past two months to what they regarded as Mexican banditry, took note. Stephens was not just another second-string holdout, or a has-been. Sports columnists suggested dryly that they might up player salaries.

The boss of Mexican baseball, Jorge Pasquel (TIME, March 11), was having his fun too. The brothers Pasquel, aware that U.S. Baseball Commissioner A. B. ("Happy") Chandler had not said a vigorous word against them, blithely offered to make him commissioner of Mexican baseball, at the same salary ($50,006 a year). Brother Jorge, a $6,800 diamond watch on his wrist, offered to devote $20,000,000 of his and his four bachelor brothers'* money to give to Mexico top-drawer baseball. So far, he had spent only about one-fortieth of that on getting U.S. players.

The Great Liberator. Jorge promised more: "I have another very big surprise for the boys in the United States . . . it will happen very soon." It did. Next day the Pasquels, who own two of La Liga Mexicana's eight teams and control the others, rustled off with second-baseman George Hausmann and two other New York Giants. (Hausmann's wife, who had wondered where they would live in overcrowded Manhattan, was encouraged by Pasquel's promise of housing in Mexico.) Next day Pasquel proudly announced that he had signed the Brooklyn Dodgers' No. 1 catcher, Mickey Owen, for "enough in five years to retire on." One of the Pasquel boys rushed to San Antonio to make sure that they had Mickey. He flashed a big diamond ring in Mrs. Owen's face, said "This is for you at the end of the season."

Mexico's big spender seemed to have his countrymen behind him. Mexican fans, who are probably as well read on the daily doings of U.S. baseball as the average U.S. citizen, turned out 700,000 strong for the first 24 games. Most of the U.S. players lured south had a little trouble with the high altitude, but otherwise professed to be happy. Best of the imported sluggers was Bob Estalella, late of the Philadelphia Athletics, with four homers and a .471 batting average. But none of the fancy-salaried lads came near a U.S. Negro, Theolic Smith, who was batting a lofty .615.

At week's end, Jorge Pasquel got a dose of his own poison. Vern Stephens, who had jumped down to Vera Cruz for two games, jumped back into his old job with the Browns--at a reported $4,500 hike in pay. As a bargaining stick, Mexico's "beisbol" league could be used both ways.

* They started their fortune in a penny-ante cigar factory in Vera Cruz, fattened it to $60 million by dabbling in banks, ranches, real estate, steamship lines. They also became Mexican agents for General Motors, customs brokers for the Mexican Government.

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