Flatbush Cincinnatus

Even the most loyal of Ebbets Field fans has a hard time forgiving the Brooklyn Dodgers' worst habit: just about this time of year, when they seem to be heading for the pennant, they have a tendency to run out of steam. Last year, as in 1942, it was the St. Louis Cardinals who took the flag away from them. Last week the first-place Dodgers and the second-place Cards met in a crucial three-game series. By the time the series had ended, it looked as if the Dodgers might have cured their old weakness, would have to ask no forgiveness from Flatbush.

In such a midseason series last year, the Cards started their pennant march. This year, playing before the biggest St. Louis crowds of the season, the Dodgers were almost as hot as the 100DEG weather. In the second game the Dodgers went into the ninth inning with a 10-4 lead. St. Louis fans were squeezing toward the exits when their heroes suddenly put on a sizzling six-run rally--after two were out--that tied the score at 10-10. It was in the tenth inning, and almost midnight, when the game was finally decided. The Dodgers, unshaken by the rally, took it 11-to-10.

To Dodger fans that game looked like the season's Gettysburg, complete with Pickett's charge, valiant but in vain. The Dodgers swept the series, and ran their winning streak to 13 games before losing three straight to the Cubs. At week's end they were still seven games out front. (On the same day last year the Cards were 1 1/2 games behind.)

Youth & Heckling. In the unpredictable and uproarious National League, the Dodgers were by no means as sure a thing as the Yankees (13 1/2 games ahead) were in the American League. But for a team that had seemed inexperienced and inept in spring training, they were playing heads-up ball. Every regular in the line-up except leadoff man Eddie Stanky was batting over .285. Johnny Jorgensen at third base and Jackie Robinson at first are two of the National League's rookies-of-the-year. Rookie Harry Taylor and 21-year-old Ralph Branca are among the league's most effective pitchers.

Besides nine men on the field, Dodger opponents have to reckon with a snarling, hooting, heckling row of benchwarmers. Said Manager Burt Shotton: "I'll tell you how we won the St. Louis series. The bench won it." What the exuberant Dodgers seemed to need is not so much a manager as a father. In mild, 62-year-old Burt Shotton, they have just the man.

Age & Respect. Shotton, a kind of Flatbush Cincinnatus, was called from his Florida farm last spring by Boss Branch Rickey to take charge of the Dodgers, after Manager Leo Durocher was suspended for a year (TIME, April 21). Shotton, semi-retired after a long career as outfielder, coach, manager and Brooklyn scout, scarcely knew his players' first names. At first he leaned heavily for advice on Stanky and Pitcher Hugh Casey, but now he runs the team by himself. Only once--after the Dodgers had lost four straight to the Cards in June--has Boss Rickey called Shotton into a council of war. Aloof and respected, Shotton never smokes, drinks, or bawls out a player in public. He and Connie Mack are the only major-league managers who do not wear uniforms in the dugout.

Not long ago Shotton remarked that anyone could do well with the boys he has. But a good many Dodger fans agree that quiet Burt Shotton has made Leo ("The Lip") Durocher look fairly dispensable. Sportwriters who travel with the Dodgers are betting that if Burt Shotton wants to go on managing the Dodgers, he can--Leo or no Leo.

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