The Annual Fever

In Boston, everything but the schools, the squirrels and the elevated trains stopped running. The Braves were playing their first World Series in 34 years. The 41,000 seats in Braves Field had long since been sold out. In Boston Common, a battery of 100 television sets was being set up to give more Bostonians a look.

For a while, it had looked as if Boston might have the series all to itself. Only one week ago, three American League teams--the New York Yankees, the Cleveland Indians, the Boston Red Sox--were neck & neck. The Red Sox thrashed the Yankees,*and then there were two. Jittery Cleveland needed only one game to win, and couldn't win it. On the last day of the season, the Red Sox caught up. The first tie in American League history called for a one-game playoff. Manager Lou Boudreau of Cleveland tried to put on a brave front: "It just means going to Boston a day earlier."

Boudreau sent in his sensational southpaw, Rookie Gene Bearden, who held the mighty Sox while Boudreau and Ken Keltner helped win the game (8-3) with three homers between them.

Manager Y. Boss. The Indians fought their way into their first World Series since 1920 with a team that the experts had not regarded as the pennant-winning kind. The outfield is weak and the infield revolves around one splendid star--Shortstop Boudreau. One of the handful of college players in the majors, he still has the old college try.

No one knows yet how he operated so successfully under Boss Bill Veeck, who last year tried to fire Boudreau until the fans stopped him. This season, while Boudreau was busy shaping a winning team, Veeck was filling his ball park (baseball's biggest, with a capacity of $2,000).

Smart Promoter Veeck livened things up with fireworks, vaudeville acts, strolling minstrels, a playground for kids. This season, Cleveland set a new major-league attendance record: 2,260,627. And as fast as the money rolled in, Veeck peeled it out. His best buy: Satchel Paige, the ancient Negro pitching marvel.

Hustling Heath. Billy Southworth's Braves didn't seem quite the pennant type, either. Said one rival National League manager: "They wait around until you boot a ball or make a wild throw, and then you're cooked. Not an exciting team to watch . . . looks deadpan. But it hustles." Southworth had kept them hustling, even after they had cinched the pennant, so as not to lose their fighting edge. Last week, hustling in a game with Brooklyn that didn't matter, hard-hitting Outfielder Jeff Heath broke his ankle sliding into home plate, and was lost to the series.

Like Cleveland, the Braves are in the World Series largely because of their pitching. To match the Indians' fine staff (Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, Bearden, Paige), the Braves had two workhorse throwers, who between them may start in five games. One was big, slow-talking Johnny Sain from Arkansas (with 1948's best record of 24 wins, 15 losses). The other is Left-hander Warren Spahn (15-12), whose fast ball shimmies & shakes. Favored to win: Cleveland.

*This week the Yankees fired Manager Bucky Harris, who last year won them the World Series.

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