Pride of the Pirates

In Pittsburgh, far from the pennant hubbub, baseball fans were experiencing another kind of emotional turmoil. They had nothing but scorn for the impotent Pirates (who were 28 games out of first place), but they kept paying their way into Forbes Field to gaze, with the dewy-eyed reverence of Babylonian idol worshipers, upon big, amiable, good-looking Ralph McPherram Kiner. There was no doubt in any Pittsburgher's mind that easy-going Ralph was the biggest man in big-league baseball.

For three consecutive years, Kiner has hit 40 or more home runs, thus set a mark never equaled by such sluggers as Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx and Joe DiMaggio. Furthermore, the 26-year-old pride of Pittsburgh seemed to be improving with age. One night last week, with 50 homers to his credit, he stepped to the plate with 11,881 fans howling for him to hit another. With the National League's home-run record of 56 (set by Hack Wilson back in 1930) so close and time so short, Kiner's big problem was to keep from pressing. "When I try to force one," he explains, "it's no good."

Who Was Babe Ruth? Against Boston's right-handed Bill Voiselle, Right-hander Kiner picked a fat curve and put his 195 Ibs. into an easy, carefully grooved swing. The ball cleared the left-field fence for home run No. 51. Three innings later, he put No. 52 in the same place. To Pittsburghers, who head for the exits the moment Kiner has taken his last turn at bat, even Babe Ruth's record mark of 60 (in 1927) still seemed within Kiner's reach.

Although the Boston Red Sox's slugging Ted Williams spends more time practicing before mirrors, Kiner is easily the most thorough and scientific hitter in the game today. In his room, he keeps a complete card-index file showing what type of ball each opposing pitcher has thrown him all season.

Another aid to Kiner's hitting is his movie camera and projector. Part of his homework is studying slow-motion pictures of himself at bat, looking for telltale hitches, lunges and hesitations. At the first sign of any break in his smooth-flowing style he goes to work on himself. Unlike most contemporary sluggers, Kiner digs into a wide-legged stance at the plate and takes almost no stride at all as he meets the ball. The usual forward stride, he thinks, is a waste motion and throws a power hitter off balance. To get maximum power into his own swats, Leftfielder Kiner uses the same delicate combination that is found in a perfect golf swing--pivot, wrist-snap and timing.

No Gold Trinkets. Kiner, who lives with his widowed mother in California in the offseason, spent three seasons in the minors (at Albany and Toronto), then went off to hunt enemy submarines as a Navy PBM pilot. In 1946, as a rookie with the Pirates, he led the National League in homers with 23. With some instruction from his roommate, Hank Greenberg (58 home runs with Detroit in 1938), he boosted his home-run production to 51 the following year--and his salary from $10,000 to $30,000. With that he could afford to buy his mother a new home, drive a maroon Buick, and dress the part of baseball's most eligible bachelor.

This season his salary is around $40,-ooo, and he has an annoyance shared only by the most prominent young ballplayers: the gossip columnists keep trying to marry him off. Most annoying is a Winchell rumor that he is using his home-run cash to buy gold trinkets for Monica Lewis, radio's "Chiquita Banana" girl. He flatly denies the gift angle; he just has dates with her, as he does with Dancer Betty Bruce and Hollywood Starlet Peggy Nilsson. At week's end, the chief buccaneer of the Pirates was too busy trying to hit home run No. 53 (which he got against the Cincinnati Reds) to worry about romance. He was also scrambling to protect the runs-batted-in lead (125 so far) that he took last week from Brooklyn's Jackie Robinson.

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