Big Week

At baseball's midseason mark last week, the big news was the resurgent Boston Red Sox. Moving in against the first-place Chicago White Sox for a four-game series, the Red Sox needed to win three to take the league lead. They did, but only after playing one of the longest, most exciting marathons in baseball history.

Some 50,000 fans sat on the edge of their seats for the first game, which the Red Sox finally won, after staving off Chicago's two-run rally in the ninth inning. Clyde Vollmer, the least celebrated member of Boston's all-star outfield, won the game with a seventh-inning home run. Score: 3-2. The second game was even tighter. At the end of nine innings the score was 4-4. Not until the 17th inning, the longest night game in American League history, did the Red Sox win, 5-4. The man who drove in the winning run: Clyde Vollmer.

Next night the incredible happened: after 18 innings, around 1 a.m., the score was still tied, 2-2. In the first half of the 19th, the Red Sox scored two runs. But the White Sox came storming back with three and won the game, 5-4. It had taken the teams a record 36 innings to settle two successive games.* After that glorious comeback, the limp Chicago fans expected their heroes to sweep the fourth game for an even break. The White Sox led, 2-1, going into the ninth, but lost, 3-2. The buster-upper: Clyde Vollmer. It was the sixth time in seven games that he had knocked in the winning run.

The Red Sox, pre-season pennant favorites with the majority of baseball writers, were finally beginning to act as advertised. Vollmer's sensational spree was not the whole story: the Red Sox have power to spare with Williams, Vern Stephens, and Billy Goodman, the league batting champion. The team is better off this year in "bench" (i.e., reserve) infield strength supplied by Lou Boudreau, deposed Cleveland manager. Day after day, playing where he is needed most, Boudreau has sparked the Red Sox at bat and afield.

Said Manager Steve O'Neill after the tight Chicago series: "The whole team has that desire to win and they're hustling and fighting all the way. They feel they belong on top--and that's where they hope to stay."

* Previous record: 33 innings, by the N. Y. Yankees, against the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians, in 1918.

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