Bonus for Brooklyn

Baseball's high-priced bonus player is as often as not a disappointing flop. Two current examples: Pittsburgh's Pitcher Paul Pettit ($100,000), now laboring for his fourth minor-league club, the Hollywood (class AAA) Stars, and Cleveland's Pitcher Billy Joe Davidson (more than $100,000), who has yet to show much of anything in the Class B Tri-State League. In Brooklyn last week, Dodger fans were happily pointing to a less expensive ($22,000) exception: Righthander Billy Loes (rhymes with throws), a good-looking 22-year-old who did his schoolboy pitching right in Brooklyn's backyard at Astoria, L.I.

Loes signed in 1949, spent that year in the minors. He spent most of the 1950 season sitting on the Dodger bench, jeering at rival players and boasting a pitching prowess he seldom got a chance to show. Last year he was in the Army.

What Brooklyn Manager Charley Dressen saw in spring training this year was a lanky (6 ft. 1 in., 165 Ibs.), cocksure youngster with plenty of promise, but little experience. Dressen asked Loes how he held the ball for various pitches. Loes's laconic answer: "I figure it doesn't make any difference how you hold it just as long as you get the batter out." The reply tickled Dressen, who said, "He's got guts." Loes also has gall. Two weeks before the season opened, Loes told Dressen:"You're looking for an opening-day pitcher; you got one right here." As it happened, Loes did pitch in the Ebbets Field opener in relief against the bitter-rival New York Giants. His two-hit, five-inning stint won.

In three more relief appearances, cocksure Billy, without allowing an earned run in 14 innings, notched two more victories. On that record Manager Dressen gave Loes his first starting assignment. Loes shut the Pittsburgh Pirates out, 2-0, with six-hit pitching. Dressen tried him again, this time against the Chicago Cubs. After six innings, with the score tied 1-1, rain washed out the game, but left Loes's performance in the record books.

Last week Loes was given his third start, against Philadelphia. He won again, 5-0, allowing but five hits. It was his fifth straight victory, over five different teams. In 43 1/3 innings, brash Billy Loes has allowed only three earned runs, for a remarkable earned-run average of .063. Admittedly a jittery youngster, Loes thinks singlemindedness is the key to his effectiveness: "The only time I'm not nervous is when I'm pitching. When I'm out there I only think about one thing, the pitch I'm going to throw this guy."

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