Another Subway Series

For the second year in a row, New York City teams won both major-league pennants.

The Yankees took their fourth straight, their19th since 1921. Weakened by Joe DiMaggio's retirement, the loss of Second Baseman Jerry Coleman to the U.S. Marine Corps and the aging of an already elderly pitching staff, the 1952 Yankees seemed at times only a shadow of prewar Yankee teams. They did lead the league in batting; but second-place Cleveland had a decided edge in power hitting, even more of an edge in pitching.

American League fans who used to ask "What's wrong with the Red Sox?" now ask "What's wrong with the Indians?" Chosen by springtime experts as most likely to succeed, the Indians succeeded only in taking a batch of batting and pitching honors. Of the five American League pitchers to win 20 or more games this year, three were Indians: Bob Lemon (22-11), Early Wynn (23-12), Mike Garcia (22-11). Cleveland led the league in runs and in home runs, owned the three top run scorers (Roberto Avila, Al Rosen, Larry Doby), the two top home-run hitters (Doby, 32, Luke Easter, 31) and the league leader in runs-batted-in (Rosen, 105). But the porous Cleveland infield (Easter, Avila, Rosen, Boone) let the pennant slip through buttery fielding fingers, while the Yankees kept on winning the big games.

Victory was especially sweet to the Dodgers this year because they had lost by one-game margins in 1950 and 1951. Last year they saw a 13 1/2-game lead fizzle away, wound up in a tie and lost the playoff when the Giants' Bobby Thomson clouted an unforgettable ninth-inning home run. This year Brooklyn was often wobbly, but always recovered in time.

Statistically, the Dodgers looked less formidable this year than last. Campanella, Hodges, Furillo, Reese and Cox all finished with lower batting averages than in 1951. Home-run production dropped from 184 to 153, and ace Pitcher Don Newcombe was drafted. But the Dodgers had an exceedingly valuable newcomer: Relief Pitcher Joe Black (15-4), Negro recruit to organized baseball who propped up a shaky pitching staff, was voted "National League Rookie of the Year" (TIME, Sept. 29).

On the eve of this week's World Series opener, gamblers and sportwriters weighed the Dodgers' edge in power against the Yankees' edge in pitching, decided that it was the Yankees, about 8-5.

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