Batting Backstop

Roy Campanella, 31, remembers "the old days in the Negro leagues when I once caught four games in one day, then rode a bus all night." His pay for that kind of work used to be $65 a month.

Nowadays, Catcher Campanella, a Cadillac owner, draws more than $30,000 a year in salary from the Brooklyn Dodgers --and is worth every penny of it. A canny handler of pitchers. Campanella this week was also leading the National League in hitting (.370), and he had driven in almost twice as many runs (43) as anybody else, and was leading both leagues in homers (12 in 26 games).

"It's just luck," says Campy. "When you're hitting, you hit." Sturdy Catcher Campanella (5 ft. 8 in., 195 Ibs.) should know: he has had other dazzling early-season hitting streaks which faded into just plain competence by midseason. But he acknowledges that he is standing "a little closer to the plate" than he did last year, when his season's batting average was only .269. "That gives me a little more wood on the ball." Whatever the explanation, Campanella's hitting is a profound source of pleasure to Brooklyn Manager Charley Dressen. who has been shuffling his players frantically to get more power into his lineup. But Dressen is even more pleased, if possible, with Campanella the backstop than with Campanella the batter. "He's really a great catcher," says Dressen. happily ticking off Campy's virtues. "The pitchers like to pitch to him. Not many balls get by him. He picks men off bases, and that builds up the pitcher's confidence." Not one of the game's "holler guys,"Campanella chats less with his pitchers during a game than most catchers. Most of the pitching strategy is worked out before the game begins. "When the pitchers get in trouble." says Campanella, "that's when I start kicking the dirt around the plate to slow things down." Campy was slowed down himself by injuries last season, after winning the league's Most Valuable Player award in 1951. This year, off to a flying start, Workhorse Campanella, who has caught every Brooklyn game so far, says he'll catch them all if Manager Dressen will let him. "Dressen talks about giving me a rest once in a while. What do I want with a rest? This is a breeze compared to the old days."

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