The Old Master Painter

An aide slipped quietly into a hotel room where leaders of the steel industry and the United Steelworkers were locked in contract negotiations one afternoon last week. Heads on both sides of the table turned expectantly. "The Pirates are leading, 8-2, last of the fifth," reported the aide. Management and labor grinned and went back to work.

Pittsburgh fans these days have plenty to grin about. For longer than many care to remember, the Pirates have occupied the National League's second division, and since 1952 they have lain fecklessly in the cellar. At last they are hot. For one giddy moment last week, playing like champions, they even swashbuckled themselves to the top of the league. It was a sight to move any man to comment. "Judas priest" murmured Branch Rickey, the 75-year-old baseball seer who more than any had shaped the miracle of Pittsburgh. "We are no longer a convenience."

Shucking off Stars. For the elder states man of baseball, the fact that the Pirates had become inconvenient to the rest of the league was pleasant news indeed. When Rickey came to town in 1950 --after building championship teams in St. Louis and Brooklyn -- the Pirates were a lackluster crew bound for nowhere. As general manager, Rickey ruthlessly started to rebuild, and, according to many fans, generally managed to ruin the franchise as he poured everything into a hunt for new, young talent. Explains Rickey augustly: "I decide I'm going to paint a picture. I have the brushes and the colors, and I paint it. People can't change it. You can do that kind of painting if you have courage." For four years Rickey managed only to smudge the canvas. As quick as his new, young players signed up, they were whisked away by the draft. While Rickey pondered over his paints, Pirate fans took up chess and bird watching. Last year the team showed some improvement, but the old man had had enough. He resigned, became an offstage adviser, and new men came in to finish the job. Joe L. Brown, 37, son of Comedian Joe E. Brown, became general manager, and brash Bobby Bragan, 37, came from Hollywood to manage the team on the field. Both were Rickey's selections.

Bushes to Bigger. By this spring, after a couple of smart trades, the Pirates were no longer a band of courteous sea scouts. Bobby Bragan had been a flamboyant manager-clown back in the Pacific Coast League, once sent out a bat boy to coach third base. But up with the Pirates, Busher Bragan went big league, soon had his kids scrapping like old pros. When Slugger Dale Long hurt his leg trying to take an extra base, Bragan was delighted. "You know how he pulled that muscle?" he demanded happily. "He got it sliding hard into third, that's how."

Long's big bat is the power behind the Pirates. The tall, rugged first baseman leads the league in home runs (17) and is second in hitting (.377). A fortnight ago he set a major-league record by hitting the ball into the stands in eight consecutive games, had to come out of the dugout for a curtain call after the last homer when delighted Pittsburgh fans raised a fuss that stopped the game cold. At 30 Long is one of the oldest Pirate regulars (average age of the regular lineup: 25). For a while it looked as if he would never make the majors. He bounced around eleven minor leagues, came up to the Pirates three times--once as a left-handed catcher--and finally caught on last year. Not all fans and sportswriters give Rickey credit for building this year's team, and they cite his rubber-ball bouncing of Long's career as evidence. Late-Bloomer Long gives Manager Bragan a big share of the credit for his sudden development: "I play good for this guy because I like to play for him."

While batters have been getting on base and Long has been driving them home (45 R.B.I.s at week's end), the Pirates' pitching staff has been surprisingly strong. With a record of 10-3, burr-headed Bob Friend, 25, is currently the best pitcher in the league, has won games with only two days of rest.

At week's end the Pirates were still handsomely in the first division, only one game back of the leading Cincinnati Redlegs. Hesitantly, softly, some fans in Pittsburgh were beginning to talk about the pennant (the last was in 1927, in the great days of Pie Traynor and the Waner brothers). But knowing what the pressure of July and August can do to a young ball club, many would gladly settle for any place in the first division. For the moment, they felt like the man who painted the Pirates' rosy picture. "I'm so happy about this ball club I don't know what to do," said Branch Rickey.

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