Fastest & Finest

The count was two and two. Spraddle-legged in the batter's box, Yankee Shortstop Gil McDougald figured he was going to have to swing on the next one. In the split second that it takes a ball to travel 60 ft. 6 in. from the pitcher's mound to the plate, Gil noted with surprise that Cleveland Southpaw Herb Score had failed to lean into his usual fluid follow-through. A fat pitch floated up, just knee-high. McDougald lashed it back, a string-straight drive that ended in the sickening sound of a baseball meeting human bone. Pitcher Score crumpled. Blood burst from his nose and mouth.

Batter McDougald, thrown out at first by the Cleveland third baseman who retrieved the ball, raced back to help. Score's face was already blackening, his nose was broken, a dangerous hemorrhage was clouding his eyeball. Even before they examined him in a hospital, specialists were wondering whether they could save his sight. At 23, already one of the fastest and potentially one of the finest pitchers in the history of the game, Herb Score seemed finished with baseball.

Pitchers have always been targets for trouble. But even for Herbert Jude Score, a young man whose luck has always been bad, this looked like the worst break yet. At three, a bakery truck crushed both legs; later he got pneumonia, then went to bed for eight months with rheumatic fever. In his early teens it was a broken ankle and acute appendicitis. A $60,000 Indian bonus baby at 19, he has not had a healthy summer since. But a dislocated collarbone, pneumonia again, a severe virus attack and a spastic colon could not keep him from running up a 38-20 won-lost record and a total of 547 strike-outs in 512 innings in the big leagues.

After that awful inning last week, few cared that Bob Lemon came on to win for Cleveland, 2-1. It was more important that reports from the hospital grew steadily brighter. At week's end, doctors were hopeful that Fast Baller Score would be back in uniform before the 1957 season ends.

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