How They Scream

The whole town's batty, about Cincinnati,

What a team, what a team, what a team.

Each man and lady--from one to eighty, How they scream, how they scream, how they scream.

Cincinnati may not be batty yet this season--as Composers Larry Vincent and Moe Jaffe would have it in the song they wrote to celebrate the Reds' surprising climb to first place in the National League. But last week it was getting there fast. Shopkeepers unearthed yellowed 1940 newspapers and put them on display as a reminder of the last time the Reds won a pennant. Music lovers carried transistor radios to the Cincinnati Zoo's summer opera to hear the score between arias of Verdi's Macbeth. Attendance at Crosley Field was up 24% over last year, headed for a million-season mark as 431,683 went to see the Reds' first 38 home games.

Only last spring Cincinnati was scornfully dismissed as a sixth-place club with no more than a 25-1 shot at first place. The oddsmakers ignored the team because of its untested pitching staff and shaky infield. When the Reds stumbled off to a 5-10 start and plummeted into the cellar by the end of April, the oddsmakers seemed to have been right.

Then the team began to click, thanks largely to some astute trades pulled off by moonfaced General Manager Bill DeWitt, a wily merchandiser of men who joined the Reds only last fall. In a complex deal, DeWitt got Milwaukee Pitcher Joey Jay, the first Little Leaguer to make the majors, and Chicago White Sox Third Baseman Gene Freese. Late in April, he got peppery Second Baseman Don Blasingame from San Francisco. That seemed to do the trick. Three days after Blasingame arrived, the Reds took off on a nine-game winning streak, by the end of May were in first.

The Kiddie Corps. Blasingame, who atones for his paltry .240 average with speed and spirit, seemed to congeal the Red infield. Hulking First Baseman Gordon Coleman, playing regularly for the first time, proved a surprise with a .299 average, 18 home runs, 55 runs batted in. Sober, balding Eddie Kasko developed into one of the most reliable shortstops around. At third, Freese. reputed to be a weak glove man, was fielding, as Pittsburgh Manager Danny Murtaugh put it, "like he had a monkey gland."

In the pitching department, Manager Freddie Hutchinson's "Kiddie Corps" performed like veterans. Jay, a second-stringer at Milwaukee, blossomed into a dependable regular with a 12-4 record and a 2.66 earned-run average, second best in the league. Fast-balling Rookie Ken Hunt, tamed of his wildness, posted a 9-4 record. To steady his young pitchers, Hutchinson relied on 31-year-old Bob Purkey, whose assortment of knucklers and sinkers earned him an 11-4 record. In the bullpen, he called on Bill Henry and bespectacled Writer Jim (The Long Season) Brosnan, who also uses brains on the mound, to save a total of 19 games.

The outfield, one of the best in the majors, is an embarrassment of riches. Centerfielder Vada Pinson leads both leagues with 112 hits, sports a .323 average. Burly Rightfielder Frank Robinson, a .336 hitter with 25 home runs and 73 runs batted in, sparked the surge that put Cincinnati five games in front of Los Angeles just before the All-Star game.

Fighting & Scratching. Hutchinson, a sad-miened, hot-tempered ex-Detroit pitcher, is delighted with his team's showing. "When we are not getting the pitching," says he, "we are getting the hitting. It's the best balanced team I've ever handled." Even so, nobody in the power-packed National League is ready to concede. "It's too early to hand 'em the flag," says Pittsburgh's Murtaugh. Predicts Pirate Trainer Danny Whelan: "The Reds will fold next month. Then either the Dodgers or the Pirates will move in for the kill." Maybe. But Cincinnatians reply with a lusty rendition of the closing refrain:

You can tell your old Aunt Hattie,

This year it's Cincinnati.

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