The Brown Bombers

Since the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Jackie Robinson up from their Montreal farm club in 1947 to break major league baseball's color bar, the National League has had a virtual corner on talented Negro players. Seven of its top ten batters, its top four home-run hitters, its top four in runs-batted-in are colored; the American League has but one Negro among its top ten batters, New York's Elston Howard, none among the leaders in the other two categories. Though Negroes make up roughly 17% of the 200 players on National League rosters, this year's All-Star squad is 36% Negro. Last week, in the 30th All-Star game, their speed and power gave the underdog National League a 5-4 victory over the American League. Negroes rapped out nine of the National League's eleven hits, batted in five runs, scored all five as well.

The first National League run came on a triple by Pittsburgh's Roberto Clemente and a sacrifice fly by Bill White of St. Louis, the second on Clemente's sacrifice fly (scoring San Francisco's Willie Mays), the third on a pinch home run by Chicago's George Altman. The American League tied the game in the ninth when howling winds turned the contest in San Francisco's Candlestick Park into a Little League affair--there were a record seven errors, a passed ball and a balk--and went ahead 4-3 in the tenth on an unearned run. But when Baltimore's Hoyt Wilhelm went to the mound, four Negro batsmen pushed across two runs to win the game before anybody was out. Milwaukee's Hank Aaron lashed a pinch single to center. Mays doubled him home. After Wil helm hit Cincinnati's Frank Robinson with a pitch. Clemente lined a sharp single to right, and Willie Mays jogged across the plate. It was the third straight All-Star victory for the National League --and a good reason for the American League to recruit more Negro talent.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.