Redbirds on the Grapefruit

He stood there in the Florida sunshine, watching his ballplayers work the winter kinks out of their muscles and smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of his pinstriped flannel shirt. "How does it fit, Johnny?" a friend asked. Johnny Keane grinned and pointed to the letters that spelled NEW YORK across his chest. "I hardly ever glance down any more," he said.

Not that he was awed. After 35 years in baseball, nothing awes Johnny Keane, 53. "My red cap with a cardinal on it was size 7 1/8," he says, "and my blue cap with NY on it is still 7 1/8." But there was a little something extra special about this uniform. Last year, with his job hanging in the balance, Keane led the St. Louis Cardinals to the National League pennant and a thrilling World Series victory over the New York Yankees. Then he marched into Owner Gussie Busch's office when it was all over and told him where to put the $35,000 contract Gussie belatedly offered to renew. Now Johnny is getting $45,000 to boss the Yanks, and he stands a good chance of becoming the first manager in baseball history to win successive pennants in two different leagues.

Moon Over Miami. The Yankees used to spend spring training chasing the moon over Miami. No more. Warned Keane: "A cocktail before dinner is all right. Getting plastered, no." He hired former New York Giants End Andy Robustelli to run the Yanks' calisthenics. "Now I know how the Cardinals won," wheezed Mickey Mantle. "They outconditioned everybody else."

What's more, Keane was determined to win his share of ball games in the Grapefruit League, something the lordly Yanks have often considered beneath their dignity. "I don't want the people in New York reading about losses," he said. He ordered extra bunting practice for Yankee pitchers, extra running for the hitters, even took a turn in the sliding pit himself. After the Yanks barely edged Washington 4-3 last week on homers by Mantle and Catcher Elston Howard, Keane sounded mad enough to quit again. "We made at least four mistakes," he complained. The Yanks promptly blasted the Baltimore Orioles 10-2, and bookmakers made them 2-1 favorites to win their sixth straight American League pennant. Grinned Keane: "This is one job I'm not gonna quit. They're gonna have to fire me."

Running the Roost. And what was happening to the Cards without Keane? Nothing so terrible. Another old Redbird was running the roost: Red Schoendienst, 42, the second most popular man in St. Louis--next to Stan Musial, of course. Stricken with tuberculosis in 1958, Schoendienst had part of a lung removed, came back to bat .300 in both 1961 and 1962. Red worked as a coach for Keane last year, and he obviously picked up a few pointers. He announced a midnight curfew, took to the field himself to demonstrate how to elude a rundown.

Then the World Champion Cards showed what they could do, choking off a bases-loaded, nobody-out rally in the ninth inning to beat the New York Mets 2-1. "We ought to be stronger than last year," said Schoendienst. Oddsmakers picked the Cardinals as no better than third choice (behind the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies) to win their way into another World Series. But who cares about odds anyway? Last year on August 1 the Cards were still in sixth place.

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