Three in a Row?

He does everything wrong. He stands so far back in the batter's box that he cannot possibly reach a curve before it breaks. He holds the bat at the very end, actually gripping the knob on the handle with the fingers of his right hand. He hardly ever gets a base on balls because he swings at practically everything; and he does not bother to study opposing pitchers, or even learn their names. "You never hit the pitcher," he shrugs, "just the pitch." Batting is all a matter of luck anyway. "You no lucky, you get no hits," he says. "You gotta be lucky."

All of which makes Minnesota's Tony Oliva, 25, just about the luckiest hitter in baseball--and close to the best. In 1964, as a baby-faced Cuban farm lad who spoke practically no English ("Tony talks so bad," cracked Fellow Cuban Zoilo Versalles, the Twins' shortstop, "that he even says 'ain't' in Spanish"). Outfielder Oliva hit 32 home runs and batted .323--thus becoming the first rookie ever to win the American League's batting championship. Last year, playing with a bad knee and a painfully bruised hand, he drove in 98 runs, led the Twins to the American League pennant and won his second straight batting title with an average of .321. Last week the Twins were going nowhere. Trailing the Baltimore Orioles by 15 games, they were having trouble just staying in the first division. Oliva once again was leading the league. Bouncing out of a brief slump, he banged out two hits in three trips against the Kansas City Athletics, boosted his batting average to .320, and allowed: "I stay lucky, I got a chance to win the title again." If Oliva does, he will be the first American Leaguer to win three straight batting championships since Ty Cobb in 1919.

Even with Boxing Gloves. Oliva's haphazard style would have horrified Perfectionist Cobb. It terrifies opposing pitchers. "Where are you going to pitch the guy?" asks California's Dean Chance. "Earlier this year I jammed him and he hit the ball into the rightfield seats. So the next time I went outside with him and he hit the ball 350 ft. into the leftfield stands." Twins Manager Sam Mele says, "I think the kid could hit wearing boxing gloves," predicts that Oliva may yet become the first big-leaguer to bat .400 since Ted Williams--who hit .406 in 1941. "It is a lot of tough to hit .400," says Tony. "But everything is possible here."

The most relaxed of baseball's superstars, Oliva is also possibly the most retiring. Although he is a bachelor and earns something like $30,000 a year, he lives in a 12-ft.-by-15-ft. hotel room in downtown Minneapolis, does not smoke, drinks only an occasional beer, didn't have a car until the fans gave him one, and his notion of a big night is a steak dinner and an early movie--followed by ten hours of sleep. His only extravagances are relatives and clothes. He sends money to the folks back home, runs up big phone bills calling them. The clothes are only partly for him. "I fill all my closets with suits," he says, "but me give a lot of them away to my friends."

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