World Series

The suspicion of practical persons that it would be to the interest of the teams to lengthen baseball's World Series so as to increase the gate receipts, is unfounded. Players and managers receive their percentage of the receipts only from the first four contests. Twice in the last five years the series has been decided in four games; since 1926 American League teams (New York Yankees, Philadelphia Athletics) have won 16 out of 19 World Series games. Partly on the strength of these statistics, partly because the Athletics had a supposedly superior pitching staff, partly because the strategies conceived by Philadelphia's 68-year-old manager Cornelius ("Connie Mack") McGillicuddy were expected to prove superior to those of St. Louis' Manager Charles ("Gabby") Street, who celebrated his 49th birthday the day before the first game, bookmakers made the Philadelphia Athletics 2-to-1 favorites to beat the St. Louis Cardinals in the 28th World Series which started in St. Louis last week.

First Game. Connie Mack chose his ablest pitcher, Robert Moses ("Lefty") Grove. Gabby Street started Paul Derringer, the youngest pitcher on the St. Louis team. No pitcher in his first major league season had ever started in a World Series game before. It was a daring move that might have disconcerting effect and, as Grove was likely to win anyway, there was little to be lost in trying it. For two innings, it appeared that the strategy had been brilliant. In the warm, bright afternoon, the crowd that filled Sportsman's Park chortled and cheered; a hog-caller who had begged his way to St. Louis from Arkansas appalled his section of the grandstand by making curious noises. Derringer, whose brother owns a drugstore in West Frankfort, Ill., and who pitched his first professional game at Gary, W. Va. with famed Sheriff William Hatfield for an umpire, struck out four batters in the first two innings. Between times, St. Louis made two runs against Grove.

In the third inning, the Athletics got their first hit, a single by Jimmy Dykes which bounced off the glove of low Third Baseman High. Then Dibrell Williams, new Philadelphia shortstop, made a single that sent Dykes to third. Grove struck out and Dykes was thrown out when Bishop hit a weak grounder. The next man up, George ("Mule") Haas, knocked a double into left field that scored one run and left two on base. Young Paul Derringer mopped his face with a handkerchief. The stands were so quiet that when a man in the grandstand coughed, the Philadelphia coach at first base looked up at the sound. Pitcher Derringer walked the next two batters, forcing in another run. The batter who followed them, Jimmy Foxx, sent a single into dead center field that scored two runs. It was the hit that won the game, making Simmons' home-run, with a man on base in the seventh inning, superfluous. For the next six innings, Grove let St. Louis hit, but not in the pinches; the score at the end was Philadelphia 6, St. Louis 2.

Said Derringer: ''Why, I can't see how they won. . . . You can't tell me that a guy who looks bad on four or five pitched balls of the same type, pitched to the same spot, isn't lucky when he socks the same kind of ball into the bleachers. ... If Gabby starts me again, I'll lick 'em."

Said Gabby Street: "We lost because we couldn't get that third hit. . . . We had that game in the old bag three times. . . . That kid Derringer pitched great ball." Said Connie Mack: "You know. Grove is a much smarter pitcher than he was two years ago." Second Game. In order to be in full view of his players, whose moves he directs by waving at them with a scorecard, Connie Mack was last week compelled to sit on a bench placed at the edge of the field behind first base, where he was also in full view of the crowd. The crowd at St. Louis chuckled when they saw him making motions at Philadelphia's Rightfielder Miller who, apparently preoccupied, paid no attention and had to be shouted at by coaches. They chuckled louder when, after Manager Mack had motioned Leftfielder Simmons to play in close, St. Louis' second baseman and captain Frankie Frisch ("the Fordham Flash") made a two-base hit over his head. The game then resolved itself into a pitcher's duel between Philadelphia's right-handed George Earnshaw and St. Louis' left-handed William ("Wild Bill") Hallahan. Hallahan was wild only when expedient -- as in the case of Williams whom he walked in the fifth inning for the purpose of making Earnshaw, a weaker batsman, hit into a double play. Earnshaw pitched well but he was harassed by the efforts of John Leonard ("Pepper") Martin, 26-year-old St. Louis centerfielder, who made two hits, stole two bases, scored two runs. They were the only runs that had been scored when, in the ninth inning, there occurred an extraordinary, an historic play which puzzled spectators, irritated the official scorer. It confused even Umpire William ("Bill") Klem who, officiating in his 15th World Series, had given a "perfect" performance in the first game.

Philadelphia was at bat. There were two out, two on base (Foxx & Dykes) and two strikes on the batter, Jim Moore, pinch-hitting for Earnshaw. Hallahan's next pitch was low. Nonetheless, Pinch-hitter Moore swung at the ball and missed it. The ball bounced behind the plate but catcher Wilson caught it. He could and should have ended the game either (since the third strike had been grounded before being caught) by tagging Moore or by throwing to first base. Instead, he threw to third base.

After the game, he explained his action by saying: "As Hallahan pitched, the base-runners took a flying start. I saw that Hallahan's pitch was very low, that it was going to hit the ground before it reached me. I set myself to make a pick-up of the ball and a fast throw to third. It didn't enter my head that Moore would swing at so bad a pitch. I guess I didn't realize that he had actually swung until after the ball left my hand on its way to third."

Foxx was declared safe at third but the crowd, thinking like most of the players that Moore's strike-out had ended the game, swarmed down on the field. Meanwhile, Eddie Collins, oldtime Athletics second baseman and now able assistant to Connie Mack, ran in from the coaching box and shouted to Moore to run to first. Moore ran to first and was declared safe. After a prolonged protest, which gave the official scorers time to decide that Wilson should be credited with an error for throwing to third base, the game was resumed with the bases full.

The next batter, Bishop, lifted a foul fly behind first base. First Baseman Jim Bottomley of St. Louis who played so badly in last year's World Series that he was nearly traded last spring, caught it by diving head first into a front-row box.

Manager Gabby Street was incoherent with excitement. Shouting to make himself heard in the St. Louis dressing-room where a radio was screeching loudly and other players were thumping the back of Pepper Martin, he cried: "Whew, boy, and how! That was the finest pitched ball game that I have ever seen. . . . But I won't say we will beat them. . . . There are a lot of hitches between here and the old back door."

Said Manager Mack: "As the Cardinals played the best ball, they deserved to win. Outside of a mental mistake by Catcher Wilson in the ninth inning, they played very smart ball. . . . The decision to throw bad balls to Williams in the fifth inning was excellent judgment. . . . I presume I may be censured for not putting in a pinch-hitter for Earnshaw. It so happens that Earnshaw is one of our best hitters, particularly good against lefthanders. . . ."

Third Game, For a pitcher to expectorate on a baseball to give it an eccentric curve, became illegal in 1920. But to the major league pitchers who had used "spitballs" extensively before they became il- legal, permission was given to continue using them. Most spitball pitchers have since retired. This gives the few remaining ones an additional advantage. Their favorite delivery is unfamiliar to opposing batters. One spitball pitcher still practicing is St. Louis' large, 38-year-old Burleigh Grimes, who prefers to grow a beard on days when he expects to "work." When the first ball had been thrown in by President Hoover (and given back to him for a souvenir), bearded Burleigh Grimes began spitting on other balls, curving them so eccentrically that no Philadelphia batter got a hit for the first seven innings.

Meanwhile, St. Louis' spry, impudent Centrefielder Martin, who was bought by St. Louis from a Texas team for $2,500 in 1928, continued to make himself conspicuous. He had made three hits against Pitcher Grove in the first game. In the second he had stolen two bases, scored the day's only two runs. In the third. Pitcher Grove, with a blistered finger, was wilder than usual and Pepper Martin got two hits more--a single in the second inning, when the Cardinals got two runs; a two-bagger in the fourth, when they got two more. This made him easily the series hero. Astrologers might say I-told-you-so. He was born on a 29th of February.

In the eighth inning, Rightfielder Bing Miller got Philadelphia's first hit and in the ninth, after St. Louis had made still another run, Leftfielder Al Simmons got Philadelphia's second, a homerun with a man on base, which came too late to make much difference in the result--St. Louis 5. Philadelphia 2.

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