Mr. Garner's Average

Zeke ("Bananas") Bonura, first baseman and fruit dealer extraordinary, has been for the last three years a fireball at bat, a fumblebum in the field. Piano-legged Ballplayer Bonura has broken bleacherites' hearts in Chicago (1937), Washington (1938), Manhattan (1939); has left behind him a trail of nearly crazed managers, who got a three-alarm headache every afternoon watching the lighthearted Italian give away as many runs in the field as he pounded home at the plate.

But the New Orleans banana man, who is built like a bank vault, is the favorite baseball player of a tough little Texan who is built like a fire hydrant: John Nance Garner. The Vice President considers Mr. Bonura his own personal first baseman; was overjoyed when he was traded to Washington in 1938. To reciprocate, on opening day that season Mr. Bonura promised to wham a home run for Mr. Garner, went forth and did so, to the delight of one & all.

Although anxious to please non-paying Ball-fan Garner, the Washington Senators' Owner Clark Griffith soon found himself losing sleep and hair through Mr. Bonura's failure to get the lead out of his legs around first base; sold him to the New York Giants for a reported $25,000 and some odds & ends.

The Vice President was cast down; but politics kept him busy, helped him to forget. By last winter he was running for the Presidency, primarily to stop Term III for Franklin Roosevelt. For a few weeks he almost took stock in Texas talk that he was a bona fide candidate. Then returns came in this spring from Wisconsin (3-to-1 Roosevelt), Illinois (6-to-1 Roosevelt). The atmosphere changed; many a Garner crony who had urged him on to "Stop Roosevelt" sheepishly avoided him around the Senate. Mr. Garner had proved his point: Garner votes added to Republican votes made Term III seem a close thing. But to a lifelong, pork-barrel, party-first Democrat it was humiliating to be cast in the role of a Republican stooge.

Last week came the deathblow to his candidacy in any practical form. Third Termites had been gnawing even in Texas, his home plate. Alarmed and embarrassed were House Majority Leader Sam Rayburn, the Garner campaign manager; Federal Lender Jesse H. Jones; Texas Representative Lyndon Johnson, New Dealer. Finally, this trio arranged, with the consent of Franklin Roosevelt, a "compromise" : the New Dealers would not contest a Texas delegation instructed for John Garner if the Garnerites would lay off the "Stop Roosevelt" drive. The compromise made Mr. Garner nothing more than a "favorite son," affirmed once more the apparent fact that Franklin Roosevelt may have the Democratic nomination on the first ballot--if he wants it.

But for Jack Garner there was one cheering gleam: last week Giants Manager Bill Terry, tracing a splitting headache to watching Zeke Bonura play first base, sold the banana man back to Washington for a string of beads, or its equivalent. Mr. Bonura wired Mr. Garner he was coming home; Mr. Garner went back to the ball park, where he watched the first baseman make one error, get four hits out of 21 at-bats for an average of only .190. Mr. Garner, doffing his rubbers, shredding stogies between his teeth, yelled with gusto "Kill the umpire," seemed not to mind that his own political average was .000.

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