Indian Sign

For a year, "Break Up the Yankees" has been baseball's war cry. Too smart, too smooth, too powerful, the "greatest machine in the history of baseball" made other clubs in the American League look like Model Ts racing a Miller Special. Last week the question might have been raised: Is New York still in the league?*The mighty Yankees, odds-on favorites to win their league pennant for the fifth year in a row, chugged along in last place--with only seven victories in 21 games. They had not broken up, but they had, at least temporarily, broken down.

Their batteries were weak, their batters hit on only half their cylinders (team average: around .200). It was the balkiest Yankee machine since Manager Joe McCarthy got behind the steering wheel nine years ago.

Some fans attributed the Yankee breakdown to Sparkplug Joe Di Maggio's absence from the lineup for three weeks because of an injured knee. Others said rival managers, discovering that the Yankees were allergic to left-handed pitchers, fed them nothing but southpaws (lefties were responsible for nine of their 14 defeats). Still others suggested ennui, overconfidence, the law of averages, and a recent American League ruling that forbids a World Champion club to trade or buy players from rival clubs. But Manager Oscar Vitt of the Cleveland Indians, chuckling over his team's position just behind the league-leading Boston Red Sox, was not entirely surprised by the Yankee collapse. A soothsayer named Tony Characky had predicted to him that Cleveland would put the Indian sign on the Yankees this year.

When Manager Vitt received this augury three weeks ago, he paid it little heed.

Soothsayer Characky, a Monessen (Pa.) moving picture operator and a baseball manager's perennial pest, had made too many false forecasts in years gone by.

Last week, however, Manager Vitt had more respect for the Merlin of Monessen.

Characky had also predicted that an Eastern team would win nine games in a row at the beginning of the season. The Dodgers did.

* In 1934 Manager Bill Terry of the New York Giants historically asked this question about Brooklyn, in first place in the National League last week.

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