Them Bums

Ethel Barrymore came early, carrying a box lunch. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt flew down from Saratoga. By 10 a.m., three and a half hours before game time, 50,000 fans had been turned away. Extra policemen were called to form a cordon around the park. Mobs, stampeding out of nearby subways, were urged to go back home unless they had reserved seats.

What was going on at Ebbets Field last week was of interest not only to Ethel Barrymore, young Vanderbilt and the 31,000 other Ethels and Als who were lucky enough to get in. Brooklyn's fabulous Dodgers were playing a four-game series with the daredevil young Cardinals of St. Louis--a head-on clash in one of the most exciting pennant races in major-league baseball.

A two-team race from the word Go. Brooklyn's Flock and St. Louis' Redbirds had run bill & bill for the National League lead for four full months. Never were they more than four games apart. Last week, when the Cardinals swooped into Brooklyn, the Dodgers were one and a half games in front, with 34 games to go.

If their beloved "Bums" could take three games, Brooklyn fans figured, they might pull far enough away from those pesky Cards to shake them off in the homestretch, give Brooklyn its first pennant in 21 years. In the first doubleheader, with cagey Cardinal Manager Southworth starting two southpaws (poison to the Dodgers' three left-handed power hitters), "them Bums" were lucky to break even--3-to-7, 3-to-2. In the second doubleheader, it was do or die for Brooklyn. But the best they could do was split it again--8-to-3, 1-to-3.

That should have satisfied Brooklyn fans. The series had been a hair-raising standoff. The Dodgers were still one and a half games in front. For the September homestretch, they have an easier schedule than the Cardinals. They proved that they can match St. Louis slugger for slugger, fielder for fielder. They have the best pair of pitchers in the league in Kirby Higbe and Whit Wyatt, who have already won 36 games.

But last week there was Weltschmerz in Flatbush, Canarsie, Brownsville and Greenpoint. Brooklynites didn't like the looks of Howard Pollet, a 20-year-old southpaw the Cardinals had just brought up from their Houston farm. Dodger fans had seen enough of one left-handed Cardinal rookie, Ernie White, who had moidered their Bums in the first game of last week's series--to chalk up his 16th victory for St. Louis. The Pollet kid looked even better. In his major-league debut fortnight ago, he pitched a four-hit victory over the Boston Braves. Against the Dodgers last week he matched mighty Whit Wyatt pitch for pitch until the very last inning. Three days later, his astounding repertory of curves, fast balls, sinkers and whatnots held the New York Giants to three hits.

Brooklyn fans gloomily remembered a faintly similar situation just eleven years ago. St. Louis and Brooklyn were neck & neck with only ten games to go. The Cards, hoping to strengthen their pitching staff, brought up from their Houston farm a rawboned busher named Dizzy Dean. Though Dean pitched only one game that year (a three-hit victory), Brooklynites can never forget: the Cardinals won the pennant.

Last week, after their crucial series, the Cards won four games in a row (two against the New York Giants, two against the Cincinnati Reds), while the Dodgers won two and lost two against the Giants. By week's end, Brooklyn and St. Louis were once more even Stephen.

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