Pitcher's Heyday

Since Babe Ruth's time, the American League has been measuring its muscle in terms of home runs and base hits. But by last week, with the season a third gone, it was plain that pitchers were replacing hitters as the strong men. With nothing much to brag about except their twirlers, the Tigers and Yankees were several lengths in front of the field. With every club congratulating itself on at least one star pitcher, 43 of 191 games were shutouts. The big names: Newhouser, Borowy, Leonard, Christopher--and an easygoing, hearty-eating rookie from Mississippi named Dave ("Boo") Ferriss.

On razzle-dazzle performance, the Mississippi rookie outshone all the rest. He had started ten games, finished ten, won nine (four of them by shutouts), pitched 85 scoreless innings out of 95, inciting breast-beating Bostonians to claim that they had the greatest heaver since Bob Feller.

What he lacks in experience (one season in the Piedmont League, two Army years with the Randolph Field team) is heavily outweighed by 23-year-old Dave Ferriss' superabundant self-confidence. The batters say he has a deceptive motion, almost uncanny control, a natural sinker, a sidearmed curve that is murder for right-handed batsmen. Almost alone, ambidextrous Ferriss boosted the slow-starting Red Sox from last to third place.

The big reason why the Yankees stayed in the pennant race was apple-cheeked Hank Borowy (won 8, lost 2), with help from Swampy Donald and Floyd Bevens (they had nine wins between them, four defeats). Detroit had the best southpaw in the business, Lefty Hal Newhouser (9-4), with three stalwarts to lick him up. Also comfortably ahead of their bat ting competition: the Athletics' tall, thin submariner, Russ Christopher (10-2); Washington's knuckleballer Dutch Leon ard (6-2).

No one doubted that pitching would cinch the league championship. How it stacked up in quality against prewar slug ging would get a test in the last two-thirds of the season. The tester: big Hank Greenberg, who led the 1940 hitting pa rade with 41 homers, pocketed his Army discharge last week and planned to give Detroit a hitting as well as a pitching punch.

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