Altitude, Attitude

The Mexican gold rush was no El Dorado. U.S. ball players, who started the season playing the fancy kind of ball Boss Jorge Pasquel paid them for, by last week were looking pretty sad. The league's leading batter (.383) was Cuba's Claro Duany; and the only high-priced U.S. batsman who was close was ex-Giant Nap Reyes (.375). Onetime major leaguers Luis Olmo, Danny Gardella and George Hausmann had sagged fought, out of the .300 class. The Card's fugitive Max Lanier had won six and lost one, but some of the home-grown pitchers were doing better. Pasquel's favorite club, Vera Cruz, well stocked with U.S. talent, was in last place; Mickey Owen, batting only .243, had been fired as manager.

Worse than that, the relations between the U.S. players and Mexico's collection of Latins and Negroes were sour, although Boss Pasquel had carefully distributed his free apartments, extra expense accounts and Pullman reservations without regard to color or previous condition of servitude.

Latin and Negro veterans of Mexican beisbol, who are paid about half as much as U.S. imports, were loudly and rightly proclaiming their superiority on the field.

In return, U.S. players seemed to be playing a little rough. In Mexico City last week, leading hitter Duany thought Catcher Owen's tag-out at the plate was more of a punch than a tag. He knocked Owen down. Soon everybody got in the act.

The U.S. stars blamed their indifferent play on rarefied air (altitude at Mexico City: 7,325 ft.). But part of their trouble was not altitude, but attitude. Recently Monterrey, tied with Vera Cruz in the 14th inning, had a man on second. On a safe hit to left, the base-runner held up at third. Ex-Dodger Olmo, dozing in the field, thought the winning run had already crossed the plate. To show his disgust he fielded the ball, then turned and threw it--and the ball game--out of the park.

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