Red-Hot Indians

When Lou Boudreau was a baseball and basketball star at Illinois, he decided to try for the big leagues, and set himself a time limit. If, by four years after leaving college, he hadn't made it, he would go into business. He made it in less than two. At 24, Boudreau became the youngest big-league manager in history.* Last week, after six seasons as playing boss of the Cleveland Indians, Shortstop Boudreau was still the youngest manager in the business. He was also managing the hottest team in both leagues.

On Opening Day, the odds against the Indians, who haven't won an American League pennant since 1920, were 20-1. But in sport-crazy Cleveland, a record 73,163 fans crowded Municipal Stadium to watch Rapid Robert Feller, the highest-paid player in baseball ($87,000), pitch the Indians to a two-hit, 4-0 victory over the Browns. The Indians went on to win six straight.

Bad Ankles. Lou Boudreau (rhymes with mud row) himself was the red-hottest Indian of them all. Despite a slight banquet-season paunch, Lou was batting a phenomenal .519 from his unorthodox crouch and was leading the league in runs batted in. Afield he looked a little slow (his brittle ankles were troubling him again), but he still had the uncanny knack of outguessing the ball that made him the league's top shortstop last year. As a manager, Boudreau has been somewhat less phenomenal. Yet when President Bill Veeck tried to trade Boudreau off last season (the club finished fourth), Cleveland fans flooded Veeck with 10,000 letters demanding that Boudreau be kept. He was on a $50,000-a-year contract.

Good Omen. The whole team had caught fire from Boudreau. First-Baseman Eddie Robinson was batting .462, Third-Baseman Ken Keltner was leading the league with five homeruns, and Outfielder Larry Doby--the American League's first & only Negro--had slammed two more. Bob Feller had won his first two starts, saved a third game by quenching a 14th-inning fire with two strike-outs (after Boudreau had tried six other pitchers).

Said Feller last week: "I won the first two games without having my best stuff. That may be a good omen." But the Indians have only one other first-rate pitcher, eager Bob ("Squeeze") Lemon. Boudreau's pitching prescription for the season: "Feller and Lemon, two days of rain, and then Feller and Lemon again."

The weather cooperated, but the Detroit Tigers, after docilely dropping three straight to the Indians, didn't. At week's end, Pitcher Feller was knocked out of the box and Cleveland lost its first game of the season, 10-3.

* Except for Roger Peckinpaugh, who managed the Yankees for two weeks when he was 23.

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