"They'll All Be Doing This"

"A circus, ain't it?" grinned Umpire Jocko Conlan as he looked over the Brooklyn Dodgers' training camp at Vero Beach, Fla. Some observers disagreed: it reminded them more of Willow Run or an Army basic training center. Whatever the word for Vero Beach, Dodger Boss Branch Rickey, the foxy grandpa of baseball, had brought mass production to spring baseball training.

Where the average big league club had taken a few score ballplayers to camp this month, Rickey had assembled more than 200--from Dodger Captain Pee Wee Reese down to raw bushers* trying to make the grade in the Dodger farm system at such places as Mobile, Ala., Ponca City, Okla. and Cairo, Ill. It took organization to keep that many players throwing, batting and listening to the oldtimers. Rickey had it all worked out.

"Orders of the Day." On arrival, each player filled out a detailed personal-history form and got a serial number. ("Pennsylvania," wrote one man in answer to the question "State of Health?") Each morning, after 7:30 a.m. reveille, there were fresh, mimeographed "orders of the day." Sample: 9:30--Unit A to batting cages 1 & 2; Unit B to pitcher's balk practice; Unit C to sliding pit practice. At the blast of a whistle, students shifted to the next class.

Rickey's idea was to measure, chart and then analyze every possible detail of the way his men performed. Checking the length of a player's stride, how fast he could run 60 yards, and how far he kept his toes from the plate were just preliminaries. One Rickey innovation this year was the batting tee (see cut)--designed not so much to teach hitters how to hit as to supply figures for Rickey's brain-trusters. By adjusting the tee to every position in the strike zone, they thought they could tell who was standing and swinging properly and who needed special tutoring.

Why Bring Players? For more advanced batting practice, Dodgertown had three mechanical pitching machines, supposed to throw the ball at just the desired speed and--over & over again--at just the right spot. The Dodgers called one "The Bazooka," another "Iron Mike," the third "Overhand Joe." Last week Rickey introduced still another gadget--"Big Inch," a gravity-feed pipeline into which outfielders tossed the ball after shagging long flies. "Big Inch" conducted the balls to a box near the batting cage, prevented a hail of return throws and saved the outfielder's arm for the throwing practice that would come later.

Over the whole regiment scene last week sat Branch Rickey himself. He and his coaches were prepared to hear some scoffing. In fact, Rickeyman Fresco Thompson, onetime Dodger infielder and now assistant director of the Dodgers minor league operations, himself made the crack that traditionalists had been groping for. "Next year," said Thompson, "we're putting in three mechanical batters. Then we'll be able to leave the players at home."

Rickey, who can grin bleakly at this kind of humor, doesn't indulge in it himself. Said he: "They'll all be doing this in a year or two." Since Branch Rickey had been right before (notably when he pioneered the baseball farm system for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1921, and when he opened the door for Negroes in big league baseball by signing Jackie Robinson), nobody was sure he wasn't right again.

At week's end, Rickey took his Dodgers to Miami for an exhibition game with the National League Champion Boston Braves, and broke another tradition. With Infielder Jackie Robinson and Catcher Roy Campanella in the Dodger lineup, Miami saw its first game with Negroes and whites on the same playing field. The Rickeys won, 5-2.

* Outfielder Duke Snider.

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