Unorthodox Manager

Manager Paul Rapier Richards has one hard & fast rule for his Chicago White Sox: "They've got to play hard and want to win. Last week, whippeting around the bases with a headlong dash reminiscent of the famed St. Louis Gas House Gang, the White Sox were both playing hard--and winning. They wound up their first invasion of the East with seven straight victories, the first time in modern American League history that a Chicago team ever made a clean sweep on an Eastern trip.

Taciturn Manager Richards, a throwback to the rough-tough John McGraw school of managing, may have no pennant winner this season, but he has coaxed and goaded a team which finished sixth last year into a first-division frame of mind. By this week the free-wheeling White Sox, leading the league in stolen bases (25 over runner-up New York with 15), had clawed and scrambled their way into second place in the standings (one game behind the world champion Yankees), and had stretched their winning streak to eleven.

Play to Win. The White Sox' surprising spree came as no shock to Detroit pitchers who used to burn them in to Richards when he caught for Detroit's 1945 world champions. Catcher Richards used to blister the ball right back if he thought they were not trying hard enough, and he still growls when he thinks of baseball's casual losers: "They blow a game and they're not even mad about it." When the White Sox lose, Freshman Manager Richards implies, someone had better show some indignation.

The will to win is not enough, and no one knows it better than scrappy Paul Richards. His managerial bag of tricks includes some eye-poppers. Recently, against the Boston Red Sox, Richards relieved Pitcher Harry Dorish, plunked him on third base, and brought in Lefthander Bill Pierce to pitch to lefthanded slugger Ted Williams. Williams popped up, Pierce left the game, Dorish went back in to pitch, and the White Sox finally won in eleven innings. Richards explains the switch, which is no novelty in sandlot ball but a rarity in the big leagues, with a characteristic comment: "I play the percentage if it will win a ball game."

Speed & Power. Another Richards tactic is the revival of the almost lost art of base stealing. Richards uses his team's speed for two purposes: 1) to give rival pitchers the jitters; 2) to win tight games. He relies on a pair of fleet-footed rookies, Outfielder Jim Busby and Third Baseman Orestes Minoso (TIME, May 14). Between them, they have stolen 16 bases in 18 tries. What's more, they are constantly turning up on the base paths. Busby (batting average .340) and Minoso (.356), along with Second Baseman Nelson Fox's (.370), give Chicago three of the top six American League hitters. The player who knocks them home: First Baseman Ed Robinson (.333), the league's No. 2 man in homers (eight) and runs batted in (33).

Though the White Sox have power and speed to spare, Richards has the problem of a shaky pitching staff. His solution: the now-famous switch maneuver against Boston, and a constant juggling, prodding and pushing of his other players. Richards' hustling White Sox, a tooth & nail team, is already surefire at the gate (home attendance is up 29%). For White Sox fans, with only six first-division teams in 30 years, it's high time. Chicago's last American League pennant winner: the infamous Black Sox of 1919.

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