Brooklyn's Pennant Prayer

All summer long National League ball fans were popping with pride and suspense. The race for the pennant was wide open. Cincinnati had the power to prop up its weak pitching; Milwaukee had just enough of everything to stay in front; the tired old champs from Brooklyn were still hanging on. Almost any game was worth watching; all was well with the world. New York was walking off with the American League pennant, and the man in the stands shouted his raucous, stylized defiance: "There are only two major leagues, the Yankees and us. And the Yanks ain't in our class."

Last week, when the chips were down, National Leaguers began to wonder just what class they were really in. Out on the field the front-running Milwaukee Braves and the World Champion Dodgers came all unstrung in their late-season fight for the flag. September was suddenly chill in the stands, and the voice of fair-weather fans cracked into silence. Their best teams had gone back to the bushes.

Reluctant Braves. The embarrassing nonsense began in Brooklyn. Having just lost their one-game lead to Dodger Sal Maglie, a rejuvenated renegade from the Polo Grounds, the Braves seemed determined to repeat the performance. But the Dodgers would have none of it; as soon as the Braves gave them some runs, they gave them right back. Pitchers came and went. Even Brooklyn's big Don Newcombe beat a disorderly retreat. Almost reluctantly, the Braves went out in front in the eighth inning. Leftfielder Bobby Thomson promptly put an end to that rally by thoughtlessly trying to steal home. Apoplectic over this final foolishness, Manager Fred Haney fined Bobby $100. Apparently he did not think it worth while to beef that Bobby was probably safe in spite of himself. Dodger Catcher Campanella had jumped a good yard out of the catcher's box before Pitcher Roger Craig got rid of the ball. When they bothered to look, the Braves discovered that they had won 8-7, had taken back their one-game lead.

It was that way all week. In Philadelphia the Braves woke up for a long evening, took both overtime halves of a doubleheader. The effort exhausted them. They blew the next two to the feeble Phillies 13-1, 6-5.

Anything Goes. Cincinnati, meanwhile, recovered from an almost fatal 8-0 whipping by the Giants, scuttled the Pirates 6-4 and stayed within a long reach of the pennant. The Dodgers finished the week with two squeakers against the cellardwelling Chicago Cubs. But they managed to win both, despite umpires dedicated to the proposition that in a stretch drive anything goes. In the first inning of the second game, Chicago's Don Hoak broke up a double play with a spikes-first slide at Junior Gilliam, standing a "safe" two yards off the bag. Manager Alston was too preoccupied to protest.

Thin percentage points in front for the first time since April, the Dodgers were up there on pitching alone. At the plate they were practically powerless. They could only hope that Maglie and Newcombe together could throw them under the wire. After all, they told themselves, it had happened before. For Manager Billy Southworth's surprising 1948 Boston Braves it had been "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain." Now, for the Dodgers, it is "Newk and the Barber and pray for a breather." On Sunday the Dodgers moved half a game in front by beating Cincinnati, 3-2. For a change, they roughed up opposing pitchers, but it was no breather. And it left a big question: How soon can the Barber give the opposition another close shave?

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