Big Leaguers at Last

For Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth.

--Exodus 8:17

All Milwaukee was shouting the same Scripture last week. For Henry Louis Aaron, a lithe young Negro outfielder, stretched out his hand, smote an eleventh-inning pitch into the center-field bleachers, beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2, and cured a civic inferiority complex. After predicting it brashly for five summers, Milwaukee citizens finally saw their boast come true. The Braves had won a National League pennant.

At least 10,000 people swarmed down Wisconsin Avenue. A young girl held up traffic by turning handsprings across the street. A sailor and his girl friend kissed on the sidewalk. A marine private shouldered a no-parking sign like a rifle and marched off. Car horns brayed; a band came out of a restaurant, and somebody organized a snake dance. Before the celebration broke up at 3:45 a.m., the police had arrested seven men--three for drunkenness, four for disorderly conduct. "Any Milwaukeean ought to be forgiven, because last night was a night to remember," said Judge Robert Hansen next day. "Case dismissed."

The Future, Not the Past. While the judge forgave the immediate past, the Braves worried about the immediate future. A World Series against the World Champion Yankees was certain to be an uphill fight for the Braves. There was always a chance that Aaron's bat (TIME, July 29) might fail to work its familiar miracles. Second Baseman Red Schoendienst, the old pro who had carried them through the stretch (TIME, Sept. 2), could be counted on for a steady series, and most of Manager Fred Haney's other regulars were providentially free of injuries. But the bulk of the Braves' pitching staff are fireballers, and the Yankees eat such operators alive. There is one Brave, though, whose talent could make the difference. If the Braves were to upset the Yankees, they would need the best from their scrawny (6 ft., 175 Ibs.) but rugged southpaw, Warren Edward Spahn.

Beating the Yankees would give Spahn, 36, a special pleasure. For beating the New Yorkers would be beating Casey Stengel--the same Casey Stengel who was managing the Boston Braves 15 years ago and was scornfully unimpressed by Spahn's talents. Now the veteran pitcher has a great deal more to show his former manager. He still has his old speedball when he needs it, but he backs it up with a variety of curves and a brand-new screwball that he calls a sinker. More important, he is still improving the impressive control that made him the first of this season's 20-game winners and made him one of the six baseball pitchers to win 20 games eight times or more. The pitches he throws from his high-kicking windup are almost always on target. "My Dad had a theory about pitching," says Spahn. "He used to say that if you learned to throw properly, you could pitch forever without hurting your arm."

For the Yankees, the big man, as usual, was crotchety Manager Casey Stengel. Some of his first stringers were ailing, among them slugging Centerfielder Mickey Mantle, but he had his long benchful of reserve power. Although his pitchers limped through midseason, they were back in top form. They were not the Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig, but they were heavy with power, and 8-to-5 favorites.

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