Slugging Shortstop

The Chicago.Cubs had lost five games in a row when the team's rangy Negro shortstop set to work one day last week against the Philadelphia Phillies. The score was 2-2 in the sixth as Ernie Banks. 27. stepped into the batter's box. He stared stoically while the Phillies' Lefthander Curt Simmons wound up. then whipped around his light (31 oz.) bat like a willow switch. Rising steadily, the ball whistled out of Chicago's Wrigley Field to ricochet crazily through the neighborhood beyond. And the cumbersome Cubs were finally on their way to winning a ball game.

To Cub fans, it hardly mattered that the 5-2 victory left their team at the bottom of the National League. Few bothered to grouse that the pitching was still spotty, the fielding fumble-thumbed, the base running lead-footed. In their misery the Cub fans this season have something to cheer about: Ernie Banks, the hardest slugging shortstop in the business, is having his greatest year.

Lean & Powerful. At week's end, with a month left to play, Banks was hitting a lively .313 and leading the majors with 42 home runs and the league with no runs batted in.* Far behind were such famed sluggers as the Giants' Willie Mays (23 homers) and the Yankees' Mickey Mantle (83 runs batted in). Banks seemed a sure bet to become the eighth player--and the first shortstop--ever to hit more than 50 homers in a single season. Moreover, Cub fans with a faith in miracles hopefully noted that Banks was just three games off the 1927 pace of Babe Ruth when he hit his record 60 homers.

What makes Banks's blasts so remarkable is the fact that he is as lean and limber (6 ft. 1 in., 176 Ibs.) as any good-field-no-hit shortstop, a breed that traditionally has had trouble banging the fences. But Banks has powerful wrists and forearms. "You grab hold of him and it's like grabbing steel," says Cub Manager Bob Scheffing.

Banks never learned to use his strength until the end of the 1954 season, his first full year in the majors, when he put aside his 35-oz. bat for one weighing 31 oz. Banks found that he could watch the pitch's path until the last split second, then pick it off with a quick bat stroke.

Baseball Bribe. With his light bat Banks hit 44 homers in 1955 to break the record of 39 set for shortstops in 1949 by husky Vern Stephens of the Boston Red Sox. Banks hit 28 in 1956 and 43 last year, despite a habit of swinging wildly at low outside pitches. "I'm just swinging at strikes now," says Banks. "I just try to meet the ball and get a base hit." Adds Manager Scheffing: "When he's getting his hits, he's getting his homers."

Born in Dallas, Ernie Banks was a star in high school basketball and football, high-jumped 5 ft. 11 in., ran a quarter-mile in 51 sec. and never played baseball. "My dad, he bought me a glove for $2.98, and he used to bribe me with nickels and dimes to play catch," he recalls. In 1950, a Negro league scout spotted him playing softball, and he became a barnstormer with the Kansas City Monarchs. "Ten--fifteen --maybe twenty thousand miles a year, and our biggest night was in Hastings, Neb.." says Banks. "We got $15 apiece."

In 1953 the Cubs bought him for $15,000 and gave him what he lacked. Infielder Eddie Miksis loaned him a glove, and Coach Ray Blades bought him a book called How to Play Baseball. Banks has still never learned how to play shortstop in the manner of Honus Wagner or Marty Marion. Tired by the grind of playing day after day (he has started every game this year), Banks has trouble getting the right jump on the ball, sometimes boots the play that sets up a rally. But, better than any other shortstop in history, Ernie Banks can right the score all by himself With one vicious slash of his lightweight, heavy-hitting bat.

*Playing in the dead-ball era, the National League's late Honus Wagner of Pittsburgh, the greatest all-round shortstop, had a lifetime batting average of .329 (1897-1917), but never hit more than 10 homers in a single season.

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