Descent from Olympus

Rodin could not have done it better. The bowlegged old man brooded in the grand manner, one foot up on the top step of the dugout, an elbow on a knee, a hand held up to shade the faded blue eyes peering from a wrinkled mask of despair. "Something is wrong with this team." muttered Yankee Manager Casey Stengel, "and I gotta find out what it is.' As last week began, marking the season's halfway point, Casey's noble Yankees, perennial champions, were ignobly mired in fifth place, and baseball legend has it (none too accurately*) that the league leader on the Fourth of July will win the pennant.

What was wrong with Stengel's Yankees was all right with seven other American League managers. For years the National League has had all the excitement--and 1959 is no exception, with a five-team pack nipping regularly at the Milwaukee Braves. But in the American League, a long Yankee lead and a solemn march to the pennant have been the usual condition at half time. Now the Yankees have touched off a scramble: as few as three games have separated the top five teams.

Splinters on the Bench. By most standards, the Yankees should beas far ahead as ever. Their fielding (.981) leads the league; their hitting (.261) is the best of the five top contenders. The one thing they lack is that patented Yankee authority in the clutch. Key balls dribble through the infield; key flies drop untouched. Yankee regulars have played like Little Leaguers before. But always Yankee pitching and that overwhelming Yankee bench made up for it. This year Stengel's pitchers have completed only 22 of 77 games.

And the bench's pinch-hitting is hovering around a woeful .100.

Stengel lays it to negligence. Despite their record, the Yankees are a well-balanced ball club, the same team, in fact, that beat the Braves in three straight games to salvage the 1958 World Series. Nor has the competition improved that impressively. The league-leading Cleveland Indians rely heavily on players who could not stay with the present Yankees. The Chicago White Sox have little power; the Detroit Tigers have erratic pitching. Growls Stengel: "We oughta be goddamned ashamed we ain't trying enough."

Dig That Gate. By week's end the Fourth of July standings left the Yankees teetering in fourth place by virtue of virtuous Bob Turley's one-hitter against Washington. What happens next is anyone's guess. It may not be baseball, but the fans love it. Attendance is up 15% for the league, and a ringing 38% for the Yankees at home. As for the bookmakers, all the yak about the Yankees could not be sillier. They have the Yankees as 8 to 5 favorites to win: Cleveland is 4 to 1, Chicago and Detroit 5 to 1. and the rest of the league does not even count.

* True in only 39 of 45 years.

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