Getting Serious

For all but a few, September is baseball's crudest month. Batting averages will go little higher, earned-run averages scarcely lower; the season's dashed hopes are about to be engraved forever in the record books. The failures of this year have yet to be transmuted into "Wait 'til next year." But in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York and, after a sinking spell, Kansas City, September had its joys. Division flags were flying. The Big Red Machine still hummed, the Phillies survived themselves, the Yankees were back on top with Billy Martin, the Royals edged into their kingdom. October was at hand, and baseball gets serious with the league play-offs and the World Series.

With the memory of last year's classic between the Reds and the Red Sox still fresh, baseball had its strangest and most successful season ever. The sport's legal underpinnings were cut away in the courts before spring training began. Opening day was in doubt for a while as owners--fearful at the prospect of free agents--locked the players out of training camps. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn finally ordered the camps opened while the players' union and management struggled toward a compromise. Oakland A's Owner Fearsome Charlie Finley decided the price of peace was too high and peddled five of his biggest stars, including Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers. Kuhn killed the deal and set off still another court fight.

Yankee Year. Meanwhile, back in the stands, where score cards, not legal briefs, are what matter, baseball was bigger than ever. Attendance was up 5% despite the absence of rousing pennant races. Happiness, as usual, was a warm winner. The World Champion Reds rolled methodically through their season, clinching their fifth division title in seven years. For the Reds, titles are so routine, and the dressing room after ward was so subdued, that Presider Robert Howsam had to splash champagne himself. Said he: "Some of these guys are acting too dignified."

The Reds' opponents in the National League play-offs are the Philadelphi Phillies, who had a hefty lead, the slumped, evoking the ghosts of star crossed 1964, when the team contrive to blow the title. This year, as the 15 1/2-game Phillies lead dwindled to a low of three games, the comparisons began. Philadelphia rallied and won, but sound memories lingered. The season ended with bickering as unpredictable Slugger Dick Allen did another walkabout.

In refurbished Yankee Stadium, a $100 million worth of it, the Bronx Boy replaced the Mets as New York's darlings. The Yankees hit the top of their division in May and stayed there as Boston tumbled from 1975's glory to miserable fourth place. The only true pennant race was in the American League West, where the young Kansas City Royals tottered down to the final days before edging out the owner-savaged but still savvy Oakland A's.

Cincinnati and Philadelphia match up almost perfectly for the league finale. Both teams have power hitters, tight defense and skittery base runners. Philadelphia has a pitching edge, but the Reds have Joe Morgan, last season's Most Valuable Player and this season, more valuable still. The experienced Reds should take the playoffs.

In the Yankees-Royals series, the Royals have a strong infield on defense and two league-leading hitters, Hal McRae and George Brett. But the Yankees have the pitching and the kind of buccaneering base running that scores. It was 1964 when the once mighty Bombers last played in a World Series. 1976 could be a Yankee year again.

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