New Season

(See front cover)

If the dullest bush-leaguer who figured in the baseball fiction of Ring Lardner had been much more rustic and addle-headed, he would have been very much like Floyd ("Babe"') Herman, outfielder for the Brooklyn Robins since 1927. Herman is celebrated for allowing fly-balls to drop on his head, for transforming a homerun into a triple play (by passing two other base-runners), for carrying a lighted cigar in his pocket. But, because he is a powerful batter and at times a competent fielder, he is by no means a liability to his team. Last week Babe Herman was the central figure in the most important baseball deal of the training season. Brooklyn's new manager, Max Carey, who is trying to turn a clownish collection of eccentrics into an orderly big-league machine, announced that he had traded Herman, Gilbert (third baseman) and Lombardi (huge catcher) to Cincinnati in even exchange for two in-fielders--Joe Stripp, Tony Cuccinello--and Catcher Clyde Sukeforth. In a trade with St. Louis, Brooklyn last month acquired a hard-hitting outfielder who may make up for the loss of Babe Herman --squat, red-faced Lewis ("Hack'') Wilson, who made 56 homeruns in 1930 and was last winter traded to St. Louis by the Chicago Cubs after a number of run-ins with Manager Rogers ("Rajah") Hornsby and the late William Wrigley Jr.

Further notice that the 1932 season was about to start was provided by a long-anticipated ceremony in St. Petersburg, Fla. Colonel Jacob Ruppert, near-beer-brewing owner of the New York Yankees, conferred with his most celebrated employe, George Herman ("Babe") Ruth. After much palaver and publicity, Ruth signed a one-year contract for $75,000. Then he tossed a half-dollar into an imitation Spanish wishing well and went to play in a practice game against the Boston Braves, in which he failed to make a hit.

By last week, most big-league teams had been in training quarters for five or six weeks. Training trips, which are more for whetting the baseball appetite of the public than for conditioning players, have been starting a few days earlier every year. This season John McGraw created a shrewd sensation by taking his New York Giants to Los Angeles instead of San Antonio. There, last week, they played a pre-season series against the Chicago Cubs, which Philip K. Wrigley inherited from his father and which trains at Wrigley-owned Catalina Island. Later the Giants lost a night game to the Hollywood Stars, 2 to 1.

With no developments like last year's introduction of a less lively ball, this year's training season has been chiefly distinguished by squabbles between players and owners who, despite the fact that baseball has not suffered greatly from Depression, cut salaries from 10% to 50%. By last week, after the first exhibition games, observers were able to evaluate the 16 big-league teams.

In the American League, where trading of players has been least active, the Philadelphia Athletics, thrice pennant winners, were favorites to win again--though no team has ever won four American League pennants in a row. A "spring world series" against the world champion St. Louis Cardinals, in which the Athletics won three out of four games, convinced Manager Cornelius McGillicuddy that few new tactics were needed. His two rookies --Oscar Roettger at first base and Outfielder Ed Coleman--batted .400 or more. He had discovered a young right-handed pitcher, Joe Bowman, to supplement his seasoned staff of Grove, EarnshaW, WaLberg, Rommel and Mahaffey. The New York Yankees, the young Cleveland Indians, and the Washington Senators, a team of oldsters who have done surprisingly well for the last two years, were likely runners-up. Boston Red Sox seemed less able than usual to cope with consistent second-division teams like Detroit and Chicago. Their pitching staff was depleted when Edward ("Big Ed") Morris was fatally stabbed at an Alabama fish-fry the day before he was to leave for training camp.

The National League contenders, this year as last, seem to be the New York Giants, the Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn and the world champion St. Louis Cardinals.

By trading Fielder Hack Wilson and a young pitcher named Bud Teachout to the Cardinals, the Cubs last winter got Burleigh Grimes, famed spitball pitcher who pitched a two-hit game in last year's World Series. The success of the Giants, according to Manager McGraw, depended largely on the performance of Second Baseman Hughie Critz who hurt his throwing arm early last season and may not yet be fully recovered. The Giants new left fielder, Len Koenecke, bought for $75,000 from Indianapolis, last week made two two-base hits in a game against the Cubs.

As to the success of the World Champions, Manager Charles Evard ("Gabby") Street had small doubt last week. When the Athletics played the Cardinals at Fort Myers, Fla., Connie Mack said to Street: "I hope we have the pleasure of meeting again next October." Said Gabby Street: "I'm looking forward to the pleasure and the profit, too." Privately he added: "Brooklyn has possibilities of being the most dangerous club in the league. Even the Reds and Phillies shape up as teams that can go places. In the end it will be stamina and steadiness that will win. That's where I think we have the edge."

Baseball critics were inclined to agree with Manager Street. The present eminence of the St. Louis Cardinals rests upon a system which Branch Rickey, vice president of the club, devised ten years ago: buying up minor-league clubs and using them as "farms" on which to develop promising players. Most major-league teams have one or more such farms. St. Louis owns outright or controls eight--at Rochester, Columbus, Houston. Danville, Ill., Greensboro, N. C., Elmira. N. Y., Springfield, Mo., Mobile, Ala. Because improved transportation facilities, which make it easier to get to big-league games, have lately made minor-league baseball a more expensive undertaking, minor-league owners are glad of big-league support. Most celebrated product of the Rickey farm system is Johr Leonard ("Pepper") Martin, centre-fielder, who distinguished himself in the last World Series with twelve hits, four stolen bases, five runs. After the close of the season, Pepper Martin enriched himself by $20,000 from vaudeville, then returned to Valiant, Okla. to hunt 'coons 'possums, birds and jackrabbits with his friend the village barber. While refusing to reveal his present salary (supposed tc be double the $4,000 he received last year) he appeared pleased with it last week. He made a homerun in a practice game against the Boston Braves.

Long before anyone had thought of the farm system, long before golf had started to undermine baseball's hold on the sporting inclinations of small U. S. towns, thi career of Charles Evard ("Gabby") Street had its beginnings in Huntsville, Ala. After six years in the minor leagues, he became catcher for the Washington Senators. Because he called the Negro grounds keepers "Gabby" he got the same nickname from his teammates. Presently he became known as the only man who could handle the delivery of Walter Johnson, reputedly the fastest pitcher in history. On days when he worked with Johnson, Street placed a slice of raw beef in his catcher's mitt. Barkers on Washington sight-seeing busses are still familiar with his most famed exploit. They point out the base of the Washington Monument as the place where Gabby Street, after twelve tries, caught a baseball tossed down to him by a reporter from the top (555 ft. 5 in.).*

After the War, in which he was a noisy, good-natured top-sergeant, Gabby Street became a minor-league player (catcher, pinch hitter/-), then a manager of minor-league teams. When his Knoxville, Tenn. Smokies finished third in the Southern League in 1928, President Breadon of St. Louis, who had hired three managers in as many years, offered him a job as coach. Next year, he became manager, won the pennant and became one of baseball's innumerable statistics: 13th major-league manager to win a pennant in his first year.

Baseball managers become identified with their towns in a peculiar way. Their names, intimately connected with the chatter of street corners, the casual talk on trolleys, the shouting of newsboys in the late afternoons, become part of a town's language. Their faces--wrinkled and burned by the sun, shadowed by visored caps--are part of a tradition of hot U. S. afternoons with crowds in shirtsleeves, ice cream in wilting cones and baseball players deployed, in excitingly soiled playing clothes, across the wide sweep of turf. St. Louis, especially, is a baseball town. To Sportsman's Park, isolated from the city by a wide belt of old brick houses, garages and disused beer gardens, come all the riffraff of the homely town, and most of its substantial citizens.

Most seasoned of St. Louis enthusiasts is perhaps Theodore Seiberg. a coffee salesman, who has been attending baseball games for 40 years. Men like Lawrence Boocher, a vice president of the Boatmen's Bank; Ralph J. Hager of Hager Hinge Co.; James McFall of the McFall Livery Co.; William Kerr Kavanaugh who owns a large St. Louis coal company, all go and take their friends to Sportsman's Park every afternoon they can. Edward Magnus, a vice president of Diesel Engine Co., watches every game and takes his family twice a week. Paul Bowling, an official in Star Bucket & Pump Co., keeps a five-seat box for the members of his family and has not missed a game for five years. They, even more than Gabby Street, a man of 49, with a homely, angular face, who sits quietly in the dugout, not waving his score card like Connie Mack nor jumping up to argue with the umpires like McGraw, are part of a thoroughly indigenous U. S. scene, part of the perspiring pattern of summer days in St. Louis.

*When Street caught it. the ball was traveling about 180 ft. per sec. (more than 120 m p h ) Estimated speed of Walter Johnson's fastest pitches was 120 ft. per sec.

/- " Pinch hitter" (emergency batsman) was corned by Manager McGraw to describe Samuel Strang Nicklin, oldtime Giant (later a concert singer) who, aged 56, died last week in Chattanooga.

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