Baseball Races

Baseball tradition says that the teams that lead the major leagues on July 4 will win the pennants. Another criterion of the baseball races is the players' performances in the annual All-Star game. Inaugurated in Chicago as an Exposition stunt, the All-Star game between an American League team and a National League team, picked by fans' votes, has provided plenty of celebrities but undistinguished baseball. This year the fans had no say in the team selections and Managers Bill Terry and Joe McCarthy, who managed last year's pennant-winning New York Giants and New York Yankees, took their jobs seriously.

In the American League the Yankees were leading the Chicago White Sox by four games on July 4. In the National League the Chicago Cubs had not been headed since June 15. Last week's All-Star game, opened by President Roosevelt's toss from the grandstand, paralleled the league standings in that Yankee players paced the American League play, Cubs paced the National.

Permitted three pitchers, pitching not over three innings each, the Nationals needed six. The Americans started with Vernon ("Lefty") Gomez of the Yankees. who hurled three scoreless innings. The Nationals started with Jerome Herman ("Dizzy") Dean, who reveled in striking out Lou Gehrig in the first inning. Gehrig made Dean eat crow in the third inning by smashing a home run, scoring his teammate Joe Di Maggio ahead of him.

To repair the Nationals' shattered front next inning came great Carl Hubbell, who pitched the Giants to a 1936 pennant. Cheered as he strode to the mound, Hubbell proceeded to yield a walk and a one-base hit. Another American flied out, another struck out. Stepping to bat with two out and two on base, "Red" Rolfe of the Yankees then walloped a three-base hit, scoring himself a minute later. Sadly Manager Terry removed the crushed Hubbell from the game. Thereafter, not even four more National pitchers could halt the Americans. Joe Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals hit safely four out of five times at bat but Nationals managed to get only three runs to the Americans' eight. The slugging Yankees drove in all but one of the American League's runs, and Herman and Hartnett of the Cubs scored all but one of the National League's.

At last week's end the Chicago Cubs still had a two-game lead over the New York Giants in the National League race. Racing closely enough behind to produce another exciting finish such as has distinguished National League play every year since 1931 were the Pittsburgh Pirates (4 1/2 games behind the Cubs) and the St. Louis Cardinals (5 games behind).

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