Modern Superbas

At 5:30, one afternoon last week, Brooklyn stood stock still. Housewives sat breathlessly at their radios, putting off putting on the potatoes. Husbands, on their way home, lingered around parked taxis or tiptoed into jammed barrooms to join already bewitched citizens staring stupidly into space. The Dodgers were playing the Reds in Cincinnati.

It was the last of the ninth. Old Tex Carleton was still pitching. The Dodgers were still ahead, 3-to-0. Cincinnati's Werber was at bat. A strike, then a grounder, right into Cookie Lavagetto's mitt. Frey came up. A strike, two balls, another strike, another ball. It seemed eternity before the announcer spoke: a fly, high into right field--Cullenbine took it just in front of the bleachers. Then came Goodman, a dangerous batter in a tight spot. The first was high and inside. Then the announcer's voice rose to a deafening crescendo. "Folks it's a no-hitter!" Old Tex Carleton, 33, and recently resurrected from the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers, had mown down the mighty Reds.

For Brooklyn, it was a terrific day. Not only was this the Dodgers' first no-hit, no-run victory since famed Nap Rucker turned the trick in 1908* but it was their ninth successive victory this season--an opening winning streak equaled only once before (New York Giants of 1918) in the history of modern major-league baseball.

Brooklyn had nurtured flashy teams before. In 1890, the year Brooklyn joined the National League, their ball club, then known as the Bridegrooms, ran away with the pennant. At the turn of the century, under foxy Ned Hanlon, Brooklyn won the pennant twice (1899 and 1900), were promptly nicknamed the Superbas--after Hanlon's Superbas, a famed burlesque troupe of that era. In 1916 and 1920, guided by beloved Wilbert ("Uncle Robbie") Robinson, the newly dubbed Dodgers (originally Trolley Dodgers, because Brooklynites were constantly dodging ballpark-bound trolleys) again proved the class of the league.

But to this generation of Dodger fans, as devoted as they are daffy, the 1940 team is second to none. Even rival clubs admit the Dodgers have a crack infield and their pitchers have made them blink. Brooklyn may not boast a DiMaggio or a Feller, but, in its first nine games, the assorted collection of castoffs and come-ups assembled by President Larry MacPhail and Manager Leo Durocher proved that they are a clicking machine.

After last week's no-hitter, Brooklynites had daffy dreams: an unbroken string of 10, 20, 30 victories. Next day they were jerked out of their trance. Against Cincinnati's Bucky Walters, the National League's No. 1 pitcher, the modern Superbas looked less superb, were defeated 9-to-2.

"We can't win 'em all," moaned Manager Durocher, onetime member of the Cardinals' Gas House Gang who, last year, in his first season as manager, hustled the Brooklyn club from seventh to third place. Impartial observers, impressed with the Dodgers' early-season exploits, gave Brooklyn a chance to win the National League pennant for the first time in 20 years.

*In 1925, Dazzy Vance pitched a no-hitter for Brooklyn, but he yielded a run (on a walk and an error).

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