Baseball's Big Auction

The New York Giants badly needed a catcher to replace old Ernie ("Schnozz") Lombardi. Like every other player-hungry boss, the Giants' Horace Stoneham knew where to go: St. Louis, where the Cardinals sat firmly on a large assortment of surplus talent, home from the war, with more coming. Last week Stoneham peeled off $175,000, the fourth largest sum ever paid for a single player, for Catcher Walker Cooper.

The big auction was on. Cooper, who had staged a salary rebellion with Brother Mort before joining the Navy last spring, got No. 1 priority on the sales list by blabbing that he would never again put on a Cardinal uniform. The Cooper news was hardly out before the Pittsburgh Pirates admitted that, they had put up some $30.000 for the Cards' pepperpot, switch-hitting Second Baseman Jimmy Brown. Other anxious buyers fretted on the Cardinal doorstep.

After Cardinal President Sam Breadon had figured out which players to keep and which to peddle--and pocketed some $500,000 in cash--he would still have the team to beat for the National League pennant.

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