The End

Coming up from behind, the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series.

It was nip & tuck until the seventh game: first the Red Sox won one, then the Cardinals evened it up (thanks mainly to the pitching of Harry Brecheen). Baseball 1946 was still no postwar model.

It was the mighty Theodore Samuel Williams who--mostly by not doing very well--was the most talked about man in the series. When he went to bat, the Cards shifted their infield men to the right. It was both a tribute to Williams' prowess as a right field hitter, and an insuring bet on his inability to hit anywhere else. Sure enough, he hit squarely into the concentrated St. Louis defense. Since Ted Williams is a moody, mulish sort of fellow, nobody knew for sure whether he couldn't or wouldn't hit to left. Fans asked two questions: "Who won today?" and then--"Did Williams get a hit?"

He got just one in the first two games. In the third game he finally bunted an easy roller down the third base line--and wound up, grinning and a little ashamed of himself, on first base. The bunt set off the mightiest roar heard in Fenway Park--and St. Louis modified its radical "Williams" defense. But Lone Wolf Williams might have to do a lot of talking before the Red Sox or any other team pays him the $80,000 he wants in 1917. Said Babe Ruth, the only baseballer ever to get $80,000 in one season: "A great hitter must be able to hit to all fields.'

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