The Man Who Doesn't Worry

Shortly before noon, jug-eared Ewell Blackwell walked onto the turf at Chicago's Wrigley Field. It was an hour and a half before game time. He looked around, then strolled nonchalantly to the third-base dugout. Someone offered him a chew of tobacco and asked if he was nervous. The most talked-about pitcher of the year waved away the tobacco and said: "Naw, I don't get nervous any more. Last year I used to be nervous as a cat before a game, and then I found it made me wild in the early innings. So I said to myself, 'Boy, you can't be nervous any more.' I haven't worried since."

The 41,123 people in the stands seemed to be far more excited than Blackwell was when he shuffled out last week to start the All-Star game. Calmly, and with relaxed stance, 6 ft. 5. in. Pitcher Blackwell waited for his sign. Catcher Walker Cooper called for a fast, inside pitch. Blackwell rocked into his windup. As he let go, his long right arm snapped around as if he were cracking a snake-whip. His complicated delivery made it look as if he were about to fall down, but the ball plunked squarely into the catcher's mitt. Three pitches later the lead-off man for the highly touted American Leaguers had struck out.

Strike-Out Kings. Not since the days of Dizzy Dean and Carl Hubbell had National Leaguers been so proud of a pitcher. At 24, halfway through his second big-league season, Cincinnati's Ewell Blackwell was the National League's strike-out king. He was baseball's top pitcher, with 15 wins, 2 defeats. He had also pitched 1947's first major league no-hitter (TIME, June 30). Already fans were comparing him to the great strikeout artist Bob Feller, who ducked last week's All-Star game because of a back injury (but pitched and won for Cleveland two days later).

Blackwell's fast ball is generally conceded to be slower than the 98.6 m.p.h. pitch that made Feller famous, and his curve doesn't bend so sharply. But he manages to hide the ball more expertly: it comes up at a batsman out of nowhere as "alive" as an eel and just as hard to get hold of. Besides getting extra leverage from his wide sidearm sweep, Blackwell's awkward motion keeps enemy batsmen loose at the plate--just in case one of his pitches gets out of control. The third man to face Blackwell in the All-Star game was Boston's Ted Williams, who just looked at a third strike whizzing by.

"Sorry to Leave." By All-Star rules, Blackwell could pitch only three innings. The score was 0-0 when he left (the American League's veteran Hal Newhouser was matching Blackwell's fine performance). The only man to reach first base against Blackwell was Joe DiMaggio, who drove a single over second base. Ewell Blackwell left the game, said later: "I had plenty of stuff and I felt kinda sorry to leave."

In the end, the American League All-Stars won, as they usually do, 2-to-1. Blackwell's pitching was the main topic of conversation after the game. Said Ted Williams: "I had an awful time seeing him get rid of the ball. He has it behind him and all of a sudden it's on the way." Said Joe DiMaggio: "This fellow hasn't been around too long. But he's a hell of a good pitcher. ... I didn't connect very solidly." Added Cleveland's Lou Boudreau, who as Feller's manager should know, "Blackwell equals anything we've got in our league. ... As good as Feller? Well, Feller's in our league, isn't he?" There was one difference between them. Veteran Feller, who has been on top for eleven years and is the highest paid pitcher in baseball, makes well over $75,000; Blackwell gets about $10,000.

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