Jug-Handle Johnny

On the subject of his big righthander, Johnny Sain, Manager Billy Southworth of the Boston Braves may be prejudiced, but he is dead serious. "He's going to be recognized as one of the greats," says Southworth. Certainly, Johnny Sain's pitching arm was the biggest reason the Braves had for hoping to win their second National League pennant in a row. Last week in Bradenton, Fla., with the opener three weeks away, the arm was run through its first nine-inning test of the season.

The pride of Belleville, Ark., wearing a huge cud of tobacco in one cheek, forgot at times that it was only an exhibition game. "When I step on the field," Sain once said, "I'm not making a social call. I'm a professional baseball player doing what I'm paid for, which is to get batters out." Against one Cincinnati batter, he fired his big, jug-handled curve (the best in baseball), then a screwball, and then the fast one. The umpire's thumb jerked upward; the batter, Outfielder Frank Baumholtz, was out on three pitched balls.

For six innings, Sain toyed with Cincinnati. By then his mates had built up a six-run lead. He eased up, won 8-3. Said Southworth, beaming: "He's a cinch to win 20 games."

No Wet Nurse. That would be nothing new for John Franklin Sain Jr. For three years running he has won 20 or more. If he repeats this season, Sain will become the first National League pitcher to string four 20-game seasons together since the great Carl Hubbell. Others who turned the trick: Dizzy Dean, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, Joe Mc-Ginnity and Mordecai ("Three-Fingered") Brown.

At 30, Pitcher Sain is a phlegmatic, self-disciplined ballplayer who needs no prodding or wet-nursing. He doesn't talk much; his wife declares she didn't know he was a baseball player until she was married to him. But there is nothing bashful about him when it comes to asking for more money--this season the Braves will pay him close to $40,000, one of the highest salaries in the National League.-

Sain feels that he is finally cashing in on the "years I was working for peanuts and learning how to pitch." For four years, beginning in 1936, he floundered in the lowest labyrinth of the minors--with Osceola, Ark. and Newport, Ark. It was the same story everywhere he played in those days: good curve, no fast ball.

No Trade Secrets. An exception to the rule that a player who doesn't graduate from Class D (baseball's lowest) after one or two years will never make a big-leaguer, Sain finally made the grade to Nashville. Then, in 1942, thanks to a wartime pitcher shortage, he found himself in a Boston Braves uniform for a while. But it wasn't until he joined the Navy that he learned some of the fine points. Says he: "If I made a bad pitch, it wasn't a threat to my bread & butter. So I went out there [with the Chapel Hill preflight team] and practiced the things I had learned in '42. I discovered that real value of the change of pace, and I was amazed at first how completely it fooled the hitters."

Back in Boston after the war, Johnny Sain began making up for his slow start. Last fall, after helping to pitch Boston to the pennant, he strode out to face Cleveland's great Bob Feller in the opening game of the World Series, and won one of the tensest pitching duels in series history, io. When reporters swarmed around him after the game, he answered questions neatly and politely, but without giving away any trade secrets. Asked "What did you throw?" he thought for a second, then confided: "Baseballs, I guess." That was what the other seven teams in Johnny's league could expect all season.

*Highest: Stan Musial's $50,000 from the St. Louis Cardinals.

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