Out of the Bullpen

New York Giant baseball fans are a faithful lot whose loyalty has been stretched pretty thin for the past twelve years. While the Giants floundered around in the lower depths of the National League, the Giant fan has had to live on memories of Manager John McGraw's fighting teams and of such great pitchers as Christy Mathewson, Fred Fitzsimmons and Carl Hubbell.

Last week Giant fans were able to move back to the present again. Their favorites were in the first division, and they had found a reasonable 1950 counterpart to Hubbell in Righthander Sal Maglie, a sturdy, blue-jowled pitcher who proved this year that he could throw with the best of them. He was even making threatening gestures at Hubbell's National League record of 43 1/3-scoreless innings.

Once to Mexico. Five years ago, when Maglie left the Giants for the Mexican League, few fans were upset; Pitcher Maglie had never amounted to much. When Sal rejoined the team last spring, Manager Leo Durocher figured that, at 33, Maglie might possibly make a relief pitcher. Durocher had a batch of strong-armed younger men who looked more like starters, so Maglie sweated it out in the bullpen.

In midseason, with most of Durocher's younger throwers faltering, Maglie got his chance to start. He won his game in eleven innings and has been a mainstay ever since. Last week he made his eleventh start, pitched his eleventh complete game, won his eleventh straight. (His tenth--TIME, Sept. 18--was his fourth shutout in a row, tying a National League record.) Sal's eleventh straight was a bit of a disappointment.

Now to Sleep. The day was drizzly, so wet that groundkeepers at the Polo Grounds had to shovel sawdust around the mound to give Maglie some solid footing. He struggled with a wet baseball for six innings trying to keep his sweeping curve under control. He succeeded well enough: not a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates, including Slugger Ralph Kiner, had managed to cross the plate. Maglie had little more than an inning to go to break the record set by Hubbell* in 1933.

Rookie Outfielder Gus Bell was the first Pirate to bat in the seventh. Maglie got two fast strikes past him, then fed him a low inside curve, "a pitch I had been getting Bell out with before." Bell fell away from the ball, swinging as he stepped back. He struck it on a looping arc toward the right-field foul pole, 257 ft. away. The ball landed low and inches fair for a home run, the shortest (by 40 ft.) possible homer in any National League park. Though Maglie lost his chance at Hubbell's record, by an inning and a third, the Giants won, 3-1. Maglie's record: 16-3.

Said Maglie: "At least I can get some sleep now."

* Now director of the Giant farm system and an interested spectator at Maglie's performance.

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