Dear TIME-Reader:

WHEN Dallas Bureau Chief Frank McCulloch was a bush-league pitcher before World War II, he often daydreamed of sitting on the St. Louis Cardinals' bench and hearing the manager say: "Frank, we need this one for the pennant--go in and win it."

One game he pitched for the Verdi (Nev.) Ramblers against the Fallen (Nev.) Merchants in the Sierra Nevada League he will never forget. Verdi's starting pitcher walked the first three men up. "Then they took him out for wildness and put me in," Frank recalls. Frank's best pitch in those days was a sidearm fast ball, thrown with a kind of rural free delivery--sometimes the ball went all over the countryside. His first pitch caught the batter in the back, forcing in a run. His second hit the next batter, and forced in another run. "Hey Rube," enraged Fallon fans screamed, "cut it out!"

The third pitch bounced off the third batter's head, and the Fallon crowd poured out of the stands, bent on tar-and-feathering McCulloch. But cooler heads prevailed; they argued that after all McCulloch had just presented the Merchants with three runs. The fans returned to the stands and McCulloch went back to the mound. Respectfully, the Merchants stood far back from the plate. But Frank's sizzler began to work. He went on to strike out 19 batters and even walloped a seventh-inning homer, but the damage was done--Verdi lost. 5-4.

Pitcher McCulloch never made the Cardinals' bench, but Newsman McCulloch did. When he went up from Dallas to report this week's cover story on August Anheuser Busch Jr., he had a chance to watch the Cards' workout from the bench, courtesy of Owner Busch. While there, a front-office man told him that the Cards had in their files an old scout report on him. It said: fast but wild; watch. Frank finished college at the University of Nevada ('41), worked as a reporter for the United Press, and joined the Marines to fight in World War II.

Covering the ebullient owner of the Cards involved more than baseball. McCulloch spent many hours at the Anheuser-Busch brewery, absorbing facts about beer. One afternoon, after all the facts were absorbed. Frank and Contributing Editor George Daniels, who wrote the cover story, submitted to Brewmaster Frank Schwaiger's blindfold test, comparing Budweiser and Michelob with other brands of beer. "This beer-tasting," McCulloch concluded, "is a fine tradition."

Cordially yours,

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