"Charge!"

Crowding into Seals Stadium, the fans wore the jaunty black-and-orange baseball caps of the home-town San Francisco Giants. Market Street intersections were ablare with car radios tuned to "the game.'' Even at Oklahoma! the playgoers showed up with transistor sets, listening with earplugs, and at nearby San Quentin the warden postponed the lights-out of 11:15 p.m. until the Giants had won an extra-inning game. It was the same in Los Angeles, 350 miles to the southeast. At a rocket test site, an engineer could barely wait for the blast of an Atlas engine to subside before asking: "What's the inning and the score?" And at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, some 200 men crowded around a television set to watch the Dodgers win. Sighed one office truant: "Well, this knocks hell out of an afternoon of banking--but it's worth it."

It was indeed. Last year in their first season in California the San Francisco (ex-New York) Giants finished twelve games off the pace in third place, and the Los Angeles (ex-Brooklyn) Dodgers wound up 21 games behind in seventh. This year the Giants and the Dodgers are chasing a pennant--and catching customers--with all the fire they flashed back at the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field.

Better still, the two traditional enemies fight each other with the rhubarb-flavored fury that for years marked the hottest feud in baseball. Last week in San Francisco, in two tense games that were not won until the ninth inning, the Dodgers beat the Giants twice. 3-2, 1-0. It was only justice: just weeks before, the Giants had taken the Dodgers in a two-day sweep. Standings at week's end: Giants in first, Dodgers panting 1 1/2 games behind.

Holler & Heroes. Tight races are nothing new in the National League. But what gives this one added zest is that it was unexpected: at season's start the champion Milwaukee Braves seemed to be shoo-ins. But the Brewers collapsed like the head on a beer, dropped 7 straight and landed in third place while the Giants and the Dodgers hustled like world-beaters.

The key to Giant strength is the team's balance. It leads the league in no major category, but has good first-line pitching (Johnny Antonelli. 14-5; Sam Jones, 14-10), streak-hitting Centerfielder Willie ("Say Hey") Mays (.301), who can still ignite eight ordinary men with his extraordinary play, and First Baseman Orlando Cepeda (.321), who can slug the ball out of sight (19 home runs). Shortstop Ed Bressoud plugs a leaky infield, and stubby Catcher Hobie Landrith gives the Giants a holler guy who seems to carry a mitt on one hand and a gavel in the other, is ready to call an infield meeting at the first sign of a bad pitch.

The Dodgers have men to match. Towering (6 ft. 6 in.. 205 Ibs.) Don Drysdale (13-6) is the ace of a slick young pitching staff, and Third Baseman Jim Gilliam (.318) always seems to be on base. But the biggest man of all in the Dodger infield is that old pro--and beloved Brook-lynite--First Baseman Gil Hodges, 35, who can still field like a vacuum cleaner and at .293 put the ball game away with his bat. Last week in the first game against the Giants, he slammed a two-run homer; in the second, he slapped a game-winning double. Later, against the Chicago Cubs, Hodges daringly advanced from first to second on a long fly to center, but badly wrenched his right ankle on the slide and was carried off the field.

The Dodgers' heroics have even mellowed the Los Angeles city council, which last week voted 10 to 1 to give President Walter O'Malley (TIME cover, April 28, 1958) the last major parcel of 18.4 acres he needs in Chavez Ravine for his prospective $12 million ballpark. In San Francisco, the Giants' play has speeded up construction of the 45,000-seat Candlestick Park. Target date: Oct. 2, just in time for the World Series.

The Brave Bulls. No Los Angeles clergyman has yet offered prayers in the streets for the team, as once happened in Brooklyn. Nor has any Dodger fan shot a buddy who had the temerity to knock the Bums, as also happened in Brooklyn. But things are heating up fast enough. Giant Manager Bill Rigney makes no bones about who is going to win: "My young bulls have the taste of first place, and they like it. We're going to win the pennant." The Dodger fans' answer: a rootin'-tootin' cavalry blast on dozens of trumpets carried into the ballpark, followed by a full-throated bellow from the stands: "CHARGE!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.