Boss of the Babes

When he was hired on by the old Brooklyn Dodgers in 1953, one New York newspaper headlined: ALSTON (WHO'S HE?) TO MANAGE DODGERS. The question was understandable. Walter Emmons Alston's entire major-league playing career--as a fledgling first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1936--had consisted of going to bat exactly once and ingloriously striking out. As a manager, he had labored in the obscurity of the minor leagues for 13 years. Now, 20 seasons, six pennants and four World Series championships later, the wonder is not only his longevity but the fact that, at 61, the wily old mentor of the Los Angeles Dodgers is once again piloting the winningest team in baseball.

Though remarkably consistent in the won-lost department, Alston himself is a collection of inconsistencies. He is primarily known as a conservative strategist; yet he has a way of calling for a suicide-squeeze play or a double steal when it is least expected. He claims that he would like nothing better than a set lineup; yet he has been freely platooning his players for years. He says that he believes in treating players like mature adults; yet he has been known to invite troublemakers into the alley for a fistfight and to break down the hotel-room doors of curfew violators. He insists that there is no substitute for experience; yet this season he is fielding a team so young and green that its players have been dubbed the Babes of Summer (after Roger Kahn's best-selling reminiscence about the old Brooklyn Dodgers, The Boys of Summer).

The 1973 Dodgers are a prodigious lot. The team's collective .274 batting average is the highest in either league. The Dodgers, who were expected by many experts to finish no better than third in the National League's tough West Division this season, have pulled away to a comfortable 6-game lead. Last week they seemed well on their way toward building the best record in Alston's 20-year tenure.

The Babes of Summer represent the third phase of Alston's career with the Dodgers. Phase I began in Brooklyn when he inherited from Charlie Dressen a club of sluggers led by Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges and Duke Snider. Back then, explains Alston, "it was simply a matter of playing it close to the vest until one of your big guns broke up the game with a home run." Phase II came after the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and had to rely on speed and pitching to make up for their gradual loss of gun power. A typical Dodger "big inning" then consisted of Maury Wills beating out an infield hit, stealing second, advancing to third on a ground out and finally scoring on a sacrifice fly. With fireballers like Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale holding forth on the mound, that one run was often enough.

"Now," says Alston of Phase III, "we have the Mod Squad, the kids we are trying to integrate with the veterans while getting them to settle down and learn the game." Those lessons are to be found in "the book"--The Complete Baseball Handbook, an exhaustive 567-page tome co-authored by Alston and Recreation Author Donald Weiskopf that details everything from the construction of diamonds to the art of stealing catchers' signals.

The Dodgers' well-balanced attack includes a trio of newcomers that seem formfitted for their needs. Catcher Joe Ferguson has the kind of cleanup power that evokes memories of Campanella. Second Baseman Dave Lopes is hitting a lusty .298 and has stolen 28 bases. And after trying 42 aspirants at third base over the past 15 years, Alston seems to have finally found a winner in Ron Cey, a stocky, sure-gloved fielder who has driven in 55 runs. Along with Shortstop Bill Russell, a third-year converted outfielder who has finally shaken a case of the fumbles that plagued him in 1972, Lopes and Cey have helped plug the Dodgers' once woefully porous infield. Leading the way in the outfield are the sharp-hitting veterans Manny Mota (.346), Willie Crawford (.308) and Willie Davis (.301).

The Los Angeles roster--and Alston's penchant for juggling lineups--is so strong that few if any players are considered regulars. Says Don Sutton, the mainstay of a pitching staff that owns the lowest earned-run average (2.87) in the league: "Alston reminds us all in spring training that he's managing for 25 players, not one. He never forgets it, and he makes sure you don't either."

Alston is still very much the sharecropper's son from Darrtown (pop. 300), Ohio, who used to ride a pony bareback to school. In the off-season he and his wife Lela return to their modest home in Darrtown, where, he says, "I can stand in my back door and shoot chicken hawks off the fence." His winters are spent bird hunting, skeet shooting, playing bridge, woodworking, shooting pool and riding his five-gaited horses with his two grandchildren. "They never took the country out of this boy," he says proudly. "I wouldn't trade my off-season living in Darrtown for any other way of life."

As for baseball, he says that "as long as I feel well, I can't think of anything I'd rather do." On the threshold of what may well be another Dodger dynasty, Alston has all the job security he needs--despite the fact that for the past 20 seasons he has signed only one-year contracts. Now earning a reported $70,000 a year, he says that he shares the feeling of Dodger Owner Walter O'Malley. "As Walter said the day I got the first assignment in Brooklyn," says Alston, "signing one-year contracts can mean a lifetime job, if you keep signing enough of them."

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