Show ua OY arm alak aya EO DUROCHER chasn t the aas L 1 lest job in sport next year he takes over rightfully a ball club that had its greatest year last sea son the dodgers have won pen nants before but they never won a flag with so many spectacular thrusts they never played to as many people and they never looked as good in any past world series since larry macphail and branch rickey were under fire last spring not durocher his year years s suspension was out of order there was littia rickey could right fully do except give durocher another chance the doag ers were suppo supposed ed to be pennant win ners in 1948 not in 1847 1947 according to rickey s sched ached durocher ule hurt burt shotton beat the gun by a year the dodgers should be bet ter in 1948 1943 than they were in 1947 durocher has the same team with a year s more experience this can be a big help to the dodger pitch ing staff which is packed with young talent that only needed a few pitch ing angles and better control it takes a year or longer for a thrower to become a pitcher but the dodger a raw material has been exceptional durocher should have five or six winning pitchers next spring including ralph branca who may reach the 25 game spot durocher also discovered through his year years s rest that even bigger crowds will come out if there 14 1 less umpire baiting which is no nio longer required no one cares bow hou hard the teams and the mana manager gere fight one another crowds today are no longer interested in argument 4 with umpires has fire and color billy southworth one of the great est of all managers has proved thi tor for years so has joe mccarthy an other member of the all time greats shotton proved this case beyond al argument the crowd comes out t see a ball game not to listen t a dull and dumb debate between some manager and some umpire A fighting manager is all right but why fight with umpires thi type of baseball belongs with th dodo and the great auk being pretty smart fellow durocher ha sensed the big change I 1 believe no one can question the tact fact tha durocher isn t smart he has fir and color and a scrappy gustlin ball club he also has one or tw tough ball clubs to beat including toc inc ludin the braves and cardinals also th giants if mel ott can get an pitching the giants have ever thing ing else the cards who made a brillian showing last year by forging int second d place after a dismal starl start again will be a threat the pitch ing staff will be the main worry coupled with the advanced age 0 players only a small improvement on th part of braves and cardinals cai car make a big difference especially I 1 the dodger pitching staff doesn doean move up and locate in a bagu way the general direction of tt th home plate lack of control along this line we ve just re a letter from our all tin timi favorite pitcher grover cleve land old pete alexander who isn t tar far from being the greatest all around pitcher that ever threw a e ball and this includes cy young walter johnson and christy math ewson also carl hubbell and left grove here Is alexander s letter dear grant I 1 just finished read ing your article on what Is wrong with present day pitchers and thought I 1 would drop a few lines no I 1 am not looking for anything I 1 am just trying to figure why they never have taken some old timers on during spring training to work with these young throwers as you aptly termed them they teach hitting and about everything else but not pitching when I 1 first came to philly pa peg moran was the coach and aboul about the first thing be he said to me wa this kid you have a good arm but a heck of a lot to learn he tooh took me in hand and he sure did teace me pat was smart of course it 11 took work hard work I 1 never have been able to find out just what I 1 did that put me on baseball s blacklist I 1 tried several times to get back and even wrote mr chandler for almost anything to do I 1 had a nice letter from him and then another one saying tha that there was no opening and they did not expect any I 1 was just out pitching means control by control I 1 don t mean the plate I 1 mean one or two inches of the plate A real pitcher ought to be able ti U get the ball one or two inches from where he wants it not one or 01 t two wo feet but pitchers need instruction which few ever get what good Is stuff the greatest stuff evel ever thrown that cant can t cross the plate this means hard work handwork har dwork orb and instruction learning how maybe the hard way which Is een ten brally the only way G C alexander wood hirer raver ill |