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Show A T LEAST three American league clubs have a chance to pile in on the unhappy Yankees this season, and apply the intercostal chive. The main trouble they face is within their own camps not within the Yankee corral. These clubs are Cleveland, Boston and Detroit. Afflicted by certain definite def-inite weak departments, all three may blow the big spot, which consists con-sists largely in mowing the Yankees down after four years of complete power. What are these weak spots? No. 1. Cleveland, with one of the best ball clubs in the league, has r ' too many tempera- rTgis, mental stars or near ' stars. This isn't the i . fault of manager Os- i a0 car Vitt. ft Cleveland has an - able catcher in Rol- - " he Hemsley also I -w one of the best pitch- ' j mg staffs in base- 1 bau. headed by Bob- J j by Feller. Cleveland ; ' has a good infield, Rollie witn a star shortstop Hemsley a good outfieid. But Cleveland also has at least four ball players who don't belong in team play at least four men who are hard to handle, who haven't one-fifth one-fifth of the spirit that Brooklyn carries. car-ries. If these four men only could understand un-derstand the true spirit of winning competition even if they only could realize they are trying to throw away over a hundred thousand dollars dol-lars in world series money Cleveland Cleve-land would have a shining chance to win after 20 years in the wilderness, wilder-ness, far away from the milk and honey. The Other Two No. 2. Red Sox. The Yawkey-Cronin Yawkey-Cronin team has the infield and the outfield. It has the scoring punch. It has a great combination around short and second. It has Jimmy Foxx and Ted Williams. But the Red Sox haven't a first-class first-class catching staff and they lack pitching strength. Their main dependence de-pendence is a 40-year-old left-hander who has been around 1ft years. Experts tell me that Joe Cronin, a fine fellow and a fine manager, 1q nn marvel at han- dling pitchers. This , may, or may not, be true. Maybe he j doesn't have the pitchers. But there is a distinct dis-tinct art in working your pitchers correctly. cor-rectly. Uncle Wilbert Robinson was a past master. Uncle Will TVTp"K"fprinip of the - " s Reds is another. But Joe Cronin they are few and far apart. No. 3. This brings us to Detroit's Tigers. They have all the scoring dynamite a ball club needs. They have pretty fair pitching. But they have a second-division infield a spotty infield well below any normal pennant showing. Detroit can go out and get the runs. But before the season is over the Tiger infield will show too many gaps to match their run-making offensives. of-fensives. And that factor will be all-important in determining final club standings. stand-ings. If the Tigers' infield defensive power was on a par with their hitting hit-ting ability, the final records likely would be different. So these pennant weak spots against the staggering Yankees include in-clude these: 1. Cleveland too much inside dissension dis-sension and trouble. 2. Boston lack of battery strength, always a vital need. 3. Detroit a rickety infield. The Big Change What about the Yankees? Their main control in the realm of rule, in the kingdom of conquer, has been balance. They have great catching, good pitching, a star infield, a fine outfield defensive and offensive strength just about evenly matched. They came home in poor condition condi-tion for two reasons bad weather in the South and a killing spring training train-ing tour that covered most of the map below the Mason and Divot line. They also had four years of easy success back of their fifth charge. Each man on the club had banked $25,000 in world series cash since 1936. They left a big opening for some well-rounded challenger, but if they win this time it will be largely because be-cause their main opponents had too many soft and spongy spots. Dcmaret and the Next Open Swinging along to another sport, they are asking now whether Jimmy Dcmaret will be another MacDonald Smith, another Horton Smith, another anoth-er Harry Cooper, another Henry Picard great golfers who have never nev-er won a National Open championship. champion-ship. If Jimmy Demaret is close to his game he is capable of winning any title or crown. His is the star of the pack today, the best I've seen for the needed combination of brilliancy bril-liancy and consistency. |