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Show ins? apparently put New York out of the running. With only nhout oil games to play, the Giants were 10 games away from the leaders, an apparently unsurinountable handicap. handi-cap. However the resourceful McGraw made a wise move when he secured Benton from lioston, who has pitched pitch-ed brilliantly for New York. Then in the pinch, Burleigh ' Grimes began be-gan to showf old-time form, while Barnes, Henry and lttzsimmolis Pitching Decides National Pennant Cubs Were Held Up By ' Root Until Final Dash By Pirates, With Kremer And Aldridge In Lead So far this season he has won just about 20 less. There's the answer. Much of the success the Cubs have attained this year has been built around the remarkable work of one pitcher, Charley Boot, assisted assist-ed by Hal Carlson and the rest of the Chicago staff. As I write this yarn, Boot has 23 wins to bis credit and is shooting at ;il. which it : doesn't seem he will reach. The Deciding Kwi When the Cubs were at the top of their game, the club was winning close-score battles in which the Chicago Chi-cago pitchers featured by holding just enough of the edge to return litem the winner. When the Cubs began to lose that pitching margin, the team began to slip. When lioot and Carlson began to go down to defeat de-feat by one run, often the final inning turning seemig yictory to defeat, Chicago seemed to be ready to pass out of the picture. Incidentally, lake and Bush, who for a time offered valuable assistance assist-ance to Itoot and Carlson, lost their winning touch nnd in. the crisis failed fail-ed to give the two stars, as well as the rest of the team, the pitching it was hojiod they would Early in the race, weird pitch- By BILLY EVANS l'itehing has dominated the thrilling thrill-ing pennant struggle that is being waged in the National League at its various critical stages in determining determin-ing the leader. l'itehing is a most important factor. fac-tor. The team that gets the shade as to hurling in the home stretch Kill probably win the pennant. Baiting power has rarely won a pennant pen-nant unaided. There are some who will point to the Yankees to contradict contra-dict such a statement. Hut take it from ine, the Yanks have gotten tolerably good pitching .this year. Cubs Created Interest Iiegarclless of where the Chicago Cubs finish, the sensational showing show-ing of that club has tended to create widespread interest in the National League, race. When a dark horse sets the pace for five months, as did .loo McCarthy's club, it is easy to understand the popularity of that club with baseball random, always pulling for the underdog. Super-pitching, plus the breaks, which means timely hiding, and the life, have kept the Cubs in the running. run-ning. One super-pitcher, getting the proper assistance from the rest of the staff, as well as his teammales often makes a ball club. Take the Cleveland club of the American League of last season for Kxhibit A. The Indians fought New-York New-York to the very finish of last season, sea-son, yet the identical same club this year, wilh the exception of Tris Spanker, has spent the entire summer sum-mer in the second division. Last season George 1'lile won 27 games. |