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Show put Crosetti and Gordon together. They are perfectly matched and play together with confidence, speed and rhytlun. The plays they made in the World Series last fall the plays they made during- the championship season satisfied even McCarthy, a hard man to satisfy a man whose fetish fet-ish is the double play. The Threat by Weber Winning a berth with the Yankees Yank-ees wasn't an easy one for Crosetti Cro-setti or, rather, holding it after he had won it wasn't easy. Because Be-cause of his light hitting, his Job J was in danger in the spring of 1933, after he had been the regular reg-ular shortstop through 1932, his first year. Also at the YaJikee camp in the spring of 1933 at St. Petersburg! was Bill Werber, now third baseman base-man of the Reds. Werber was faster Crosetti never' has been) exactly a speed merchant, for all the agility with which he bounces around the short field, spearing line drives, scooping up grounders, ground-ers, starting or pivoting1 on double plays and another of McCarthy's demands is for speed and more speed. Werber was fiery, colorful color-ful and aggressive and Crosetti then, as now, was so quiet as, to be almost backward, even on the field. The Threat Answered Werber, just up from Buffalo, started with a rush that spring. Before the stay at St. Petersburg ended, it looked as though the job was his, and other managers, believing McCarthy had made his choice, made offers for Crosetti. Then McCarthy gave Crosetti a fling at the job again and the fine play he turned in as the team swung North decided the tussle. He held on and Werber went to the Red Sox. Sportliigltt ... By GRANTLAND RICE MIAMI BEACH, April 18 Base hits, pieced together, toge-ther, make a player's meal ticket. As a result, when the average player isn't hitting, his head goes down and he frets and worries so much he can't field, either. Frank Crosetti is an exception. The Yankee short-' short-' stop, in the company of a bombing crew, doesn't hit much more than his weight, yet every day he is out there hustling and playing a great game of ball. No player in either major league gives a smoother performance per-formance from one end of a season to the other. Every day is just like every other they're all good. Crosetti, of course, has spurts in which he will average .300 or over and when he hits a ball solidly, he can drive it a long way, having a fine wrist action mat makes up for the size and weight that most power hitters linvc. It was a home run by Crosetti with Myril Hoag on base in the eighth inning that broke the resistance re-sistance offered by Dizzy Dean to the Yankees in the second game of the 1938 world series a smash that wrecked a classic stand by Mz when the odds loomed high asalnst him. Tho Host Combination I'rankie's main value to the Yankees lies, naturally, in his superb defensive play. He and Joe Gordon provide the Yanks 'Ith the best second-base combination com-bination in the game today and one of the best ever. Of these latter day hook-ups weeding that of Crosetti and (.onion, a balance was lacking, tnzzeri, one of the great second basemen through his first seven ye;irs with the Yankeesl didn't have, in Kocnig, a shortstop to match him. Koenig was a good ball player but an erratic one, a much better hitter than Crosetti but nowhere near Crosetti in the matter of fielding skill, so that Lazzeri had to carry him much of tho time. Lazzeri also had to carry Crosetti Cro-setti when Frankie joined the Yankees, schooling him to the majors and working out, between them, some semblance of smoothness. smooth-ness. And then, just as Crosetti had learned his way around and how to work with Lazzeri, Tony slowed up. At last Joe McCarthy, striving desjierately for a combination that could make Idouhle lilays, |