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Show I SPORTUGHT i Team, Like Player, Needs Spirit I By GRANTLAND RICE They are minor leaguers on the road, a whipped, beaten bunch." Who can explain that? The records prove that Gordon was right. They look good enough to win the A.L. pennant by 10 games this season. They may not finish third. Along with many others I can't pick a team that should win by eight or 10 games, and can't win by even one game. There is more to a baseball team than hitting and pitching. A ball club can have spirit and a soul as well as a lone competitor. m m I'm s vtry constrvativ jtlloui, I match ihi paradet . under by. I'm neither red-blooded, nor yellow, I don't break leg on the try. I'm never in headlines or columns, col-umns, I haven't a good baiting eye. And yet I'm the top of this country I'm only the average guy. I'm the unknown that nobody looks at. I'm neither below, nor above. I never get public attention. My wife is the woman I love. My name is a blank to tbe millions, mil-lions, To those who take life on the And yet I'm the top of this nation I'm only the average guy. The Two Mysteries St. Petersburg, Fla. There are two baseball mysteries in this land of palm and pine, gulf and grapefruit, grape-fruit, citrus and circus, sun and LV - J mi sand. The two mysteries mys-teries are the Boston Bos-ton Red Sox and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dodg-ers. People wander into their camps, look over their lineups, line-ups, wander out and keep asking: "Why don't they win 90 per cent of their Case of the Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers last season sea-son were very much of the Red Sox type. They had all that it takes but they didn't take it. I was sitting with Eddie Sawyer, headman of the Phillies and in my book one of baseball's all-time managers. man-agers. Eddie was picking the Dodgers. "How can you beat em?" he asked, "with all that man power everything?" "How did you beat 'em last year?" I asked. "They still had a much better ball club." "Take it this way," Sawyer said. "Look at the ballplayers I have the Giants have the Braves have. How can you beat out a club that has Campanella back of the bat, Hodges on first base, Robinson on second, Reese at short, anybody at third, with Snyder and Furillo in the outfield? Plus oich pitchers as Newcombe, Roe, Branca, Hatten, Barney, Banta, Bankhead, Palica on and on working in droves? They had everything last year and they'll have it this year. Who is Musial worried about? Furillo and Snyder. Or Robinson. In my book Hodges is more dangerous than Musial. He was against the Phillies. Much more dangarous." The Dodgers have the best cast In baseball with the exception, of one overloked spot, pitching. a a a Sport and Business Sport and business are supposed to be on opposite sides of the field. They are supposed to be two entirely entire-ly different transactions along the brief road of life. But in recent years they have almost blended so that it is hard to say which is sport and which is business. As a result, old-fashioned amateur sport has just about vanished from the map. This applies to college football, college basketball, championship tennis, golf to a certain degree. College football is practically a semi pro sport where it often costs $250,000 to run a team for one sea-son, sea-son, and gate receipts pass or approach ap-proach $1,000,000 for nine or ten-game ten-game schedules. Basketball, too, has been moving into larger receipts re-ceipts and bigger palaces. r. .i a Di games? What's the GrantlandRlce a.ter with .em?.. The Red Sox have the hardest-hitting, hardest-hitting, the greatest run-scoring team In baseball. Williams, Doerr, Pesky, Stephens, Bou-dreau, Bou-dreau, walloping Dropo, Goodman Good-man no wonder opposing pitchers pitch-ers turn pale. To their 1950 staff the Red Sox have added Bill Wight and Ray Scarborough, two fine pitchers. How can they lose? How could they lose In 1947-1948-1949-1950? They could not but they did despite a great manager, Joe McCarthy. Tom Yawkey has bought them everything except General Mac-Arthur Mac-Arthur and the Marines. Do they expect Yawkey to do the pitching and hitting? I have been one of many who saw the Red Sox at work in Florida in recent seasons who knew their past performance charts and so picked them. I am now one of many who won't pick them until they can prove they can win big games in a pinch. This is where they have failed under heavy pressure. Why? I don't know. 3ut they have. They have blown in the stretch and the stretch Is all that counts. Joe Gordon, a great ballplayer, said to me last June in Philadelphia, "They are the greatest looking ball club I ever saw at Fenway Park. |