Show I T 1 j Lopat Sets New Earned-Run Record By GRANTLAND RICE The Futile Assignment It Is all very well to have stood with the To have gathered your garlands of It Is all very well to have out-bucked the To have reached for a head-liner's But when you arc slipping as everyone does And the dirge has supplanted the Remember how quickly a name gathers fuzz Don't try to get anything on New York The next essay should je turned in the general direction f one Edmund a left-handed pitcher with the Ed Lopat won his first six but actually his record is better I less than 3 HaV earned runs each season is n Bk Lopat permitted tin of in his first an time record as far as we can excavate into the Lopat is another rare character in a new He is one of the few living citizens who was born in New York This happy for the took place in just 33 years In spite of his brilliant life this year was not all milk and honey for left-hander Eddie started as a first baseman with Greensburg in the Pennsylvania State then moved to deep in the in That was some 14 years He worked with Oklahoma and Little Rock before he final ly reached the White Sox In He won 11 and dropped 10 for the White Sox that a rare achievement any season while pitching for the White Starting the 1951 campaign Lopat has won and lost 78 games for a winning average of It is a much better average now with his 1951 Lefty Lopat is now thinking of writing a book called Begins at In this three years with the up to Lopat has won 50 games up through 1950 and lost only He waited 13 pro seasons before getting the best start he has ever Last season Lopat won 18 and lost 8 for his best record to Unless someone starts throwing hand 1951 should be by all odds his best Two Records to Match In checking Eddie Lopat's amazing 1951 plus the record of other we pause at the marks set by one Grover Cleveland plus another set of marks established by Walter In 1915 Alexander's earned-run mark was It was in 1916 and In After the war Alex gave the game in 1919 and in Here were five years where Alexander allowed less than two earned runs a working over innings each He had been yanked away from his game for a join-Ing the army in or he might easily have set a league-leadership mark for six consecutive In 1912 the American League had no earned run average or Johnson might have set a new That was one of his greatest But in 1913 he had an average of per in in in in 1918 and in Here were eleven years of great pitching by two of the games best Alexander and Old Pete and Big No one can expect Lopat to match marks of this type in the modern era when pitchers who allows less than three earned runs are regarded as having a touch of Early Wynn of Cleveland led all pitchers last season with the chubby mark of a long hop from Johnson's The big slump in pitching skill or the arrival ol the rubber ball took place in Since then only Hal Carl Howie Pollet and Mort Cooper have operated under the two-earned run Where the People Go NEW May It or it may interest you to know where your fellow human beings gc in searching for a favorite Also just how the trend is today whether up or whether W might as v ell start with the most harassed of sports by television's savage In 1949 major league drew The were healthy with television In 1950 major league drew with the mi nors skidding oi rather major league los' over patrons in a |