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Show SPORT LIGHT lw red to Case of Sal Maglie is Strange One! By GRANTLAND RICE v BASEBALL is replete with queer odds and angles, mystery and tangles, but in nothing that quite approaches the strange case of one Salvatore Maglie, star pitcher of the Giants and possibly the star pitcher of both leagues. How could it all happen? Up until midsummer last year, Sal Maglie, born in Niagara Falls 34 years ago, was just another unknown pitcher with t b e , Giants, He had been in baseball for 12 years, starting with Buffalo in 1938, and yet by 1950 had won only 46 games in organized baseball an average av-erage of four games a year. Then suddenly Maglie starts last summer, wins 18 games and drops "There are certain batters wh can hit anything. But there aren' i' H too many. By hard work I found1 the control I needed, and I knej. J pretty well what a flock of hitter!!,1 could hit and what they couldn't hitij-Most hitij-Most of them have weaknesses." il '' "That's what made Grover Clevel land Alexander such a great pitch j ) er," I suggested. "A lot of hitters fel: , like crying when they had to bal : against Old Pete." , - "Control can do you a lot oi good," Maglie said. "Around 194; ; I had almost given up. I didn't seen to be going anywhere. I was certain ; t. ly glad to get a chance to work ir turn last summer. That makes a -. big difference to a pitcher." I asked Leo Durocher why he had waited, so long to start using Maglif as a regular. , , "By the time he came back to ths;irM. Giants," Leo said. "Sal was arounc,ji 32 years old. He had been with th( Mexican League and I knew littleONT about him. You could see that h ' ' had kept himelf in condition, but I3 had other pitchers I knew more8 about. ':J di "Then suddenly we began to run l Fo shy of pitchers. Outside of Jansen,;' '' ' four for an average ; of .818. That's what you call pitching. This season Maglie moves into mid-September mid-September with 20 victories and six defeats de-feats for a mark of .768. Maglie's three-year three-year record with Buffalo was no wins Grantland Rlc. one lo. three ; and seven, nothing ; and seven four wins against 14 setbacks, set-backs, a rather fuzzy setup. He retired in 1943 and 1944, in 1945 he won five games for the Giants and dropped four, before departing de-parting to the Mexican League where he worked four years. Then suddenly in the last two seasons he has a combined mark of 38 victories against ten defeats, a mark well above .750. "How could this happen?" I asked the quiet, likeable Giant star. "I couldn't tell you," he said, with a slow smile. "I honestly couldn't." Six feet two, weighing above 190 pounds, he has an ideal build for the pitching job. "Everyone took me for granted as just another second-rate pitcher and I couldn't seem to win enough games to change things. I kept trying try-ing to learn, and I had a chance to work out several ideas while pitching pitch-ing in Mexico. I had a chance to pitch regularly down there and that helped. It helped a lot." Control the Factor "Just what did you learn that counted most?" I asked. "Control," Maglie said. "I have a fairly fast ball, but I don't bank on my speed to win. I'm no burn-'em-by pitcher. Control and curves are enough if you have both. Control Con-trol doesn't mean getting a ball over the plate. It often means pitching pitch-ing into a two-inch spot, low or high, inside or out. the staff we had didn't look so hot.; So we bought Jim Hearn and put f Maglie to work. You know what:lstl happened after that. We played the""1 ' best ball in the league. Maglie was'1,116 a wonder. -" "It was a question at 34 how he'df 'b go this season. His record answers., that. I'll admit Maglie's case is one Js of the strangest in baseball thejj case of a pitcher who started when he was 21 and didn't begin winning until he was 33. Maybe you can fig-' ure that one out. I can't." ( Neither can Sal Maglie, today asi;sta fine a pitcher as either league-ten knows, and certainly as smart -ew pitcher as I've seen In years. . ' Picking Up an Argument Who is more important the pass-:!tlle er or the receiver? I have heard so?f' many fevered words on this subject- : that I'm a trifle dizzier than usual. - M' Who would you rather have? Sam-;is ' my Baugh or Dan Hutson? Otto3' Graham or Lavelli and Speedie? 1511 It must be admitted that the smt passer gets most of the credit. But1 there is much to be said for them fast, slippery, ball-gripping end wh can fake you out of position and,, make the catches. "Je( My old pal Jimmy Conzelman tells me Don Hutson is the most valuable football player, for a team, that he-,;, ever saw. I saw Hutson take" . Howell's passes and fake such stars3to as Bones Hamilton, Keith Topping j( and other Stanford stars out of posK.'.. tion while they were all around iim. Hutson turned the entire pro leagui f()y upside down. '3lj |