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Show SPORT LIGHT -1 Stanky, Dark Bear Giants' Load By GRANTLAND RICE 1 saw a red bird winging I beard a bluebird call. I beard above the swinging the crash of bat and ball. I beard a duffer cursing out in the bunkered glen. Could 1 be getting goofy? Could it be spring again? I heard old backbones creaking I saw a double play. I heard the same old alibis come drifting down the way. I saw a duffer kissing his wife good bye and then I knew I had the answer it must be spring again! Where Pennant Strength Is OUR RECOLLECTION of the first great ball club we ever saw - goes airecuy to uie mid-infield. The team happened to be the Chicago Cubs and the two players play-ers were Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers. Here was the soul of the flag-winning Cubs 45 years ago. The next great ball club was Con- combinations baseball has known. Dark has been a star at football, baseball and golf. He was the man Greasy Neale wanted for his Eagles some years ago. Stanky at .300 and Dark at .280 give the Giants a good break in infield power, but teaming together on defense they go well beyond this flag contribution. The Dodger Case Against Stanky and Dark, with all they have to offer, Chuck Dres-sen Dres-sen gives you Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, just as good possibly, pos-sibly, and certainly no better than Stanky and Dark. Robinson will outhit Stanky but Dark will outhit Reese, so when it comes to putting runs across the plate there is little to choose. Both Reese and Robinson belong along the borders of stardom. Of the four I would say that last year Eddie Stanky contributed more to his team's strength than any of the others. He was probably the most valuable ballplayer in his league, although Stan Musial's place is always al-ways around the top. A second baseman base-man is in a more vital spot and this spot helps make them. Look over tbe list Eddie Collins, Larry La-joie, La-joie, Frank Frisch, Rogers Hornsby, Johnny Evers, Joe Gordon, Bobby Doerr and many more. The defending Phillies have a good pair in Granny Hamner and Mike Gollat. But Goliat only hit .234 and Hamner, an improving player each season, hit .270. This pair doesn't rate with either Giants or Dodgers. The Cardinals have Marty Marion and Red Schoendienst with Marty and his rickety back always an element ele-ment of doubt. Power Builders An innocent bystander, or sideline side-line observer, wants to know how Ted Williams and Ralph Kiner get all the hand and arm power they use in swinging a bat. It might be said they started with better than a fair share of this power and then worked on. Fred Corcoran was telling me about Williams Wil-liams "Ted has gotten himself a heavy bat," he said. "It is loaded with lead and it isn't too easy to handle." If you've seen Ted Williams swing a bat you have probably noticed no-ticed the great speed he uses in meeting a pitch only a few feet away from the plate. As Fred Corcoran Cor-coran says "After swinging this bat for a good workout, a 36-ounce or 40-ounce bat feels like a feather. It is Williams' method to wait as long as possible before swinging the ash war club. He wants to be sure a strike is coming before he swings. "This demands keen eyesight, quick reflexes and remarkable hand strength." Grantland Rice nie Mack's - Athletics Ath-letics in 1910. Here again the main strength and spirit of this club were Eddie Collins and Jack Barry. The Giants of 1922, one of McGraw's greatest, had Frisch and Bancroft. Here you had another an-other brilliant pair. It is around second base that many pennants pen-nants are lost or won and this brings us to the impending pennant pen-nant campaign of 1951 in the National League. In Florida there are two teams generally picked to set the pace in the older league. They are Leo Durocher's Giants and Chuck Dres-sen's Dres-sen's Dodgers. It might be noted in this "golden land of booze and blooms, this happy land of lush and leisure," that both Giants and Dodgers have Gibraltar-like strength around second sec-ond base. The Giants have Eddie Stanky and Alvin Dark. The Dodgers Dodg-ers have Jack Robinson and Pee Wee Reese. Johnny Evers, the Stanky of his day, was known as "The Human Splinter." Eddie Stanky might be called "The Human Flame." Moving into his 34th year, Eddie has been a professional profes-sional ballplayer for sixteen seasons. sea-sons. Yet he still has more fire than most younger ballplayers and no field ever knew a harder fighter or a greater leader. Stanky is a fine infielder and a .300 hitter, but his team value belongs be-longs much more to the mental or psychological side than to the physical. physi-cal. In Alvin Dark, one of the star all-around athletes of both leagues, the Giants have the type needed to work with Eddie the Flame and give them one of the best infield |
