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Show yiiiiiiimiiiNiiiiiiiNiiiiiimiiiinitiiiL: By ROBERT McSHANE (UUowd by Wilrn Nwipopr Unio ?iiiii illinium i iiiiiiiinuii ii mini mrE WHETHER or not the Chicago Cubs win a pennant this year and the chances are against it they will be one of the most colorful baseball base-ball learns in either league. The Cubs, in recent years, haven't been known particularly as crowd pleasers. Of course, they played good baseball, drew their share of the gate receipts and had thousands of loyal fans. But there has been a definite lack of that undefinable something known as color. Color is Die quantity that Babe Ruth possessed pos-sessed and Bobby Jones, Red Grange, Jack Dempsjy and Bill Tilden. Lou Novikoff, the Cubs' recently acquired slugger, has that same strange mob appeal. Followers of the Pacific Coast league declare definitely that he will be one of the best known players in baseball by ihe end of the 1941 season. Their optimism has a firm basis. Novikoff, champion batter of the Coast league last season, has topped the hitters of every circuit In which he has played. In 1940 he played LOU NOVIKOFF 173 games with the Los Angeles club. He baited .363, hit 41 home runs, led the league in safe hits and runs batted in, made only seven errors er-rors from his position in left field, and won considerably more than his share of games with well-timed hits. .452 for 36 Games During the 1939 season he played 110 games with Tulsa in the Texas league and batted .368. Finishing the season in Los Angeles, he hi) .452 in 36 games, batting in an average aver-age of more than one run per game Lou caused considerable anguish in the Cub stronghold at the beginning begin-ning of spring training this year. Although Al-though be was to be given his big chance, Lou decided that the figures on the first contract tendered him were altogether too small. He became be-came a holdout. Though official front office figures weren't available, reliable sources revealed NovikofI signed a $5,000 contract as against an original offer of S3, 250 and against his recent demand of S6.500. Baseball writers on the West coasl are almost unanimous in voicing the conviction that NovikofI will hit anj kind of pitching. They further af firm that some day he will be one of the greatest hitters in major league history. Herman's Menace Another colorful lad on the Cubs roster is Loo Stringer, a swaggering rookie who hit only .261 for Los Angeles An-geles last year, but who, nevertheless, neverthe-less, believes he can dislodge second baseman Billy Herman. Stringer's fielding is first rate. In fact, it's better than that. He often plays 10 feet deeper than the average aver-age second baseman and because of that manages to cut off an extra quota of hits. He has an unusually strong arm and is exceptionally fast. And he plays baseball with his whole heart. He has ail the necessary fire and enthusiasm. It will be a tough job for Stringer to grab Herman's job. Billy has been batting around .300 for more than 10 years, and so long as he keeps in the neighborhood of that figure, Stringer will find it difficult to win the post. Given time, however, he will be one of the topnotchers. Then, too, the Cubs have Dizzy Dean. To some people that is reminiscent of a plague. Others, and probably a majority, are plog-ging plog-ging for Ol' Diz to make a comeback. come-back. That's one outstanding thing about the older of the two Dean boys he allows no neutral feeling. Either you're for him or against him. In either case he stays in the public eye. Both Dean and Novikoff have been called crackpots and worse. Stringer's String-er's peccadilloes are fewer and have received less publicity. But all three have one thing in common. They're baseball players clean down to their spiked shoes. Sport Shorts Bill Dickey is the oldest member of the New York Yankees in point of service. He joined the team in 1928. Lefty Grove wants to pitch a minimum mini-mum of seven victories for the Red Sox this year. That number of triumphs tri-umphs will bring bis total to the .300 mark. George Dickey, White Sox rookie catcher, struck out only 17 times in 367 times at bat last seascn at Oklahoma City. |