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Show WHETHER it's $3,000,000 or $4,000,000, Tom Yawkey of the Boston Red Sox has put out more money in his pennant pursuit than any man In baseball history. In these days, what's a million, one way or another? Or even a bil-rTffi..- lion? The point is ; v"""'. : that Owner Yawkey v, is at least getting a run for his money 5 " with the best club ,"'' V in baseball, outside ;V. -V of the pitching. At least no one '' vp$P ' ' will argue that he "f t ") hasn't the strongest jr club on all-around y '"'vg affense. Few pitch-Esi-i ers care about step- Granlland Rice Pine out against Ted Williams, Joe Cronin, Dora DiMaggio, Jimmy Foxx, Bobby Doerr, Jim Tabor, Lou Finney and others. Few remember the fact that Tom Yawkey's Red Sox led the American Ameri-can league over a longer stretch last season than any other club, only to crumble in the stretch. Being an incurable optimist, Owner Yawkey is pretty sure this tirr; they won't crumble. About Tom Yawkey In the first place, the Red Sox owner is one of the keenest baseball base-ball followers anyone ever saw. In the second place, he is the type that wants to win far beyond the average human being. Tom Yawkey may not show It, but on the inside he is a tough loser, no matter what the competition. If he hadn't been, Tom would have called it a day or a season some time ago. He Is an extremely genial, liberal lib-eral c:Mf-"rj but baseball to him is no id' ything. Winning an American Amer-ican Fxe pennant is now an ob-ser ob-ser i matter of personal pride th beyond any concern with . , put his full faith in Joe 1 and he has backed Cronin '. jm start to finish, hi the last two years Yawkey has followed his ball club all over the map. He starts with his men in their spring training around Sarasota, Sara-sota, and rarely ever gets out of reach. , They like him and he likes them. Try to suggest that some other ball club has a better player in some position po-sition and you jump into the middle of a hot debate. He realizes that his pitching has never been what it should be. He'd give $200,000 tomorrow for a pitcher pitch-er good enough to win 20 games or more. He has already shoveled in too much gold to start balking at a mere $200,000. But the trouble is you can't find them, no matter how much cash you have. Outside of Bob Feller, how many pitchers in the American league could be guaranteed for a 20-game season? And good clubs are not selling their best pitchers at any price. A Hot Favorite One of Tom Yawkey's top favorites favor-ites is Lefty Grove. Yawkey paid out a small fortune for this famous left I'.1'-"' .,.-, arm, only to have it ; sjaJ go deader than a ( dodo the first year : I out. - H There was a gen v- . - j eral outburst of kid : sws - Jl ding for what many ; 3 called baseball's J ij biggest sucker act Tom Yawkey does- v n't like to be on any j-. , T!T.L sucker list. He" isn't that type. So when Lefty Grove Grove came rolling back and began to win again, the old-timer stopped all the outside kidding. In the last few years, crowding the sunset border line, Grove has more than made the investment look first class. Lefty had been smoking since he was 12 years old. At the age of 38 he gave up tobacco for two years to help out his condition, before resuming re-suming at a milder pace. At the age of 41, close to his 300th major league victory, Grove is still a factor fac-tor in this pennant race. Tom Yawkey never bought the Red Sox as a paying investment. He could have spent far less some time ago and bought Brooklyn. But he has always been an American leaguer at heart and he wanted to win an American league pennant. He crashed in during the tough years when the Yankees were mopping mop-ping up, leading the league from season to season by 12 or 15 games. He was up against a ball club the mint couldn't beat, not even with the pick of both leagues. I happen to know that in the spring of 1940 he thought the Yankees Yan-kees were due for the soapy chute. He had high hopes of a dream finally final-ly coming true. The Yankees did their skidding. But it was Detroit that dived through the opening, with Cleveland close. After leading the league most of the route Yawkey saw his Red Sox tied up around fourth place. This spring in Florida he still refused re-fused to accept defeat, even with rickety pitching and a rickety defensive de-fensive infield. He still banked on power on the punch. |