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Show SPOR T LIGHT . Kind Words for a Few Managers I ' By GRANTLAND RICE JJNYONE DESIRING to walk into " trouble up to his ears can do so easily. AH he has to do is pick the manager of the year In baseball base-ball and then prove it. There have been several managers man-agers In both leagues who have done better than, a minor job so far. On or off the record, rec-ord, I would say that a few of them had turned out work well above the average and rate at least a sprig or so of laur- But It was better than merely mere-ly normal to take a young team and plant it in first place by a margin of seven games on Labor La-bor Day, or shortly thereafter. After all, when the eight-club field was spread out In April, the assembled experts in a compact body picked the Dodgers on top. A few scattered votes went elsewhere, but the Dodgers were the people. There were five clubs given a chance: Brooklyn, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Phil-adelphia, Boston and New York. Sawyer's main job, once his young team moved into first place, was to keep them from getting the jitters or the yips, which are too often the result of inexperience roosting too high. It would be difficult to find a greater job than Leo Duroch-er Duroch-er has given his Giants. Durocher had a bad-looking ball club for the first month or so. The pitching espeically was on the morbid mor-bid side. The team couldn't locate itself and back in June was 12 or more games out. There seemed little lit-tle chance around July Fourth that the Giants would finish in the first division. They weren't any better than the Cubs or Reds. The arrival of Sal Maglie and Jim Hearn was the lifesaver, of course. But it can also be remembered that Durocher had a much better looking look-ing outfit working.. It was a team that had improved in every way. And much credit for this improvement improve-ment must be handed to the Lip. With two weeks left, Leo Durocher Dur-ocher could challenge Eddie Sawyer. Saw-yer. The Giant manager, always a star field director, was at his best after a poor start. He has had his best year. Billy Southworth has never been sensational this season. He has given his fans a good year. Drive, Approach, Putt Which is the most important the drive, the approach or the putt? Johnny Farrell says: "We drive for pleasure, but we putt for money." mon-ey." Jim Barnes says: "The drive sets up the hole." Hogan can handle all three assignments, assign-ments, day in and day out. Sammy Snead is a master with wood and iron, but he only wins when he is putting well and he isn't as consistent con-sistent around the greens. Yet he tied Hogan in the Los Angeles Open. It is seldom the average or even pretty fair golfer can blend his drives, approaches and putts into one good pattern. Once in a while he will get two of the three big patterns pat-terns working. More often only one of the three. In this battle of the three big factors fac-tors in a golf swing, I'll have to award the prize of importance to the approach. It is more iriportant than either the drive or putt. trtvrw -YMrn ei or onve. Grantland Rice There are three managers in the American League who deserve more than a few kind words. They are Red Rolfe, Casey Stengel and Steve O'Neill. There are also three in the National. They are Eddie Sawyer, Leo Durocher and Billy Southworth. This means six managers out of 16 starters who were above average leaving only 10 who turned out a routine Job, or a triffle worse. Rolfe started with what looked to to be the best pitching staff in the league. Later on he had to use rare judgment to keep it working effectively. He always had a great outfield, especially on the offensive offen-sive side, but only a fair infield and fair catching. Stengel bad to operate with his two stars, Joe DiMaggio and Tommy Henrich, below par physically. DiMaggio was magnificent mag-nificent on his big days. Ordinary Ordi-nary in others. Henrich was of little help. Casey had to lean heavily on Rizzuto, Berra, Johnny John-ny Mize, a pretty fair but unheralded unher-alded outfield and better than a pretty fair pitching staff. Steve O'Neill apparently inherited disaster. He took over the Red Sox when they had just lost one of the greatest managers of all time, one of the star ballplayers of the decade, Ted Williams, and were eight games out of first place. The Red Sox were promptly thrown overboard by the critics. O'Neill applied some brand of soothing ointment that was more effective ef-fective than any cure Tom Yawkey's hired men had ever known. In the National At this moment Eddie Sawyer and Leo Durocher have the call in the National with Billy South-worth's South-worth's case depending on the stretch run. The affable, scholarly Sawyer was far in the lead until his young Whiz Kids started skidding firsc losing five games in a row, and then skidding a trifle in others. |
