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Show SPORTLIGHT : Brooklyn Hurling Is a Mystery By GRANTLAND RICE TURT SHOTTON doesn't become J tangled up with any soft job next season. He had a young pennant pen-nant winner this last fall and his team will have another year's experience ex-perience to work on. There are a lot of things for which there Is no substitute. One of these is experience. experi-ence. This should be a tough squad to handle over 154 games with its catching, pitching, infield, outfield, speed and youth. What else can you ask for? Two ahead. This is the same treatment Tommy Byrne, another potential great, should employ. Byrne with control could be a stand-out, possibly pos-sibly the best pitcher in his league. Even as wild as he was, Byrne won 15 and lost seven for a mark of .682. But the left hander is potentially po-tentially a 25-game winner. Pitching Problems Even this far ahead It is easy enough to see that the main problem prob-lem next season will be pitching. It was terrible pitching that wrecked the Red Sox through July Fourth and left them 12 games off the pace. That's a big gap to make up. The Red Sox made it up at the fag end of the stretch and then had nothing left for a killing finish. fin-ish. Next spring Joe McCarthy will be in far better shape than he was last spring especially for pitching. He will havt young McDermott, a likely looking look-ing kid, ready to go. He wil) have Ellis Kinder who was called to action too late this last summer. And he will have in Mel Parnell a probably 25-game 25-game winner. The Red Soi don't care too much for the riding they took in many qoarters this last season for permitting the wounded, wrecked and crippled Yankees to beat them out. They will have to show a bit more fire next year in place of riding along on their averages. Averages Av-erages don't win pennants or World series. Casey Stengel may have as many pitching problems as he had through the last campaign. In Ras-chi, Ras-chi, Reynolds, Byrne, Lopat, San-ford San-ford and possibly Porterfield the Yankees have good but erratic starting strength. And in Joe Page they have the equal 'of two good pitchers. Without Joe Page this Yankee staff would have been nil. But if Porterfield's arm returns, and if Byrne can locate something even approaching control, the staff will be good. In 1947 Joe Page saved and won the pennant. In 1948 Page was of little help and the Yankees lost. In 1949 Page returned re-turned to his former form and the Yankees won again. If Joe keeps his weight in check this winter and reports fairly firm next spring, the Yankees will have a winning staff. Both Detroit and Philadelphia have the pitching if other weak spots can be cured before the 1950 season begins. s-&A. things, when it Grantland Rice COmes to a world series: A big hitter, such as Joe DiMaggio, and a relief pitcher, after the fashion of Joe Page. The Dodgers are a better team over a 154-game stretch than they are at the shorter world series. It may be that by next fall big Don Newcombe can work two world series games at top speed or that some other star will airive. The two Dodger pitching problems prob-lems or mysteries are Ralph Branca and Rex Barney, Here are two young pitchers who have everything except one ingredient. That happens to be a winning margin. mar-gin. Together they won only nine more games than they lost this past campaign, and that's not enough for what should be two big pitchers. One main trouble is that neither is sure of his control. At almost any given moment either might start dishing out passes and blow the game before it can be saved. There is only one way this weakness weak-ness can be cured. That's by hard work. I recall many years ago Christy Mathewson telling how he cured his wildness. "I put up a stake at the pitching d i s t a n c e," he said, "and worked any number of hours throwing one just to the left of the stake and then one just to the right. My target was a matter of inches. I felt I was improving when I could plant a curve ball or a fast ball on either side of the stake and yet fairly close. After that the plate looked bigger than a barrel. bar-rel. But it called for a lot of pitching in practice." If Branca and Barney could put in a good many hours pitching for control pitching to hit a tin cup there would be no great trouble |