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Eight reasons why Dodgers should win flag

The top picture shows, left to right, Brooklyn hurlers Preacher Roe, Clem Labine, Carl Erskine
and Ralph Branca, a mound quartet that will win a lot of ball games for the Bums this season. At
the plate, Dodger’s aces are Gil Rodges, Andy Pafko, Roy Campanella and Duke Snider, shown in the

lower photo.

Dodgers. This year Brooklyn should win in a breeze.

Robbed by baseball, Jim Crow

Last year the Giants took the National League pennant is a playoff series with the

No breaks for Monte Irvin

By LESTER RODNEY

BASEBALL 4s at dest a
short-lived career for the play-
erg. Thirty-five is “‘old.’”’ Finan-
cialy, they have to “get it while
they can.”

Monte Irvin, the New York
Giants’ ace, hadn’t had much
time to ‘‘get. it’ when he was
earried off the field during an
exhibition game at Denver last
month with a _ broken right
ankle. He is 31, but he still
*hadn’t had much time to “get
A : :

He was jimcrowed out of it.

Last season ‘was his second in
the majors. He hit .312, led
the National League in runs-
Yatted-in with 121, clouted 24
home runs. Bobby Thomson hit
the big homer on the last day

of the season that gave the
Giants the pennant, but through
the season it was Irvin, an all-
around athletic star while in
high school at Orange, N.J., ‘who
was the guts of the Giants’ at;
tack.

As Manager Leo Durocher
commented when he saw the foot
hanging at an awkward angle
after the tragic slide at third
base, ‘He was the big guy, the
guy that got us the runs. How
can you replace him?’’

Even so, jimcrow already had
taken its unjust due, jimcrow
that kept him out of the big
leagues—and a shot at the big
dough—while’ players with far
less talent held down big league
spots. -When he ripened-into a
pennant winners’ great standout
last year, he remarked more

Union hits free transfer lists

than once that he had been much
faster and stronger 10 years
ago.

The long years of hitting the
jimecrow trail, playing in the
Negro leagues for small money
and going right through the
winter in Latin America to make
ends meet, took their toll. If
he were white, he’d have had
nine or 10 solid big league seas-
ons—and big league salaries—
behind him when tragedy struck
at Denver.

Irvin will get his 1952 salary
as per contract, but from there
on in it’s like starting all over
again. Next year he’ll be 32,
no kid. and a possible loss of
speed, plus the bad effects of a
year’s layoff, could take him out
of the good money class he was
just beginning to enter.

UK soccer needs revamp job

By ERIC BUTLER

DON’T BE too hard on. the
vight half if he slices a clear-
ance, for he has his problems,
too, This is the time of the
year dreaded by British soccer
players, the time when the clubs

present their retaining lists. The

players scan them eagerly and
always with the fear of finding
their names on the free transfer
list.

Often they are not aware of
their fate until the season has
closed and the cheers of the
crowds have died.

I remember travelling to Lon-
don with the members of a fair-
ly successful team which had
just played its last game of the
season. The players, many of
them married men with families.
were gravely concerned about
whether or not the retained list
would include their names.

This season may well see more

men discarded by their clubs.
Extra tax-on next season’s foot-
ball is the cause and the clubs
say that they cannot afford to
keep all the professionals at pre-
sent on their books.

For the players, many of
whom have nothing else but
their soccer skill, it will mean
that they will be without jobs.

Many directors look upon pro-
fessional soccer first and fore-

_ most as a business proposition.

For the player it’s his life.

It ends all too soon for the
majority, who cannot find places
as managers or trainers.

* * *

THAT’S WHY the recent min-
istry of labor inquiry into foot-
ball players’ conditions is of
such importance.

The inquiry suggested better
wages for the players. They de-
serve it, Another point that
came out of the inquiry was that
transfer fees should be limited
to £15,000 and split three ways:

one-third for the transferring
club; one-third for the Football
Association, to be used for the
good of the game; and one-third
for benevolent purposes,

Club officials did not approve
of the transfer findings. But
many players to whom I have
spoken are eagerly awaiting the
outcome,

They know that a benevolent
fund from such sources could
prove a boon to soccer. Too often
we have heard of former players
who, after suffering injury, have
had nothing on which ‘to live.

Those days must be ended,

.The players, through the Play-

’

ers’ Union, are putting up a
grand fight for better conditions
of employment.

It’s a hard fight, but one that
the union’s chairman, Jimmy
Guthrie, will tell you is worth-
while. Guthrie, a former top-
class player himself, knows the
troubles and is leading the fight
to get them put right.

mound rookies live up to advance notices.

a

———THE 7

SPORTLIGHT |

By BERT WHYTE

STAND UP CLOSE, fellows, the next guy may be barefooted.
Here’s my rundown on the National and American major league

clubs, and the reason why I think the Cleveland Indiass and Brook- —

lyn Dodgers’ will meet in the 1952 World Series.
Come this fall I believe the standings will read thisaway:
NATIONAL LEAGUE AMERICAN LEAGUE ,

Brooklyn Dodgers Cleveland Indians

St. Louis Cardinals : New York Yankees

New York Giants St. Louis Browns

Philadelphia Phillies Boston Red Sox

Boston Braves ‘Chicago White Sor

Pittsburgh Pirates Philadelphia Athletics

Cincinnati Reds Detroit Tigers

Chicago Cubs Washington Senators

Maybe I’ve gone a bit sentimental in picking the Brownies to
finish in third spot. Last year they last 102 games and settled in
the cellar. But with hustling Rogers Hornsby at the helm the
Browns are away to a fine start, and the Rajah’s driving energy
could work wonders for team morale, as it did last year in Seattle,
and in Beaumonth the previous season. 5

: * x *

THE BROOKLYN BUMS are a bit weak on the mound, but
Roy Campanella is the best receiver in the league and the infield
(Hodges, Robinson, Reese and.Cox) tops in the majors. Nothing
wrosg with that outfield of Pafko, Snider and Farilla, either, --If
the pitching holds up I think the Dodgers will win going away:

I don’t think the Giants can repeat this year. though I get

the quakes when recalling that tremendous stretch drive last fall.

But loss of Stanky and May will hurt Derocher’s club plenty.
The Cards could conceivably take it all if their million-dollar

Much depends of

pitchers Willard Schmidt and Vinegar Bend Mizell, plus the maste!- |

minding of Eddie Stanky.
* % x
A WEEK or two ago I was
cautioning everybody not to sell the
Yankees short. Now I’ve gone and
done it myself. On paper the Cleve-
land Indians figure to edge out New
York, but ball games aren’t won on
paper, and the Yanks have a nasty
habit of confounding the experts year
after year. Loss of the fabulous Di-
Maggio and a roster of aging pitchers
makes it tough to repeat this year,
though,

Cleveland Indians are hungry for
a pennant, and seem ‘to have every-
thing — good pitching, good infield,
good outfield, and more power at the
plate than last year. If they can get.
past the Yankees, they're in. :

* * *
HAVING FLATTENED Rocky Graziano, Sugar Ray Robinso?

now has notions of becoming a triple-crown winner and lifting the
lightheavyweight title. At 32, Sugar is still the best pound-for~

ROGERS HORNSBY

pound fighter in the business, and might not have too much trouble ‘

with Joey Maxim, who is a fine boxer but no puncher.

Robinson is a natural middleweight, however, and might rue
into serious trouble if he tangled with Archie Moore, the Toledo
challenger for Maxim’s crown, who has tried for years to get 9
shot at the title. Moore is so good that experts ofter refer to niw
as the ‘‘uncrowned champion” of the 175-pounders.

Moore, a Negro, has been getting the ‘“‘Satchel Paige” treat-
ment for a long time. Remember how ‘long they kept Paige ou
of the majors, though every fan knew. he was the greatest pitcher
in baseball. When Paige finally beat the diamond jimcrow
was nearly 50, but still good enough to win some games, aD
prove a valuable relief hurler. 5

It’s not likely that Sugar Ray will want to tangle with Archi,
Moore, He’s a businessman, is Robinson, and keeps a keen ey?
on the cash register. A Maxim-Robinson bout would draw plenty,
and Sugar is confident he could pick up the marbles. What then:
Would he give Moore his long-awaited chance? I doubt it.

* * *

Good news for the bald-headed row at Senior 4 girls’ softball.
games. This year the champ Nut-House team will sport one-Ple%
short skirt uniforms, similar to those worn by the visiting ‘‘glamoT
squads from south of the border.

* * *

Senior sandlot ball opens at Powell Street Grounds April 27,
with Boilermakers meeting Longshoremen in an Industrial L¢ e
fixture. Other teams in the league are Pacific Tribune clippe™™
Nesei and Western Bridge.

ane

STANTON, MUNRO & DEAN

Barristers - Solicitors - Notaries

SUITE 515 FORD BUILDING 198 EK. HASTINGS,
(Corner Main & Hastings Sts.)

MARINE 5746 ae

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 25, 1952 — PAG

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