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% Rodney picks baseball's seven young greats

Robinson, 21

Mie #

tops the list

2 AE

By LESTER RODNEY

NEW YORK

In baseball, there is a type of player who most excites
the manager, coaches and owners. He is the player who
is unmistakeably an exceptional star and is young enough
to virtually guarantee ten years or more of unusual per:

Ormance.

I don’t mean: the “ifs’} ore nesmyse a. 4

Mean the sure, hard stuff of unarguable greatness.

aking the age of 25 or
younger as the dividing line,
ae through the big league
ple TS and came up with seven
ase who meet my idea of
i at this player is. Here is
Y list, according to age so
a hot to start any arguments
Out placement:

the QEANK ROBINSON. of

Meinnati Reds, 21 last

® AL KALINE of the De-
troit Tigers, 22 in December.

® HENRY AARON of the

ranwaukee Braves, 23 in Feb-
Cle;jHERB SCORE of the
y Veland Indians, 23 last
une, :
the MICKEY MANTLE of
1 New York Yankees, 25
ast. November.

Ex

>< William Mays made this “<mpossible”

@ WILLIE MAYS of the
New York Giants, 25 last May.

@ ERNIE BANKS of the
Chicago Cubs, 25 last January.

As present values run, it is
a reasonable proposition that
each and every and any one
of this special seven could
command anywhere from
$300,000 to a half million on
the open market.

* * *,

ROBINSON, of course, was
the most overwhelming Rookie
of the Year choice in a long
time The lanky, serious young
man from Oakland, had no
great minor league record back
of him, suffered a bad arm in-
jury the year before down
in Tulsa, and burst on the
scene unheralded and unknown
to most fans and scribes.

catch fin 1954

Series when the underdog Giants demolished Cleveland

lans in four straight games.

i

Detroit Tigers’ sensational sophomore Al Kaline steals a base.

However, there were some
of us who had heard about the
precocious young man, mainly
from Negro big leaguers who
have a good idea of the pos-
sibilities of young Negro pros-
pects.

Robinson’s solid thumping
and 38 homers (tying the
rookie record) was a big fac-
tor in the Reds meteoric rise
from a poor fifth to a dazzling
third, just two games out of
the pennant. If the Army
doesn’t get him, he’ll be a big
part of Cincinnati's hopes of
blasting past the fading Dodg-
ers in 1957. I have not spoken
to a single ballplayer who
does not agree at once that
this young man has to be one
of the game’s truly great hit-
ters.

x * *

AL KALINE is one of the
exceptional young men who
hurdle the handicap of being
a “bonus baby” plucked right
from high school ball to the

big leagues and forced to
spend two years in the majors,

He is a phenomenal fielder
with a great arm and a hitter
who zoomed to the league
championship in his first year
of regular play. In 1956, after
a bad start, he still wound up
with 128 rbi’s and a .318 bat-
ting average. There are few
limits to the potential of this
intelligent, modest young Bal-
timore product.

* * *

HENRY AARON won the
league batting championship
and had his partisans for “Most
Valuable” though it went to
Don Newcombe, who richly
earned it with his 27 pennant
wins. From the day this quiet
young fellow from Mobile first
entered the league, everybody
including Ty Cobb said he
could be the greatest right
handed hitter since Roger

Hornsby. He is a good, im-
proving outfielder too.
* k *

HERB SCORE looks like
The
blazing left-hander from Long
Island is clearly on the way to
setting strikeouts marks. After

another Lefty Grove.

his magnificent 20-victory soph
year, the word from his former
manager Al Lopez is that you
still haven’t seen him fully
developed as he will be!

* * *

MICKEY MANTLE, the All

Everything of the 1956 season,
the youngster from Commerce,
Okla., who finally overcame
too early publicity pressure
and leg injuries to blossom in-
to the player of the year, hard-
ly needs description right now.

Suffice it to say that no play-
er in history ever combined
the attributes Mantle possesses

MICKEY MANTLE

as the man who can hit the
ball the furthest, run the fast-
est and come darn close to
throwing the strongest. Don't

FEBRUARY 1, 1957 —

think he isn’t steadily develop-
ing into a superb centerfielder
either,
* * *

WILLIE MAYS’ off season
with a collapsing ball. club
last year (in which he merely
hit .295 with 46 homers, and
stole 40 bases and made catches
nobody else could touch) still
has the support of all for super
stardom, The youngster from
Fairfield, Alabama, who hit 51
homers a year ago, also has
his supporters as the one most
likely to break Babe Ruth’s
record. Without question, he
is the greatest fielding out-
fielder living.

* * *

ERNIE BANKS, also a bit
bogged down with a losing
team as the Cubs plunged to
the bottom, and hampered with
injuries, finally got going to-
ward the end of the season
and was climbing rapidly to
the pace which in ’55 saw him
do things with the bat no other
shortstop ever did, with 44
homers and 117 rbis. He also
as a soph cracked the mark
for. grand slams, All this and
a defensive shortstop!

* * *

These are the seven great
young ones. There are may-
bes and possibles and almosts
close to them, but .. . let’s
start no arguments. Anyhow
the unmistakable seven great-
est come from six states, with
Alabama claiming two in Mays
and Aaron. Since it is just
nine years since the foolish-
ness of discrimination was
stopped, it is noteworthy that
four of the seven greatest
young ones are players who
would ‘never have made the
big leagues before 1947.

Good luck and fine years
ahead. for the Big Young
Seven! .

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 15