The Seaforth News, 1958-05-22, Page 7Will Willie Mays Beat Babe's Record?
. • Year afteryear the fans and
*he experts pick a ball player
end predict that he, will beat
Babe Ruth's home run record —
bti.t this season it could really
happen,.
'Willie Mays, the .jet action
outfielder of the San Francisco
Giants, could top the most •fa-
bulous record in the baseball
history books on a fluke!
Because they moved from New
'!York to San Francisco, the
Giants will play this season in
a- minor league park where
closer fences figure to be a home
run heaven for the mighty Mays.'
To increase his . chances, he will
play eleven games in Los An-
•geles against the Dodgers, in a
Coliseum batting range where
a pop fly to left field will be
a home run.
So Willie — the only active
player to hit more than 50 home
runs in a season — could wipe
out the immortal Babe Ruth's
1927 record of 60 homers in one
;season, a magic mark which has
withstood the assault of the
game's greatest sluggers for 31
years.
If so, it will be the saddest
accident that ever happened to
major league baseball. Willie, it
goes without saying, is a magni-
ficent ball player. But for him
to surpass the Babe's mark in
such circumstances, will make
a mockery of the game's stan-
dards.
It well could happen, though.
The reason is that Mays hits
to left center field. At the aban-
doned Polo Grounds in New
York, formerly the home field
of the Giants, Willie's homers
had to be hit a country mile
lbecause left centre there is a
blast of anywhere from 450 to
470 feet to reach the stands.
In Seals Stadium, a minor
league park which the Giants
will use in San Francisco while,
their new stadium is being erect-
ed, the distance is only 412 feet
from home plate to the farthest
spot in deep center field. Willie's
power target is less than 400
feet — and he'll have 77 home
>tames in which to draw his bead.
There are also the 11 games
be : will play in the Dodgers'
- Coliseum, another temporary
park while a stadium is being
erected, and there the left field
barrier is a mere 250 feet from
home plate.
"Sometimes I hit homer s in
bunches of five or six," Willie
grins.
He well can smile. In those 11
games alone, with that pop fly
target, he might hit them in
bunches by the dozen,
If Willie were to play all his
home games in the Coliseum,
Ruth's record would be a dead
duck. For, as Duke Snider of
• the Dodgers observed sadly —
being a left-handed hitter:
"Every day will be Christmas
for right-handed hitters. Why,
the weakest right-handed hitter
in the league will be hitting pop
fly home runs over that screen."
Willie, a right-handed hitter,
isn't the weakest hitter in the
league by any stretch of the ima-
gination. Without the added help
Of shorter fences for 88 games
—77 at San Francisco and 11 in
the Los Angeles Coliseum — he
previously was tabbed by not
less an expert than Hank Green-
berg as the man who might
break Ruth's record.
"Somebody will have to do it
e o m e d a y ," says Greenberg.
"Mays certainly could be the
one."
To do it in the present cir-
cumstances would rob Willie et
the credit which should go ulti-
mately to the man who does
break Ruth's mark legitimately.
Looking over Seals Stadium,
where Mays will play half of
his games this season, owner
Horace Stoneham observed:
"It's surely an inviting place
for Willie to hit."
Mays had to agree.
"I don't want to say how
much bili' I'll bit better here,",
he said.
There are two other factors
which could help Willie in a
phony shattering of the Babe's
record.
The first is that he isn't likely
to tighten up when he gets close
to the 60 mark because Mays,
a thorough teals man, actually
doesn't care whether he breaks
Ruth's record or not The second
is the way they have cut him
loose on the basepaths.
Willie last season ran wild on
the bases. In 1956 he stole 40
of them, the highest since Kiki
Cuyler pilfered 43 in 1929. Then
he swiped 98 more in 1957. This
means that the pitchers can't
afford to give him as many free
passes because Willie always is
a threat to work himself into
scoring position anyhow writes
Oscar Fraley in The Police Ga-
zette.
Greenberg, who along with
Jimmy Fox walloped 58 homers
to make the closest previous ap-
proach to Ruth's record, proves
the value of Willie's amazing
ability to relax and forget the
big record.
"When I got close," Hank said,
"every time I walked' up to the
plate toward the end of the
season I could feel the pressure
building up."
All of the "50 hitters" and.
there were only six counting
Ruth, himself, before Mays club-
bed 51 in 1955 - felt that same
pressure. Hack Wilson got. to
56 in 1930 before the roof fell
in and Ralph Kiner had 54 in
1949 as well as tying Johnny
Mize with 51 in 1947.
"Home run hitters ride in
Cadillacs," Kiner explained.
"Singles hitters ride in Fords,
So it was only natural to be
swinging for the seats when you
only needed a half dozen more
to tie the big record — and
then knew you weren't going to
do it as the days dwindled away
on you, It was a sad feeling,
I'll tell you."
But Willie says that he doesn't
givea hoot for the Ruth record
—and he says it so that he makes
you believe him. That "don't
care" attitude about home runs
or records could spell the dif-
ference if he went winging down
the final month of the season
needing only a relaxed attitude
to carry him home.
Willie faces the issue squarely,
"Everybody's always talkin'
about my hitting and whether
I'm gonna hit those 60 runs
that Ruth hit," he analyzes,
"But, believe me, I'd rather win
a game with a little. old single
than hit a dozen home runs —
or 60 — that don't count."
The only records he . cares
about, he grins, are those by
Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
Speedy Going
Now the B-29 was behind and
far below me as. the fiery furnace
of burning propellants hurled me
upward. Catching my breath at
last, I spoke with effort over
the radio. "Three chambers fir-
ing," I said deliberately, main-
taining a calm and even voice
so I could be understood by the
listeners on the ground. Still
climbing with me but rapidly
falling behind, Chuck Yeager in
the F-80 chase plane came on the
air to confirm my engine start.
"Everything looks fine from
here," he assured me.
I was alone now, but hardly
conscious of my surroundings, as
I held the nose of the soaring
rocket ship in a steep climb up-
ward. The control wheel moved
impulsively in my hands and my
grip instinctively, tightened to
steady it as the rushing air
blasted against the hurtling
plane. My eyes were concentrat-
ed on the air speed indicator and
my arms strained achingly
GOODBYE, OLD PAL—Members
of the _ "Friends to Animals"
dedicate a memorial in Paris,
France, to Laika, the space -
traveling dog that died in Sput-
nik II, A bronze, cut -away rep-
resentation of the earth satellite
atop the stone pedestal. shows
Laika inside. The dog saying
his farewell to Laika is Dandy
Des Herbieres, an international
champion,
against the control surface as
f strove to hold the climb angle
that would keep my upward
rush at the predetermined speed.
A mere flick of my eye
muscles, no more than the frac-
tion . of a second, showed me
altitude was already 45,000 feet.
Now ever so slowly, ever so care-
fully, I pushed forward on the
wheel to nose over into level
flight. A glance at the Mach -
meter and then back to the alti-
meter. Speed now was Mach .9—
nine-tenths of the speed of sound.
The upward rush of the airplane
continued and accelerated as it
passed 50,000 feet.
Now I reached down and turn-
off my Machmeter. Still a crude
makeshift instrument, it was not
designed to operate at extreme
altitudes. The altimeter stood at
65,000 feet. I was aware ofthe
absence of sound in the cockpit,
broken only by the static of the
radio in the headset, as I pointed
the nose of the X-1 skyward
again and switched on the fourth
rocket chamber for the final por-
tion of my climb.
Sound could not tell me it did
not start, for *11 sound was be-
hind me. Only from the blank
eye on the chamber pressure
gauge, a dot of emptiness in the
shadowy cockpit, did I know the
fourth chamber was not firing,
But there was no time to specu-
late'on the reason for the mal-
function. X-1 rocket time was
critical, measured in seconds, and
my job now was to fly on the
three chambers to maximum al-
titude before the fuel was gone.
—From "The Fastest Man Alive",
by Lt. Col. Frank K. Everest, Jr.
Drive With Gare
MERRY MENAGERIE
"Nervy little guy!"
BIG NEW HOME FOR THE DODGERS -Aerial view of the Los Angeles Coliseum shows the record
opening -day crowd of 78,672 who watched the Los Angeles (nee Brooklyn) Dodgers defeat the
Sqn Francisco (New York) Giants, 6-5. The crowd eclipsed the old opening -day mark of 73,168
set in 1958 at Cleveland when the Indiana played the St. Louis Browns.
, GREEN i.
J r/ 1x.111'
SCI ; �- . Gord.on $mitlL
'n
Sure it is getting late but
there is s'till plenty. of time to
have a good flower garden and
as for vegetables this is the pro-
per time for 'second and third
plantings of such things as
bean s, lettuce, corn, carrots,
beets and so on. Moreover, if
one wants to get anything like
maximum high quality produc-
tion one shouldgo on making
successive plantings of these
vegetables every two weeks or so
right up to early July.
Many flower seeds sown now
will . germinate . and grow so
quickly that they almost seem, to
catch, up to those planted earlier.
And, fo course, we can save
weeks by uisng started plants
bought from seedsmen or green-
houses. A little extra care in the
way of cultivation, fertilizer and
watering will bring late planted
crops along amazingly fast.
Some Will Need Support
Tall paints, especially to ones
with long straight stalks, will
need support to withstand dam-
age by high winds or heavy rains.
In this category are delphiniums,
dahlias, perhaps some of the
hollyhocks and ornamental sun-
flowers. Usually stakes about
one inch by one inch a little
shorter than the plant is high and
driven in will be sufficient.
To these the plants are tied
loosely with soft twine, raffia or
anyof the special twisting ma-
terials sold by seed stors. With
low bushy plants like peonies
or Oriental poppies sometimes a
hoop of wire or wood isp laced
about them and a foot or so above
the ground. In England around
.delphinium and such bushier
flowers, early in the spring, they
stick bits of brush in the ground.
Gradually the plant grows about
this hiding it but being firmly
supported just the same.
For supporting sweet peas and
the taller sorts of garden peas,
and also other climbers some
people use chicken wire or old
tennis netsorstrings. But a
better material is brush if a
supply can be obtained. This if
pushed firmly in the ground
along the rows and before the
plants ,are more than a few
inches high. Depending upon the
locality brush from three to six
feet high is suitable and the bush-
ier the better.
Most people stake tomatoes.
Usually a six to seven foot stake
is driven firmly in the ground
when the tomato plant is set out.
About every foot of growth the
stem is tied loosely but securely.
All side shoots are nipped off
and towards the end of the sum-
mer to hasten maturity of fruit
the main stem is also nipped.
Hints For Hot Weather
When the weather turns warm,
the experienced gardener - will ,
make some changes in routine,
The grass, for instance, will not
need to be cut neary as often
and it should not be cut so close.
Leaving it a couple of inches
high will provide a litle shade
and prevent the sun from burn-
ing the roots and drying out the
top soil.
It may also be necessary to
use the hose more often. For
grass as well as flowers and
vegetables, and especially so in
hot weather, it is better to give
one good soaking once a week
than seven daily sprinklings. The
later do little more than lay the
dust anyway and they are quite
likely to bring roots up to the
surface where as soon as the soil
dries out the sun is liable to
kill them.
In the vegetable garden in hot
weather one should cultivate
lightly but not deply, sufficient
lightly but not deeply, sufficient-
ly to keep the soil loose and open
—this is what the experts call
a dust mulch. This prevents
evaporation of moisture and
helps prevent soil baking. In dry
areas this light and shallow cul-
tivation will keep crops grow-
ing for weeks without a drop
of rain.
Another sort of mulch which
also conserves moisture in hot
weather is a layer of grass clip-
pings, straw, leaves or what not.
This is used to cover the ground
between rows in the vegetable
garden or space between flowers
or strawberry plants, etc. It will
hold moisture, check weeds and
it saves cultivation.
A B1IEDIE
Birdie Tebbetts, the Cincinnati
manager, is one of those fellows •
who eats, sleeps, and drinks
baseball. During the past winter,
he relaxed sufficiently to take
in a few shows in New York.
In the lobby between acts one
evening, he ran into a friend
who politely inquired about
Birdie's. family.
"And how are your kids,
Birdie?" he asked.
'Well," replied the Cincinnati
skipper, thoughtfully, "I could
use a little snore right-handed
pitching."
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IT PAYS TO USE
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How Can 1?
By Anne Ashley
Q. How can I clean feathers
on hats?
A. Ostrich feathers can be
washed by running them through
the loosely -closed hand in luke-
warm suds made with white
soap; then rinse in water of the
same temperature. When hang-
ing up to dry, tie a piece of
string to the end of the quill and
shake frequently while drying.
Q. How can I test hooks and
eyes before making a garment,
to determine whether they will
rust when the garment is laun-
dered?
A. Steel hooks and eyes are
liable to rust. Before using them,
test with a small magnet. If the
magnet draws them they con-
tain steel.
Q. How can I prevent costume
jewelry from leaving greenish
marks on the skin?
A. Wash it in warm water and
baking soda occasionally. Rinse
and dry carefully afterwards.
Q. Flow can I store laundry
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A. The wrappers should be
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ISSUE 20 — 1958
NOT FAR AWAY—Toothless Jim
Riddle started his Sigma Chi
fraternity brothers on a wild
goose chase when he reported
his four -tooth bridge was mis-
sing. A search of l ue fraternity
house failed to turn up the
bridge—and then Jim got an
idea. It didn't take the X-ray
technician long to prove Jim's
idea was right—he had swal-
lowed the teeth.
BACKACH
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