Keen Defense, 4Inside' Baseball Put National All-Stars Across
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Sports News Comics and Classified WASHINGTON, D. C,, THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1938. G—1 Keen Defense, 4Inside’ Baseball Put National All-Stars Across —' ----- -* lose or I I Americans Didn't Take All-Star Game Seriously. Vander Meer Proves an Uncommon Youngster. By FRANCIS E. STAN, Staff Correspondent ot The Star. ROUTE FROM CINCINNATI, July 7.-On the flagship roaring East from the All-Star game Jimmy Foxx leaned gratefully back in his seat, EN cocked a» eye at Jone Cronin, and murmured: “S’probably a good thing for us to get licked,” he said. "We’ve been used to beating those guys so often we took things too easy. No pepper, no nothin’.” There have been many other and fancier theories advanced for the American League's 4-to-l defeat at the hands of the National League All- Stars yesterday in the Rhineland. Jubilant National Leaguers have seised the opportunity to put Pitchers Johnny Vander Meer, Bill Lee and Mace Brown on a pedestal and point to them as the type of pitchers who have symbolised the league all this time. Some American Leaguers say that if Manager Joe McCarthy had not yanked Buddy Lewis and put Foxx on third base, where he made a costly error, the Americans might have won, anyway. This, and Joe Medwick’s remarkable catch ofl Bill Dickey in the ninth. If that ball had dropped safely But of all the explanations Foxx' probably comes closest to hitting the, nail on the head. The better team won yesterday—the better team between the hours of 1:30 and 3:28 I mean—and the Nationals were the better club because they outhustled the Americans. The ball players, with characteristic bluntness, maintain the All-Star games prove nothing. They mean, of course, it fails to prove one leagues supremacy over the other and I Vippose what they say must be so. But the 1938 All-Star game was not perpetrated in vain. It proved a few points. For one thing the National League, which has been pictured color- fully in most of the public prints as a downtrodden, antiquated, non-progres- sive and definitely minor league organization, isn't so at all. Vander Meer Answers Challenge. That, at least, is the only fair-minded autopsy. The confirmed Ameri- can Leaguers and a sprinkling of the unbiased observers still think the Ameri- cans can whip the Nationals three out of five games any time the two dubs meet. This may be so but it doesn’t necessarily prove the Nationals are minor leaguers. They are capable of playing pretty good ball sometimes better ball than the American Leaguers. Personally, I thought the 1938 All-Star game proved beyond question that 23-year-old Vander Meer of Midland Park, N. J., is entitled to consideration with the better pitchers of the times. His National League record of 10 vic- Americans’ tories as against only 3 defeats argued blatantly in his favor before the All- Heavy Artillery Star game even started. His two successive no-hit, no-run games spoke even more one was the weak Boston as Sacrifices eloquently, although pitched against pitifully Spiked Terry Bees and the other at night against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Then, yesterday, he answered the challenge of the best fitters in the busi- Power to Pitchers ness. True, he pitched only three innings but that is all the rules would Support allow. So that part wasn’t his fault. He gave the impression that he could By GAYLE TALBOT. kees, victor in three previous all-star Associated Press have carried on easily. Against the sluggers who blasted more experienced Sports Writer. james, had the misfortune of being National League pitchers in four of the five previous games Vander Meer did CINCINNATI, July 7.—The Na- charged with the defeat, though he tion's all that was asked of him. He allowed one hit, an innocuous single by Joe several million National League allowed only two hits in his three- addicts, who have taken an awful lot Cronin. He walked nobody and he picked Foxx as the man to strike out. inning tenure. Stanley Hack, lead- of lip from the opposition in recent oil man for the Nationals, greeted years, were bouncing around on their him with a clean single into left. His Foxx Says Krakky Is Bettor. toes today and telling anybody they teammate on the Chicago Cubs, Billy could back into a corner about the Vander Meer showed uncommon poise. In retrospect, the game l^t its Herman, then slapped a sharp This was the setting at Crosley Field in Cincinnati pester- eight thousand Jans packed every available spot in the park to merits of inside, scientific baseball. toward appeal after the first three innings, when Vandy was replaced. You got the jrounder Joe Cronin, and with day for the all-star game, in which the National Leaguers watch a contest in which the pitchers were predominant, espe- They were pointing out, with ges- a double in front of him the an 4 1. those the A. P. Impression that something big and important was missing. play sprang “upset" by defeating the Americans, to Twenty- dally of winning outfit.—Copyright, Wirephoto. tures, how their all-stars whipped the Boston Red Sox pilot let the ball Never before had a kid, spending his first full year in the majors, been pants off the best the American shoot through his legs. Hack took asked to perform in an All-Star game, much less start one. But did could 4 Vandy League produce, to 1, in thfi third on the miscue and scored on the trick in stride and it is that Meer won bout entirely reasonable Vander the ball big charity here yesterday, and Medwlck'8 long fly to center. Faces Red as National were that a few game. He baffled the confident American Leaguers, who lavrbed easily before predicting confidently What proved to be the winning run Broadway League Triumphs more such demonstrations would have the game and predicted easy victory. In three innings it ma>* have been that was scored off Johnny Allen. Cleve- the slow, sluggish, ungainly American he changed the enemy confidence into fear and thereby smoothed the way for land speed-bailer, in the fourth. Mel League crying uncle. Galento on No. 1 and Tennessee to Meet in Football in 1940. his successors, Lee of the Cubs, and Brown of the Pirates. It isn’t in the Ott of the Giants took a toehold and Capitalizes Rating—Duke Again Having lost four of the first five, one books for that American team make four errors and allow three pumped of Johnny's pitches Is Duke Tennessee will re- League to the Nationals were about to toss By EDDIE BJtlETZ, Longhorns in his visiting list for .. Bnoe Slaughter, who going and ready against the wall for a unearned runs to score: But that was what and Vander Meer right-field triple, Associated Press Sports Writer. sume their home-and-home foot- happened might in the towel. There was a last-ditch the Madison Square Garden next win- great guns for the Cardinals, has lustiest blow of the game. Where- ball in 1M0. have contributed to the panic. air about them as went into NEW YORK, July 7.—Lot* of rivalry they yes- upon big Ernie Lombardi of the Reds ter Coach Jack Gray can start been made an honorary member It was interesting to hear, in connection with Vander Meer, the opinions terday's game. From President Ford red faces around this town Note to Col. Alan Gould, Glndn- slapped the first of his two singles today an entire line-up of ex-John Tar- of the fire department down In Prick on down, they were and natl: Keep your eye on a chap of the Americans. The concensus was that Vander Meer was not as fast as Jumpy down the third-base and that lost its shirt betting leton boys and John Tarleton, if serious and determined. Another line, Broadway Roxboro, N. C., his home town. named Neilson of U. of Ariaona in they thought, but still a pretty good pitcher. At least, they said he had more was the ball game. you remember, is the school which drubbing would have broken their on the American League ... fourth Cincinnati is—and always was—a this year's all-America stuff on the ball than Lee or With old Grove won 84 in a row before the selecting Brown. Lefty pitching, the biting red-hot baseball town when the little hearts. of must have been pretty ... He gained 165 yards against Foxx had different ideas. “He’s fair * • • said last two National runs in the Seventh July well-known dust late last season. just just fair,” Jimmy. still is Reds are winning When the last fall and is set to to Tight Baseball Effective. were tough on Mike Jacobs, who Oregon go “There are of much faster than gifts, first Jimmy Foxx and then The Nebraska State Baseball plenty pitchers he is, and plenty with better Mebbe club galloped off with the bunting town against Southern Methodist, They came out of it looking like Joe Di the ball laid up with lumbago is made of cities from curve balls. He's no world beater. You can’t mention him in the same Maggio throwing out League up back in a rabid fan in men who have received a from from the Far West that a 1019, Cyn- Marquette and Santa Clara this reprieve uf sight. It finally wound up in the reports no less than three States The with was or thiana.