Sport: Giants at Bat

When the New York Yankees slammed out 182 home runs during the 1936 season, it looked as if they had a record that would stay on the books for a long time. That year, the Yankees’ “Murderers’ Row”† included Lou Gehrig (49 homers), Joe DiMaggio (29), Bill Dickey (22), George Selkirk (18), Frankie Crosetti (15). This year, on the other side of the Harlem River, New York Giant fans are being treated to a show of fence-busting that is almost certain to overturn the Yankees’ record. By this week, the Giants had banged out 159 home runs in in games; in the 43 games they had left, they could scarcely miss getting the 24 more homers they need to break the record.

Burst of Power. A last-place club last year, the Giants began to slug this year for reasons that have eluded analysis even by themselves.** With extra-base hitting and little else, they pulled themselves up to a pennant-contending position. Their leading home-run hitter is 34-year-old First Baseman Johnny Mize, who has hammered out 36 homers. Right behind him this week were young Outfielder Willard Marshall with 29; Veteran Catcher Walker Cooper with 26; and Bobby Thomson, rookie outfielder who has hit 23. Infielder Bill Rigney, who hit only three homers all last year, also climbed on the bandwagon: he has hit 16.

Brawny (6 ft. 2 in., 205 Ibs.) Johnny Mize is -bearing down hard on Babe

Ruth’s individual record (set in 1927) of 60 home runs in a season. With a golf-like swing, Babe Ruth used to send the ball to towering heights, drop it in the bleachers or loft it over the right-field roofs. Mize, a competent workman with none of the Babe’s color and crowd appeal, drills out line-drive homers by main force. This week he was slightly ahead of the Babe’s 1927 pace. But to keep up with it, Mize will have to put on a mighty late-season spurt. In setting the record, Ruth hit 24 homers in his last 45 games.

Family Affair. Ailing Babe Ruth himself, 15 years a Yankee player, has become a Giant fan—partly because he likes to see home runs, partly (he explains) because the Polo Grounds are closer than Yankee Stadium to his apartment on Manhattan’s Riverside Drive. Ruth doubts that Mize or anybody else will break his record; but if somebody has to break it, he hopes that big Jawn will be the man. Mize is Mrs. Ruth’s second cousin, and the Babe would like to keep the record in the family.

In contrast to Ruth, who was good and didn’t care who knew it, the Giants’ boss slugger is inclined to be diffident about it all. Says Mize of the Babe’s record: “I’ve never broken it and I don’t know why I would this year.” Walker Cooper admits that the Giants are likely to beat the team record this year—but, he adds, “it’s up to the rest. Lord knows I won’t do it.”

† Not to be confused with an earlier Yankee Murderers’ Row (Ruth, Gehrig, Meusel and Lazzeri), whose club banged out 158 home runs in 1927.**Last week, two other National League teams caught the fence-busting fever and broke out in a rash of home runs. In one game, the Stv Louis Cards and Pittsburgh Pirates hit ten between them, tying the major-league record.