Sport: Romp

Philly Manager Eddie Sawyer seemed candidly baffled by the New York Yankees. “They are not a real good ball club,” he complained. “I don’t think they’re any better than we are.” Yet, every day out, the Yankees were good enough to take the champions of the National League. After four days of it, the Yankees romped off the field with their 13th World Series.

It was the lowest-scoring series ever played. It was also one of the most colorless.

¶ In the first game, the Phillies’ big Righthander Jim Konstanty proved something which, up to that time, hardly anybody but Manager Eddie Sawyer had suspected: Reliefer Konstanty,* who had not started a game in four seasons, could be effective over the full route. He held the Yankees to four hits in eight innings. Unfortunately for Konstanty, Yankee Righthander Vic Raschi held the Phillies to two. Score: 1-0.

¶ In the second game, the Phillies’ Robin Roberts and the Yankees’ Allie Reynolds went into another pitching duel and at the end of the ninth the score was 1-1. In the tenth, Joe DiMaggio stepped up and demonstrated his old specialty: winning ball games with clutch home runs. Score: 2-1.

¶ In the third game, the Phillies managed to get out in front, 2-1, in the seventh inning, and most of the 64,505 spectators in nominally hostile Yankee Stadium roared hoarse approval of Sawyer’s whiz kids. But with two out in the eighth, the Yankees tied things up on an error by Shortstop Granny Hamner, went on to win with more clutch hitting in the ninth. Score: 3-2.

¶ By the fourth game, Philadelphia’s youngsters were feeling as baffled as Manager Sawyer. Behind the seven-hit pitching of Rookie Southpaw Whitey Ford, the Yanks, never behind, coasted to an easy-breathing victory. Score: 5-2.

For his muff in the third game, Philly Shortstop Hamner, 23, inconsolably told himself he was the series goat. “I’ve made a lot of errors in my life,” he said, “but that one . . .” Actually the series had no goat. It also produced no new towering heroes. The standouts, apart from the pitchers: aging (35) Joe DiMaggio, on his fielding and clutch hitting; quiet, self-effacing Yankee Second Baseman Jerry Coleman, 26, 1949’s rookie-of-the-year, who figured in five of his team’s six runs in the first three games.

Yankee Manager Casey Stengel came through with as much credit as anybody. Everything he tried seemed to work for him. When it was all over, crease-faced Casey, a good winner, reached out a paw to Eddie Sawyer, who had broken a path for himself to the Yankees’ dressing room. “You got a good ball club there,” Casey shouted. “You played good ball through the series. You did a great job as manager.”

* Who this season broke a modern record by relieving in 74 games (and was credited with 16 wins, seven losses).