Sport: Pennant Race

Manager Charles Leo (“Gabby”) Hartnett of the Chicago Cubs, one of the greatest catchers of all time, sat in the dugout at St. Louis’ Sportsman’s Park last week with two fingers wrapped in gauze. Nervously he watched his teammates, beaten by the St. Louis Cardinals in the first game of a doubleheader, whack out 17 hits for a 10-to-3 victory and thereby clinch the National League pennant on the next to the last day of the season. In that split second between the final put-out and the first whoops of his teammates, grinning Gabby Hartnett might well have reviewed the storybook happenings of the past two months—since the day he suddenly replaced Charlie Grimm as manager.

On August 20 the Cubs were nine full games out of first place, with only an out-side chance of catching up with the league-leading Pirates—or the Giants and Reds who were threatening to take the lead. But as the Pirates faltered in the home stretch, the Cubs, well aware that there was about $5,000 in World Series swag for each player, kept inching ahead in one of the most exciting stretch finishes since 1908, when the National League race ended in a dead heat.

Whether there was an individual hero of the Cubs’ sensational pennant victory (they won 21 of their last 25 games), no two fans could agree. Some thought it was 39-year-old Charlie Root, who pitched the pennant-clinching game against the Cardinals. Others hailed big Bill Lee, winner of 22 games this season, who pitched on four successive days last week; Dizzy Dean who, even with his sore arm, beat the Pirates in the first game of their crucial series just before the final series in St. Louis; Manager Gabby Hartnett who, knowing Dizzy Dean’s love for dramatic spots, smartly selected him to pitch the crucial game, then next day socked the homer that put the Cubs in first place; and Owner Philip K. Wrigley, who selected Go-getter Hartnett as the necessary sparkplug to win this year’s pennant.

Facing the tired and crippled Cubs in the World Series, opening at Chicago this week, are the slugging New York Yankees, who clinched the American League pennant (for the third consecutive year) fortnight ago. Although no club has ever won three World Series in a row, Manager Joe McCarthy’s Yankees were last week quoted odds-on favorites to do so.