Sport: First or Fifth?

Brooklyn baseball fans are a faithful and long-suffering lot. Six times since 1916, the fans have gone into a fine frenzy over a National League pennant, only to see their Dodgers ignominiously beaten in the World Series. This year the Dodgers are determined to make amends.

By last week one of the hottest Dodger teams in years had run away with the National League race, won 98 games while losing only 44, and clinched the pennant with twelve still to play. Reading the statistics, wiseacres made the Dodgers favorites to beat the American League’s New York Yankees in the Series and win their first World’s Championship.

Faith in Figures. The betters showed faith in the figures, and the figures prove incontestably that Brooklyn Manager Charley Dressen has a team of rare power.

Five Dodger regulars are hitting over .300: Outfielder Carl Furillo leads the league at .344; Outfielders Duke Snider and Jackie Robinson, First Baseman Gil Hodges and Catcher Roy Campanella are among the league’s top batters. The Dodgers have hit a club record of 196 home runs—40 of them by Campanella, who has also set an alltime catcher’s record for runs batted in (139). Brooklyn leads the league in fielding, and its pitching staff, though weakened by the failure of last year’s relief man Joe Black to come through as a regular starter, has turned up some pleasant surprises: Carl Erskine (19-6) and venerable Preacher Roe (11-2).

Even more important, Dressen’s 1953 Dodgers have played their best when the chips were down. Last year the Dodgers fattened up on second-division clubs, lost to the strong teams. This year Brooklyn trampled all opposition, won 30 of its last 37 games in the pennant drive. Growls Dressen : “We’re in no mood to coast. The series will take care of itself.” Faith in an Old Habit. Brooklyn will need its power. In the American League, the Yankees have made the same kind of runaway; this week, by beating second-place Cleveland two in a row, they clinched the pennant with a 13-game lead. Manager Casey Stengel has a cool, battle-hardened pitching staff to throw at the Dodgers: Whitey Ford (17-5), Eddie Lopat (15-3), Vic Raschi (12-5), onetime National Leaguer Johnny Sain (14-6). Backing them up is the greatest money pitcher in either league: Allie Reynolds, who at 34 can still pitch his way out of a tight spot with three blistering fast balls. Though Yankee hitters are less fearsome than the Dodgers, four regulars are over .300. Catcher Yogi Berra, Outfielders Hank Bauer and Gene Woodling, Pinchhitter Johnny Mize can all deliver the big hit with men on bases. And in Mickey Mantle (.297) the Yankees have a bubblegum-popping youngster who runs like a scared whippet and can slam a ball out of any ball park in the country.

Casey Stengel, going after his fifth consecutive World’s Championship, is making no predictions. But neither he nor his team is conceding the Dodgers anything, and the Yankees have a habit of winning the big ones. Says Stengel: “I’m sick of hearing how great those Dodgers are and what they’ll do to us in the World Series. We may fool a few people.”