Sport: Eleven to Go

Two days after Labor Day, the World Champion New York Yankees led the Cleveland Indians by 3½ games; in the National League, the Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by a comfortable 8. At that stage, most Giant and Indian fans were ready to concede the pennants to the front runners. But this week, in what was fast becoming the hottest pair of pennant races in years, both Cleveland and the never-say-die Giants were still pounding hard at the leaders’ heels.

Cleveland Manager Al Lopez had closed the gap to half a game at one point by the last-ditch expedient of regularly rotating his top three pitchers, Mike Garcia (20-9), Bob Lemon (19-10) and Early Wynn (21-12), giving them only two days’ rest between starts. Giant Manager Leo Durocher, juggling a crippled pitching staff, pulled up to within 3 games of the Dodgers, thanks largely to the standout performance of Relief Pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm (13-3), who has worn a path from bullpen to pitcher’s mound this season in no less than 63 games.

Brooklyn Manager Charley Dressen (who last week promised readers of the Saturday Evening Post that “The Dodgers Won’t Blow It Again”) hoped he had an answer for the Giants in Rookie Reliefer Joe Black (14-3). But this week, when the Dodgers blew a crucial game to the sixth-place Cincinnati Reds, only a timely St. Louis victory over the Giants kept the Brooklyn lead at 3 games (compared with their 6-game lead at the same pre-disaster time last year). Yankee Manager Casey Stengel, aiming for his fourth straight pennant, had a more convincing answer for Cleveland. In the final Cleveland-Yankee game of the season the Yankees won, 7-1, and were in front again by 2½ games.

With the finish line only eleven games away, the time element was working hard for the league leaders. But the Yankees were playing most of their remaining games on the road, Brooklyn was plainly jittery from the pressure, and no team could yet claim a clear track to the World Series.