The Courier News from Blytheville, Arkansas • Page 9

FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 1954 BLYTHEVILLE (ARK.) COURIER NEWS PAGE MINI Break up Yanks Is Heard Again But Even Yankee-Haters Have to Kand it to Case By HAL BOYLE NEW YORK (AP) It looks already as if Casey Stengel, who has become the Bernard Shaw of the baseball world, is heading for another happy year. "Oh, no, not again!" some of my friends are bleating friends who take every victory by the New York Yankees as a personal tragedy. The prospect of watching the 'Ol' Perfessor" lead his coupon clippers to a sixth straight pennant strikes them as a catastrophe, and already they are yelping "break up the Yankees before they break up baseball." Each year the anvil chorus grows louder, and each year the world champions go right on proving why they are w.orld champions. It has reached a point where the Yankees hardly need to rely on their players. They could win most games by putting nine empty uniforms on the field.

Yankee Man I must confess myself I have no fondness for the Yankees. To me a Yankee fan is just a man who puts security above everything else in life. But I can't see how anyone who loves baseball could escape a feeling of ungrudging fondness and admiration for Manager Casey Stengel. The sport has done well by this graying clown prince with the mind of a philosopher. He has, as one writer said, "touched all the bases" in 44 years of playing and managing.

He has collected a few oil wells along the way, and drags down maybe $100,000 a year, which is probably more than even Lassie earns. Wrong Way at 63, "Ol Case" can look back on many long years when he rode the escalator the, wrong way, lie couldn't see the first division without a periscope. Neither late success nor his years of defeat have affected the wry cheer of his outlook. He is neither a braggart in triumph nor a "grumbler when things go sour. He has looked at life from an angles, enjoys it hugely and remains what he has always urg- ged competitor.

The talk of breaking up his Yankees does rile him, however, and he regards it as utter nonsense. "We play to win," he said the other night at a baseball dinner, face that looked as if it had been carved out of a walnut stump with a claw hammer. "And we're going to win that sixth one this year." The talk was pure "Stengelese," a delightful riffling of his mind through 50 disconnected subjects. It was like listening to a shrewd and ageless child rambling to himself all alone. Casey loves to talk, and loves to double talk even more.

He has a wonderful gift as a air of just being ready to disclose tremendous secret, a secret he never quite gets around to telling. 'At the end of his 45-minute talk at the baseball dinner, he had the guests helpless with laughter. But one, trying to sum up the gist of Stengel's speech, said, "All I can figure out he really did was endorse the New York subway system and say that a player could hit farther if he ate steaks rather than hamburger sandwiches." Stengel is a dinosaur, one of the last of the old tune players, and is inclined to brood at times because every boy in America no longer dreams of a big league career. "When a pitcher now can get $25,000 or better, why wouldn't any kid want to go into baseball?" he asked the other night. "What's wrong with that kind of money." Ty Cobb once praised" Stengel as the greatest of all managers.

Some New York Giant fans prefer to regard him as a lucky comic character actor compared to the late John J. McGraw. But whatever his final rating, he seems sure of a place tune in! BASEBALL PLAY BY PLAY KLCN-FM with HARRY CARAY BROUGHT TO YOU IT ANHEUSER-BUSCH, INC ST. lOUrt NIWABK LOS Budweisee ROBERTSON DISTRIBUTING CO. Texas Sprinters, Kansas Baton Teams Favored They'll Perform In Kansas Relays Which Begins Tomorrow By SKIPPER LAWRENCE, Kan.

(IPT Texas University's great sprints corps and Kansas' sparkling baton teams go after new marks in the 29th Kansas Relays tomorrow. Adding extra lustre to the meet will be the appearance of Wes Santee, one of. the world's greatest middle distance runners, in the Glenn Cunningham mile. Warming up the cinders in Memorial Stadium today were some 1,900 prep schoolers in the 50th KU Interscholastic Belays. Five colleges also were scheduled to start the decathlon program.

Holds Mile Mark Santee set the American mile record of 4:02.4 at Compton, last June. There's some speculation that Santee, who has been clocked 20 times under 4:10, will make an all out effort for the 4 minute mile on his own cinders. He'll also run in two of the team relay events. The Kansas sprints medley team, anchored by Santee, set a world's record of 3:20.2 in the Texas Relays. The Jayhawks' relay teams have set all sorts of meet records the past two years.

Texas is considered a cinch in the shorter stretch relays and sprints. The Longhorns won the 440-yard relay in 40.8 seconds at the Texas meet. They had no trouble at all in the mile and 880 yard relays. Hot competition is assured in the broad jump with -John Bennett of Marquette and Oklahoma's Neville Price the top contenders. Bennett went 25 feet 8 inches at Texas.

Price, the national AAU champion, hit 25-2. Sixty-four colleges and universities are entered. SHORT United States Golf Association says its OK forewomen to wear shorts, but local rules prevail. That won make Marlene Bauer, left, don the garb Glenna Collett sported in the early 1920s. (NBA) Liver May Hold Key To Trout Population By CARL F.

B1SSELL AP Newsfeatures Fights Last Night By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CLEVELAND Rocky Castellani, 160, Cleveland, outpointed Pedro Gonzales, 161, Bankin, Pa. 10. Mickey Mars, Cleveland, outpointed Nate Brooks, 119, Cleveland, 10. NEWARK, N. J.

Bob Giordano, 143, Newark, stopped Riggi Alotti, 150, New York, 3. eventually In the sport's Hall of Fame, It will be a lonseome day in baseball when the 'ol Perfessor" hangs up his uniform forever. HARTFORD, Conn. It may be liver trouble that is limiting your trout fishing Not your liver, of course. Or the ground liver that sometimes fed trout in hatcheries to help speed their growth.

How to Play Outfield-DiMaggio (ThU is the flrit of seven ar- tiles in which former major kague baseball stars tell how to play the By JOE DIMAGGIO (Written for AP A good outfielder must be able to do four hit, run, throw and catch a fly ball. The center fielder the most territory to cover. He must cover his own position, part of left field, part of right field and ground behind second base. He need not be the fastest outfielder but should have a good arm. He must be an alert fellow who is able to get the jump on all balls hit his way.

Because most batters are right handers and hit a number of balls to left field, the left fielder ia considered the second best outfielder on the team. Right Field Hu Chained When I was a kid. right field was the place where the less capable outfielder would play, but that's changed today. The right fielder Is one who should be able to play balls off the wall pretty well because in most parks right field is shallow. He must have a fair arm to make long throws to third or home plate.

An outfielder should be ready to take charge of a ball almost as soon us it is hit. He must get off. He must be on his toes with every pitch. It is unwise to play the out- It is the trout's own liver that may be the stumbling block. Lyle Thorpe, Connecticut's fish and game boss, says fish biologist "have had a sort of educated guess" about this for some 20 years.

It dates back says Thorpe, to when aquatic biologist began to note that hatchery trout failed to survive in "seemingly good streams" which held populations of wild fishes. What Thorp and the fish biologist at his alma mater, Cornell University, have come to believe is that the speed at which trout are forced to grow to legal size in the hatcheries is at the bottom of it all. Studies are now going on at Cornell may provide corrobrative data. Thorp hopes so, because he says something is killing nearly 50 per cent of the trout stocked in Connecticut's is the trout that are grown to "keeper" size before being liberated. A scientist's rule of thumb leads Thorp to believe that the educated guess concerning the poor survival rate of hatchery trout may be much more than a guess.

"The slower cold-blooded animals grow," he says, "the greater the life span." Biologists already have found evidence of this in studies of black bass in the impoundments of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The bass, Thorpe says, "'grew like mad" as the increased water volume made more and more food available to them. They began to spawn when about one year old. "But," continues Tharp, "they also began to die at four and five years of age, while bass that have matured slowly under normal conditions spawn at about three years of age and often live to be 10 and 12 years old." Thorpe doesn't know exactly what the growth speedup does to trout. "But" he adds, "there's a vast difference hi the appearance of the liver of an artifically propagated trout and one which has a right to call itself a native.

CJ CROSIEY 17-INCH We've got the "Hit Parade" miracle set! up leu space Light enough to carry Circuit Tube-Life Extender Front it all tcrMn Choice of 3 finishes Ari-fcM en pen fer $145 on CROSLEY "Save More At Moore's" Moore's Furn. Inc. Complete T.V. Rtpair Ttrmt 306-310 E. Main Phont 2660 "It Is lighter in color and considerably more fatty in the hatch- cry trout, and there a distinct difference in the chemical makeup.

Thorpe gathered data of this sort during his years as a state fisheries expert. He hasn't had a chunce to fully evaluate it and his chances are even slimmer now since taking over the administration of the Connecticut Department of Fisheries and Game. He hopes the Cornell scientists will come up with an answer soon. Until it does, Connecticut probably will have to continue freeing annually 90,000 hatchery-reared trout in state streams. That figure meets the demands of anglers.

field in a flat-footed position. On ground balls hit to the outfield I believed in charging the balL That gave me full momentum and made it easier to make a throw. I used to get hit on the arm while charging some ground bulls but ut least I'd try to have the ball in front of me. It's important to stop a ground ball as soon possible with men on base. A speedy recovery of a batted ball may prevent one or more important runners from taking an extra base.

When trying to catch a Ay ball hit in front of you it might be necessary to leave your feet. If so, do it while running at full speed. You can take the fall on your shoulder and roll over. However, I never went in for circus catches. I tried not to fall down or dive for the ball I always made an effort to bend down to my shoe tops to catch fly balls hit in front ol me.

Fellows who have trouble going back for a fly balls should have someone hit long fungoes in practice. In the spring I also believed in having the coaches and pitchers hit ground balls to the outfield. I used to charge them. It helps leg muscles, gets you to the ball sooner ivtid hc.ps your timing in fielding the ball. Call for the Ball Always call for the ball when it can be caught by more than one man.

The first one calling' for the ball usually has the preference. However, this wasn't always the case in Yankee Stadium during parts of 1950 and 1951 when Gene Woodling was playing left field and Hank Bauer right. On days when the Yankees drew big crowds we often had difficulty hearing the outfield calls due to the crowd din. I also recall a game in Detroit in 1937 when Myril Hoag and yours truly were running at full speed for a ball hit into the right center Held hole by Goose Goalin. We both called but neither heard the other with some 40,000 people shouting.

It had to be a running catch. Neither of us caught the ball. We collided head on and Hoag went to the hospital. My head must be hard. I stayed In the game.

But there we were, practically unconscious on the ground while circled the bases behind two runners for un Inside-the-park home run. The outfielder closest to the man making the play should call out where the throw should be made. This often is a big help to the man whose first move ii to catch the ball. Playing the Sun Field Watch the sunfield. You must get accustomed to the ball park before you flip sun glasses over your eyes.

In Yankee Setdium the ball seemed to play on the outfielders. We never flicked the glasses down until we were sure of the flight of the ball. We waited because of the high upper stands. I believe that's what happened in the first two games of the 1947 World Series with the Dodgers. Pete Relaer started out as Dodger center fielder and he had a lot of trouble with balls hit to the outfield.

My guess is that Pete, a fine ball player, was flicking his glasses over his too soon. It caused him to the flight of the ball because oi" darkness around home plate. Once you put glasses down and try to look Into the stands every thing seems black. Throws 1ind Cutoffs Throwing the ball back to the Infield is one of the big things In baseball. Always throw ahead of the runner.

Of course, there are times when you can throw behind the runner when you think he has overrun the base. But this takes split second thinking and accurate timing. Always try to throw the ball on a hop to the base. You can get more accuracy that way and it gives the infielder a better chanoe to see the ball. Some fellows believe the short- stop should signal the outfielders on the type of pitch to be made to each batter.

I think that to unnecessary. The Yankees never had an outfield signal on a pitched ball. Backing up an infielder or aa outfielder not only looks smart to the people in the stands. It if a smart play! When a runner to steal second base, the fielder should always in toward second base. On a poor throw by the catcher the runner often prevented frfm taking an extra base when the center fielder backs up.

Such a play the catcher an eiTor and often prevents run from scoring. On throws to first bast, the rlfht fielder should back up, and on throws to third base, the left lield- er should back up. When a center fielder MM nit shortstop or second baseman rim over near second base to take a throw, the center fielder should charge in to back up the play. Backitif Up Off Outfielders also should each other. A lot of these plays are by Instinct.

In the 1951 World Series, Mays of the Giants hit what appeared to be an ordinary fly ball to Mickey Mantle in right field. I went over to back up the play in routine fashion. Mantle went down like a shot just as he was under the ball. He had injured his knee and was carried from the field on a stretcher. I caught the ball shoulder high because I was nearby to back up Mickey.

Had that ball gone through I would have had to chase It it was coming toward right center. It might have gone for two or three bases, and we might not have beaten the Giants by 3-1 that day. Gene Hatton. Infielder getting ft spring trial wtih the Cinonnatt Bedlegi, is a cousin to Grady Hatton, regular infielder with the team. From -the world's largest maker, a completely new kind of V-8 The V-8 engine has come a long way since Ford introduced its first V-8 over 22 years ago.

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