t Ve,

‘September key

to record bid

By LESTER RODNEY

Tt Babe R antle ever, Vear of

Greenberg, who came = With 58, had as many Number 8S Mantle for the “date, Y of games played to

Closes ho: :

It igs :

Sottped possible to down or that ee the growing notion Young Ny New York Yankees at the = 7 has a real chance the Bae left. behind, by

M . Ba Reus league teams play 154 Show, “th little long division Presente ¢ 9 home runs re- fameg S One for every 2% to put it in more , t-wo for

& lot The 8 of

hit yy gees keen -fans know, fembe, the month of Sep- ign, ’, thd this is a chilling hilinges = i wait for the

thonth . eptember is the “On atte Weariness and ten- Mer oF 4 he long hot sum- {hough me after time at bat

8USt ang yo? June, July, Au-

nd salt of April. Nobody p ™ September be- Ce the Babe.

ther Ung ¢ re been three stir- Mark ove, weet to the Babe's . fine jist the years, The first or three years - after That 0 Was set. ‘OMe gf, eu 1930, produced Bame's loudest hitting in Sa live ty and it was in UY ball had been Urerg auge the manu- » ~eague hea Babe yo aS usual, re rman of Brooklyn average. to 393

Second j : ein n batting

- & fierce] ; W: yY unin- ® knocked in 199 T, @ mark that

ad nA end of Bay 8S runns 6 homers

abe’g anning ahead of the qd. Fourteen in Ww; »b ave give

*8 Io a all he could eat mal total of 56, 8gue record. », Sho 0 er, in 1939,

ered 4) POX%, the thick. > hiladey Tst baseman of

Dhig At . ty his e Calleq ene, af-

tte, bY pit,

Rings to eee seemed he Ruth

of August

Ing 55.

ree in Sep-

NEW YORK

here have been many other early challengers. to uth’s home run record of 60, but by now Mickey is off by himself as the most serious challenger Neither Ruth himself, either in his record breaking 1927 or in any other year, new Jiramy Foxx and

tember and fell two short. Twice he rapped home runs in early innings only to have the game washed out of the record books by rain.

Hank Greenberg, who grew up within a mile of Yankee Stadium, where. Ruth did it, gave it a big try in 1938..The tall’ first. baseman and out- fielder had 31 at the end .of July to put: him 16° ahead of the Babe’s mark for that. date.

He kept up his good pace through early September. Coming from an orthodox re- ligious Jewish family, he had previously taken off the high holiday of Yom Kipper. Not this year. He played, with the family cheering him on, and hit one.

With a week to go. Hank had 58 and excitment was high. In the last week he hit the top of the left ficld. wall a couple of times, had his share of singles and doubles, but couldn’t put another one out of the park and wound up tied with Foxx with the top runner-up total.

Oddly eough, and it- Is just an oddity, since there “is no sound baseball reason for it, the foremost challengers have been righthanded «hitters — Foxx, Greenberg, Wi lson, Ralph Kiner (54), Willie Mays (51 last year).

Among the hot early start- ers of recent years who led the Ruth mark for a while but couldn’t keep it up, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges of the Dodgers bat right, Stan Musial and Ed Mathews left.

Mantle bats both right. and left, shifting according to the pitcher to suffer the minimum disadvantage in field of vis- ion and curves breaking away from him. Given his other attributes, this definitely does not hurt.

Mickey and the Babe are about as unlike as any two baseball players you might select. Mickey is a normal looking 5-11 with strong, graceful build, shy and non- talkative. The Babe reared out of a Baltimore orphanage a thoroughly out-going, out- rageously unathletic figure with big round middle, pipe- stem legs on tiny feet and a mincing, inturned gait.

I have heard one ballplayer explain Mickey’s prowess by calling it “timing,” another speaks of his “strength,” an-

" other

MICKEY MANTLE

BABE RUTH

of the high velocity swing which neither “upper- cuts” nor “chops wood” (hit- ting upward or downward), and still another points to the rippling follow - through where you see how he has marshalled all the power ‘of his back, legs, shoulders and arms into the impact.

He is all of this, plus newly mature and a better judge of pitching, and barring the pos- sibility of injury to which he has been prone in past years there seems no sound reason why he can’t top the Babe’s mark. The fact that nobody has ever done it isn’t much of an argument. The breed is stronger, the fences closer, the

ivelier. ; “ar Shi doesn’t do it this year, he still has plenty of time. He is 24, and Ruth was 32 when he set the record.

The Babe’s greatness as a hitter didn’t lie in a one year total. It was year after year blasting. Much less in focus in the foreseeable future is a challenge to his lifetime total of 714 home runs. To give you an idea, the top total held by an active player 1s Ted Wil- liams’ 394, and this 1s prob- ably Ted’s last year.

Crowe

a hero

via Gustafson

By BERT WHYTE When B.C. Lions and Calgary Stampeders trotted out on the turf at Empire Stadium last Saturday night, Leos’ coach Clem Crowe had his fingers crossed knowing that he would be labelled either a hero or a bum within the next hour. His fate rested in the hands of quarterback Jerry

Gustafson, untried import tak- ing the place of Arnie Galiffa, dropped by Crowe. To make the situation even more tense Galiffa had led Toronto Argos to an unexpected win over Montreal Alouettes that after-

. hoon.

Gustafson came through bril- liantly, led the revamped Lions to a 45-15 win over the Stamps, and. Crowe relaxed visibly, grinned widely and told reporters, “I’m av genius.”

Galiffa was fired because he couldn’t run _ although everyone admitted he was a fine passer. Gustafson dem- onstrated -he could pass and run. The statistics show that Lions made 260 yards rush- ing, to 138 for the Stamps. In the air Lions gains 144 yards to 145 for Calgary. Jerry tried 19 passes, campleted 9.

In a recent column -I wrote that all Lions needed to make the playoffs was a good quar- terback. Gustafson seems to fit the bill.

From the opening kickoff, Gustafson didn’t look like a man under the gun. He was as relaxed as an old pro, al- though it was his first game of Canadian football and his debut in professional ranks. The second time Lions had the ball he led them 50 yards to a touchdown in 11 plays.

In three previous losing ef- forts Lions rang up 11 miser- able points, Under Gustafson’s

direction they scored 45 and made it look easy.

Gustafson is just out of Stanford, where he was a good but not outstanding player. The NFL’s San Francisco 49ers had him down in 27th place on their draft list. Jerry

looked like-a man without a future.

Crowe picked him up on the Sayso of his backfield coach, Vic Lindskog, who had seen Gustafson in action and liked what he saw. It was a big gamble for Clem, for he had to bounce popular Arnie Gal- iffa and plenty of fans were sore about that decision. If Jerry * hadn’t come through, the “Bring Back’ Arnie” club would have. lifted the stadium roof,

Gustafson showed a bit of everything. He mixed up his plays nicely, took to the air when the Stamps concentrat- ed on the line, advanced along the ground when the opposi- tion expected a pass play. And he led Lions to the big- gest win in their three-year history.

% * *

In Toronto, Arnie Galiffa took to eastern-style football like a duck to water, connect- ed on 20: of 33 passes for 271 yards and led Argonauts to a 51-28 victory over Sam Etch- everry and Montreal Alouettes,

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SEPTEMBER 14, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 15