Evening Star Newspaper, September 27, 1936, Page 74

THIS WEEK BHSEBHLLS HE lady who had come in with her hus- band to play an evening of bridge with the Gehrigs said: “I'm reading the sports pages every day, Mr. Gehrig, to see whether the Yankees win or lose, because John has promised to take me to the world series if you win the pennant. I'm thrilled. I should think that playing in the world series would be so exciting that you could hardly sleep nights.” 1 was going to tell our guest that if she had played 150 or more ball games every season for the last twelve years and that if she found herself on a pennant-winning team for the fourth or fifth time, she would probably be able to face the prospect of four, five, six or seven additional contests in early October fairly calmly. That evening of bridge and conversation was back in mid-summer. Since then our Yankees have moved out into what looks like a commanding lead in the American League. As these lines are written, we’re nicely in front. I’'m not saying we’ll win the pennant. Ball players are superstitious, and predicting DURING /077657 7 ATTLE HNivstrotion by Arther Jomeson THE SERIES | HIT THREE HOME RUNS your own success is flying in the face of Provi- dence. By the time you read this, you’ll know whether the Yankees are once again the champions of the American League. When your club moves out into a six- or eight-game lead in August, however, you can’t help thinking about the series excite- ment, especially if you're a veteran who has been through it before —as I have, four times. In those last few days there’s a new tingle in the air, and it’s not merely the crisp- ness of autumn. There is a new tenseness, even after the pennant is clinched. There’s a world championship hanging on the result of those additional four, five, six or seven games, not to mention a financial reward of a few thousand dollars. I'm a veteran by now, surely. At least, I think a dozen years in the American League and a string of something like 1,800 consecu- tive ball games without a miss entitles me to be called a veteran. But I’ll have to admit that the feeling which comes on one in the final days before the big series is a lot like the feel- ing I knew on the eve of the Columbia- Copyright, 1936, United Newspapers Magazine Corporstion Comnell gridiron battle when I was a sophomore fullback on Morningside Heights. Baseball managersand base- ball players talk a great deal less about “mental attitude” than do college football coaches. There are sound reasons for that. Ball players are older. Their game is a pro- fession as well as a sport to them. A ball club keyed up to high tension for every series — or even for every important series — through a 154-game schedule would be frazzled in nerves and jittery in actions long before the Fourth of July. Nevertheless, what the college boys call the “ol’ fight”” plays a tremendous part in the winning of baseball championships. A winning ball club has got to be a fighting ball club. That doesn’t necessarily mean an umpire- baiting, fist-waving, spike-brandishing aggre- gation. But it does mean a team that regards every opposing club, at least on the field, as an enemy of whom no quarter is asked and to whom no quarter is given. The Yanks have been a club that gloried in hitting. “Lick ’em a 100 to 0 if possible” has been the attitude on the bench. Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel and their old teammates early established that motif. We veterans — Laz- zeri, Dickey, myself and others — have tried to carry it on, and I don't have to tell you, if you read the sports pages, that we've had a pretty swell reinforcement this year in the person of young Mr. Joe DiMaggio, from the Pacific Coast. That’s one manifestation of the “ol’ fight” — but the Yanks have had more than that. Baseball is a battle,’and a great ball club has to have a chip on its collective shoulder and the willingness to fight when that chip is knocked off. That’s the ball club the fan re- spects. Off the field a rival player may be your friend. But he’s your enemy when he steps on the field, and until the ball game is over. Sometimes a situation comes along that helps a team key itself up with a fiery, intense will to win fully as flaming as that Magazine Sectio The “Ol' Fight” flares brightest in the world series — with fame and thousands of dollars at stake. The diamond’'s greatest star describes the tenseness that grips both rookie and veteran when the big series begins by LLou GEHRIG of any varsity football team.' There was, for instance, the 1932 series between the Yankees and the Chicago Cubs. Curiously enough, thestory centeredaround a Cub player who had been with the Yanks and is now with the Giants — Mark Koenig. Koenig had been with the Yanks back in 1926 and 1927, a mid-diamond partner of Lazgeri in those days when the old Murderers’ Row was operating at top efficiency. Later, how-_ ever, Mark drifted out of the American League to the minors, chiefly because of trouble with his eyes. In mid-season of 1932, however, the Cubs found themselves in dire straits for an in- fielder and acquired Koenig, whose eye-sight had improved. Mark straightway patched up the hole in the infield, began to hit sensation- ally and finished out the season for the CuBls by playing in fifty-eight ball games, virtually winning the pennant for them. Without him, certainly, the Cubs would not have won that year. With the pennant won, the Cubs met to vote their shares in the world series, and the story came out that they had voted only a half-share to Koenig, because he had been with them only half the season. Perhaps I should explain that when a club has won a league pennant, the players meet and decide on the way in which the players’ share of the gate receipts will be divided. Young players who have joined the club late in the year and who have not been important factors in its success often are voted a half-share, some- times a quarter-share. The same is true of coaches, trainers, sometimes club officials, even the bat-boy. We Yankees who had played with Koenig liked him personally and respected his ability as a great player. We decided that the Cubs were tightwads and misers and this and that for treating our old buddy so penuriously. All of us.were very outspoken about it. We decided that merely licking the Cubs in four straight games would be too good for them. We wanted to “ride 'em rough” and make them like it and score fifty runs a game if possible. We didn’t do quite that, but we did score record number of runs — thirty-seven, as I recall it — for one club in a world series. We ended up by blasting them in the fourth and final contest,13 to 6. We bombarded them with home runs. I think I hit three; Ruth and Laz- zeri each two and Combs one during the series. (Continved on page 10)