Evening star., 1939-09-28
All lis Members
Castoffs From
Other Clubs
Iron Horse Is Missed
But DohIgren Is No
Cripple on First
BY SID FEEDER,


NEW YORK, Sept 28-Your Aunt
Martha out in Winfield, Kans., would
be mighty proud of her stitching if
she could turn out patchwork quilt
as gaudily jumbled as the infield
those Cincinnati. Reds are tossing
against the Yankees in the World
Series.
Between Larry the Houdini Mac
Phail. in his day in the Rhineland,
and Will McKechnie they have put
together an inner defense that
should at least be in the oddity de-
partment of the diamonds hall of
fame
The Reds quartet might not even
make the series. But If they don't,
the st. Louis Cardinals, who would
replace them, wouldn't take thing
away from the conglomeration. The
Gas House Gang, too, has a cocktail
crew, well mixed.
Still those four fellows from Gin
cinnati have done pretty well in the
National League this year as a unit.
Buck Mccormick on first base, bat
ting a gaudy 1923, has made Sweet
William Terry's face very red since
William refused to give him a chance
with the Giants, and Lonnie Frey,
Billy Myers and Bill Werber all
have been better than expected.
Yank Infield Weaker at Bat.
Of course, they don't figure to
outshine the inner Gordon of the
Yankees defenses. Yet, oddly
enough, the famous Yankee infield is
weaker in batting than the Cincin-
natl quartet, man for man, except in
one spot. That's on third base,
where Dartmouth Red Rolfe, off his
play this season, is only the No. l
hot-corner guy in the business Rolfe
and Mccormick are the only big
leaguers with 200 hits each for this
fading campaign.
The Rhineland four will have it
all over the world champions in
mixed color and background. Take
Frey, for instance. Before he wound
up in Cincinnati, he was Brooklyn's
problem child for years. Some of
you undoubtedly still remember the
afternoon Lonnie let two or three
ground balls roll, unhindered,
through his legs like an ambulance
going through red light. And Van
Mungo, whose temperament is not
angelic at best, slammed his glove
down on the mound and refused to
go on pitching until they took
Lonnie out Of there.
Werber has hit about .290 this year,
but before he landed in Crosley Field
he bounced around the American
League for seven years. And every
where he is recognized as an author
ity on that somewhat vague base
ball profession whose members are
known as clubhouse lawyer"
Iron Horse Is Missed.
The other half of the infield quar-
tet, Mccormick and Myers, the Short
stop. landed in the Rhineland by way
of the Polo Grounds, although
Sweet William Terry never put either
in ball game for the Giants. Nc
Cormick has been an extra sized ball
of fire during the last two years and
has driven in 126 runs this season,
while Myers. although somewhat jit-
terry at times, has played lot of
shortstop for winning outfit.
Turning to the Yanks, it's going to
seem mighty funny not to see the old
Iron Hoss steaming around first base
when they take the field for the
first game of the series next week.
The Iron Hoss, of course, is Lou
Gehrig, who until he was retired,
was as much a fixture in the Yanks'
World Series pictures since 1926 as
the folks who crowd the East Side
elevated structure beyond the right
field fence to see the game for a
nickel. LOUIS replacement, Babe
Dahlgren, although hitting only 237.
is handy guy with what is known
as ducks on the pond" Batting
eighth, he has driven in SO runs.
At shortstop and second base, the
two Cincinnatians have a total of
some 81 batting points over Frankie
Crosetti and his acrobat-sidekick,
Joe Gordon. They may not hit as
often as the other buys, but they've
knocked in about As more runs than
the Frey-Myers combination, and
they've participated in considerably
larger number of double plays.
Five years ACCOUNTED States
women's team won Curtis Cup,