The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-11
2 ERRORS ENDED DAHLCUEN'SB|C
 LEAGUE CAREER
Barrow Had to Be "SOld" on Joe Gordon for First
 Base Idea Now in Force
BY JOE WILLIAMS

St. Petersburg, Fla, March H. You still hear the question asked down here: "Why did the Yankees get rid of Babe Dahlgrenp" The fact that every club in both leagues waived On him not once but twice would seem to supply part of the answer.
 Any club could have dickered for him. Only the Boston Bees were interested. Clark Griffith of the WaShingtons is going around num- bling there was dirty work at the cross roads, implying that if the waivers had been on the square he would have dealt for the greatest first baseman since Hal Chase. This is a dtsh Of hooey prepared strictly for home consumption. Grifflth waived twice, like all the others: he just didn't want to add a fairly high priced man to his payroll.
 If Dahlgren had been the first baseman and team force he was popularly believed to be he wouldn't have wound up with the Bees. This is not to say he won't do all right with the Bees, nor that he wouldn't have done all right with several other clubs, including Grifhth's. But 1t is to say he no longer figured to do all right with the Yankees.
 All Done
 Dahlgren was through the mo- ment the 1940 season ended. No- body knew 1t at the moment except Joe Mccarthy. It so happens Joe Mccarthy Is manager of the Yam kees and when you are through with him you are through at the Yankee tSadium. You may have remembered the season ended in a blistering stretch drive with the Yankees, Tigers and Indians in a battle royal. The odds were against the Yankees when they went west but they still had good fighting chance. They had to play Cleve- land and Detroit. The Yankees hadn't been hitting well but they had been getting good pitching and tight defensive support. Dahlgren was playing smashing game at first and Billy Evans, the veteran umpire, who had seen them all, even put him ahead of Chase. But the Yankees blew & vital game to Cleveland---and 1t was Dahlgren who lost 1t. Then they crossed the lake and blew their last chance and again 1t was Dahlgren error that did It. We remember at the time that the greatest fielding first baselnan since Hal Chase" had pick cd out a swell time to look like a humpty dUmpty.
 But those things could and did happen. Even the brilliant Chase must have kicked one now and then Besides everybody knew what a marvellous fielder Dahlgren was. AS matter of fact, he had played con- sistently fine ball all year; indeed, he was the only Yankee who hadn't gone into something of tailspln. So we all rode back to New York admitting 1t was just one of those things and that next year would be another year and nobody figured Dahlgren wouldn't be back-nobody but Mccarthy. He knew he wouldn't.
 We haven't heard Mccarthy eX- press himself on the subject In full but we believe that If he were pressed he would confess that those two plays Dahlgren missed in the stretch drive convinced him he had to have a new first baseman. You are entitled to draw your own in- ference.
 If our inference Is correct VIC sus- pect 1t explains McCarthy's inter Gsting and unique explanation that Dahlgren's fielding genius was all q snare and delusion; that the players arms were so short he had to make spectacular plays or not make them at all. We don't recall that Mccarthy had let any of us in on that secret before. Perhaps he Is just too kindly 8 soul to de- stroy Q lovely pressbox myth. We never paid much attention to the length of Dahlgren's arms, except, since the subject has been mention- ed, that he actually did have arms, All we know for sure is that he got everything that was thrown his way, high, low, wide or in close and that everybody around the cir- cult used to sit back and exclaim, My gracious me! Just look at that fellow" It's too bad Dahlgren's arms weren't of normal length.
 Experiment
 It develops Mccarthy had to fight to wrench Joe Gordon off second and move him to first. Even Ed Barrow, the Yankees president. who knows about as much as there Is to be known, opposed the experi- ment in the beginning. He didn't like the idea of taking young fel- low who couldn't miss joining the ranks of the all-time greats at sec- ond and monkeying around with him at first. Presumably Barrow was more in favor of Tommy Hen- rich, the outfielder, or going along with Johnny Sturm, the freshman from Kansas City. But in the end Barrow was won over by Mccarthy $ dogged persuasiveness.
 Thus, Mccarthy stands or falls on his judgment that Gordon, already great at second, will become equal- ly great if not greater at first. We don't think he's running much risk. Gordon wasn't around second so long as to grow old there and he's a fluid physical type, capable of easy adjulStability. We'd say he's sure to pop except for one thing; We haven't had . chance to measure