BASEBALL'S WEEK
AMERICAN LEAGUE
The expansion to 10 teams and the longer schedule (each club will play 162 games instead of the usual 154) has brought a change in the statistics. Through June 30 last year 268 games were played. At the same date this season there were 371. On June 30 last year there were only seven players with 40 or more RBIs, led by New York's Roger Maris with 64. This season there were 23 men with 40 or more RBIs; Jim Gentile of Baltimore led with 67. Maris last year was in front in home runs with 25; this year, though hitting fewer homers per at bat (one for 9.4 last year, one for 9.7 in 1961), he led again, with 27. The big difference is that last year there were only 10 players with 10 or more homers, while this year there were 23. Batting averages were high, too, which may demonstrate a thinning out of pitching talent among the 10 teams. Gentile led a group of 10 .300 hitters in 1960 with .335. This year there were 14, headed by Norm Cash of Detroit with .367.
Even so, a power failure last week—lack of home runs—held Cleveland back. The Indians hit just one as they split six games. Home runs have been vitally important to this team. It won 26 of 34 games in which a player homered; in games in which there were none, the Indians' record was 18—25. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris continued to supply New York with power. In all, the Yankees scored 42 runs, with Mantle (.500 and six homers for the week) driving in 13 and Maris (.435) driving in 10. Two of the Yankees' four wins—they lost two games—were earned by Whitey Ford, who led the majors with 14 victories. Ted Bowsfield, Ryne Duren and Ken McBride, who among them have won 14, were winners for Los Angeles. Duren, with a little relief help, beat the Yankees with a three-hitter and stunned them with a two-run single, his fourth hit in four and a half years in the majors. Another hitting pitcher was Detroit's Don Mossi, who had two singles and three RBIs as he stopped Chicago—despite15 White Sox hits. That ended the Tigers' losing streak at three and the White Sox' winning streak at 12. Detroit then beat Baltimore, another hot team, after the Orioles had swept four games from the Athletics. There was talk that Paul Richards, Baltimore manager, would take the job as GM with the new Houston team in the NL next season. Minnesota's Jack Kralick and Jim Kaat pitched consecutive complete-game wins, the first for the Twins since the opening two games of the year. Manager Sam Mele set a definite lineup—including Bill Tuttle at third—and stuck with it as the Twins climbed to eighth. They might have done better if, on successive days against Boston, Camilo Pascual and Bert Cueto had not continued their bad habit of tipping off their pitches. The Red Sox, with three homers by Frank Malzone, won both those games, their only victories of the week. Gene Green, Willie Tasby and Dale Long hit consecutive home runs for Washington in a game with Cleveland, after theIndians missed a first-inning double play. Washington won 8-5, but despite 11 homers in seven games they could only win three.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Bob Purkey of Cincinnati went on voluntary relief—the baseball kind—to a bullpen plagued by sickness, injury and overwork. Still, Chicago got 54 hits against the Reds, including 13 homers, scored 46 times and won three of four. In a game against the Cardinals the Cubs hit back-to-back singles in the first, consecutive doubles in the fourth, two straight triples in the fifth and two homers in a row in the sixth. Over-all, the Cubs batted .358, had 22 home runs (equaling their total for the previous 28 games) and won five of six. Milwaukee did well, too, winning four of six as Lou Burdette won twice and Bob Buhl shut out St. Louis. The Cardinals' three big men—Stan Musial, Ken Boyer and Bill White—had just one RBI among them all week. Bill Virdonand Roberto Clementeaveraged one RBI in each of seven games as Pittsburgh won five. Bob Friend remained ineffective, and his record slipped to 8-9. Los Angeles was equally disappointed with Don Drys-dale, who wasdriven from the mound for the 14th time in 18 starts. By winning three from the Phillies (making it 11 of 12 for the year) the Dodgers hung on to second, barely in front of San Francisco. After a 1-0 loss to Philadelphia, the Giants' manager, Al Dark, lost his temper—and part of his right pinky. His finger caught on a jagged corner of a metal stool as he threw it against the locker room wall. Following a 12-5 win over the Phillies, the Giants suffered an ignominious 7-7 tie in the longest (five hours 11 minutes) night game ever. Philadelphia's tying run scored in the 15th when Catcher Hobie Landrith's simple return toss to Pitcher Mike McCormick went unnoticed by the Giant reliefer and rolled past second base. Neither Dark nor Philadelphia Manager Gene Mauch would announce his starting pitcher for the first game of the next day's double-header. Billy O'Dell started for the Giants, faced one batter and "was replaced. Mauch listed five pitchers in his lineup, thensubstituted for all before the first inning ended. Philadelphia's lone consolation—the Giants won three of four—was the fact that all this daffiness helped boost attendance.
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Boxed statistics through Saturday, July 1
TWO PHOTOS
GOOD LITTLE MEN were Angels' Albie Pearson, who hit two homers against Yankees, and the Dodgers' Maury Wills, who batted .455.
