(8 of 8)
"The big surprise," says Birdie, "is the Philadelphia club. Everybody expected that Cincinnati and St. Louis would have a chance to win, and Brooklyn and Milwaukee were the favorites. Now the season is almost half over and it still looks like a five-club race. Oh, the Phils have got great young pitching. The Cardinals could win it too; they've come up with young pitchers that have been tremendous for them. The Braves, they got the equipment. The most powerful ball club is ours or Milwaukee, and ours is the best defensive club. It's a tough league."
It's a tough league, indeed, and a tight race, and the Reds are counting on Birdie to keep them rolling. "This is a game of momentum," says he. "If a ball club gets hot and they begin to roll, you can throw all the statistics in the world right out the window."
*-So named because a young lady named Margaret Truman (no kin to Mrs. Cliftpn Daniel), who knitted the uniform socks, decided that the boys would look nice in red. -The nickname lasted until the era of Joe McCarthy—the late Senator, not the great New York Yankee manager. Then, patrioteering owners with an ear for public opinion and rustlings among the Reds ruled that their ball club should be called the Redlegs.