Word: cleveland
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Cleveland's easygoing Tito Francona, 25, is the late-bloomer of the season, a player who was shunted in three years' time from the Orioles to the White Sox to the Tigers to the Indians, where he began the year on the bench. In Cleveland, Francona was soon coaxing players to pitch to him by the hour in the empty stadium, gradually improved a swing that had always been basically sound. Manager Joe Gordon took a hand. "He got me to swing down on the ball-what he calls 'tomahawk' it-so I'd level...
They will need it, for Milwaukee's Braves are far from dead. After five players had failed to fill the hole left at second by Red Schoendienst, out with tuberculosis, Manager Fred Haney is finally getting some help from Bobby Avila, 33, the old Cleveland Indian, who knows what to do with the ball, even though he cannot go far to get it. Schoendienst may be back by September, but in the meantime Haney can more than make do with the men who won for him in 1957 and 1958: husky Third Baseman Ed Mathews is still hitting home...
...made Lane's new players fizz instead of fizzle was Manager Joe Gordon, the old Yankee second baseman, who had helped Cleveland win the world championship in 1948. Gordon has his high-spirited Indians playing a confident, aggressive brand of ball that is packing the fans into Cleveland Stadium* after years of declining attendance since the 1954 pennant. Backed by a long-ball attack, this whirlwind play has so far made up for mediocre pitching. (FastBaller Herb Score has never recovered his coordination since being hit in the eye with a batted ball...
Paved Playing Field. For the fun of it is the only way Cleveland's Rocky Colavito has ever played baseball since he discovered the game existed as a toddler back home in The Bronx. Rocky was the youngest of five children born to Rocco Colavito, a sturdy, hard-working iceman, and Angelina Spodafino. Rocco and Angelina came separately to the U.S. in the early '20s from Bari, Italy, met and married in New York City. Rocky's boyhood heroes were his big brothers, Dominick and Vito, who taught him to throw and hit on the paved playing...
...about. Rocky quit high school ("baseball was the only thing I really cared about") and waited to be courted. Yankee Stadium was just a couple of miles away, and Colavito idolized Joe DiMaggio. But the Yankee scouts fretted so long about his slow running (he has inverted arches) that Cleveland got him for a cut-rate $3,000 bonus...