Word: dodgerism
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Luckily, though, some do. Roger Kahn, a Brooklyn-born sage weaned on decades of Dodger glory, spent the better part of his youth trying, in his own words, "to equate the game in terms of Americana." The result was a fat passel of pseudo-sociological articles that would have warmed the heart of Vance Packard. Only they didn't work. Slowly, Kahn admits, he realized that baseball was one interesting part of American life, but hardly a mystic expression of its inner meaning. Like all fun and games, baseball is best suited to anecdotes, not weighty moralizing, to light yarns...
...small-town America, might one day see the dream come true--but for now they play to what the Pope calls a private audience, with not enough fans in the two-bit stadium seats to fill a quorum at a PTA meeting. Others, like the 18 members of former Dodger Wally Moon's superb Arkansas small college team, have the talent but little opportunity; while there are those with even less chance. The eager, almost fanatical youngsters of Puerto Rico, where youth baseball has been uncorrupted by the small-time ambitions of fat Little League coaches, all hope to follow...
...Dodgers won 22 of their first 26 games, the quickest start of any major league team since 1955, when baseball was still played in Brooklyn. That Dodger team lost only two of their first 24, coasted to the pennant, then whipped the dreaded Yankees for their first-ever World Series win. Those were the "Bums" of Campanella, Reese, Hodges and Robinson, the "Duke" of Flatbush and big Don Newcombe, whose pinch hitting was as fearsome as his fastball. There was also a little lefthander on the pitching roster named Tommy Lasorda. He was shipped back to the minors after compiling...
...Lasorda is in his rookie season as manager of the Dodgers. After 27 years as a spear carrier in the organization, he is enjoying the big job. Says he: "Managing during this streak has been a lot more fun than it was watching from the bench back in '55." An open, ebullient man, subject to sudden attacks of overstatement (Dodger Stadium is "blue heaven on earth"; "Cut me, I bleed Dodger blue"), Lasorda is the antithesis of Predecessor Walter Alston, who perfected the art of keeping his own counsel. "I believe in whooping it up, patting guys...
...home runs and runs batted in. Of the starting rotation - Don Sutton, Rick Rhoden, Doug Rau, Tommy John and Burt Hooton - John and Hooton are the only ones to have lost games in the first five weeks of the season. Sutton, the ace of the staff, like a former Dodger righthander, Carl Erskine, catches the corners of the plate with his curve - and batters looking at third strikes. On the infrequent occasions when the Big Five falter, in motors Charlie Hough from the bullpen...