Baseballville

Lew Burdette entered the game with a season ERA of 6.04 and a two and 3 record. He was facing the first place Cincinnati Redlegs who are crushing the ball so far this year. To prove my point I only have to look at the team homerun totals. The Redlegs, in 36 games have hit 61 homeruns. That is twenty five more then the next team on the list, the Brooklyn Dodgers who have hit 36 in thirty three games. To say the least, Lew had his work cut out for him. The Redlegs roughed up Burdette in the second game of the season, but the Braves won 7-6 and Burdette got now decision. It is common knowledge in the National League that Burdette "loads the ball up" every now and again and he was accused of doing it again by the Redlegs. Home plate Umpire Jocko Conlan called for the ball on four different occassions but could not detect any foreign substance on the ball. "Those guys cry a lot", remarked Burdette. You could see why they were crying too. Burdette tossed a beautiful 3 hit, complete game shutout for the Braves as they regained first place by 8 percentage points over the Redlegs. "He never got the ball above our waist", said a dejected George Crowe. He didn't give Crowe much to hit going 0 for 2, but he did reach on a 7 pitch walk. He held Robinson hitless for only the fourth time this year. Frank Robinson is still hitting over .400 this late into May and has been held hitless twice in the last three games. Frank has played in 35 of the Redlegs 37 games. Lindy McDaniel pitched a fine two-hitter and had his no-hit bid broken by Ernie Banks in the top of the 7th inning, when Ernie led off the frame with his 10th boundry belt of the season. Mac struck out a season high 8 batters and improved his record to two and 3. Another hero in Monday's games was Brooklyn's Duke Snider, who went 4 for 4 and knocked in 4 runs, three coming on a bases loaded triple. Brooks won 11-2 over the Phillies and are now in third place only one back of Milwaukee and Cincy.