Baseballville

Ernie Banks hit his league leading 21st homerun of the season in a losing cause Monday June 25th against Bob Friend and the Pittsburgh Pirates and Henry Aaron hit number 19 in a losing effort at Milwaukee against the Brooklyn Dodgers. In the real 1957 pennant chase, Aaron edged out Banks in the "Homerun Derby" 44 to 43. Henry has been struggling at Milwaukee's County Stadium as he has lost many "Ballpark Homeruns" because of the low numbers ( 1-4 on a good night...and the weather in Milwaukee so far hasn't been that good). The Braves loss to Don Newcombe and the Brooklyn Dodgers, dropped them dead even with idle Philadelphia with 41-25 marks. It is the first time that the Braves have not been in first place all by themselves since May 30th. Meanwhile here comes the other two teams that have been vying for the top spot. The Dodgers are now within 2 games of the top spot and the Cincinnati Redlegs, who knocked off New York on Monday 6-1, are now only one game off the pace. Brooks Lawrence went the distance at Cincinnati. In the other game mentioned at Chicago, the Buccos beat the Bruins 13-5 as Bob Friend yielded 4 homerun balls, two by Chuck Tanner, his first two of the season, but had plenty of support as everybody in the lineup got at least one hit.