Word: alston
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There in the clubhouse he sat, in his undershirt, a snaggle-toothed grin giving him the look of a Saint Bernard that had broken into its own brandy barrel. "It feels good," murmured Manager Walter ("Smokey") Alston of the Los Angeles Dodgers. "It always feels good...
...Smokey Alston smiling? The Dodgers winning? It was only yesterday that the collapsible Dodgers blew a four-game lead in the final week and presented the 1962 National League pennant to the San Francisco Giants. And it seemed only the day before that Bobby Thomson of the Giants deposited a dinky drive into the leftfield seats at the Polo Grounds to beat the Dodgers in a playoff for the 1951 pennant. Now the stage was set for another whirlwind finish that would leave the Dodgers flat on their backs, muttering dazedly: "Wait till next year...
...Cards won 19 out of 20, and the Dodger lead dissolved to one slim game. For the first time in years, lines of fans stood all day outside Busch Stadium waiting for the ticket gates to open. "We're ready," promised Cardinal Manager Johnny Keane. As for Alston, he would only grunt: "Another game, another series...
Back in Los Angeles, Dodger fans sighed and waited for the worst. In nine years, Alston had delivered three pennants, two world championships, eight first-division finishes. But this was a time for heroics, and Alston hardly seemed the man to ignite any team. He was still the dour, noncommittal ex-shop teacher from Darrtown, Ohio, the fellow who struck out the only time he ever got to bat in the big leagues, the homespun country boy who played percentages so devoutly that the Dodgers paid a fulltime statistician to do his arithmetic. Every fall Alston signed a blank contract...
Owner O'Malley is still too proud to fire Walter Alston. Compounding the confusion at Chavez Ravine is the presence of ex-manager Leo Durocher and future-manager Pete Reiser. So much for management; on the labor side there are not enough outfield jobs to keep Tom Davis, Willie Davis, Frank Howard, Ron Fairly, Wally Moon, Duke Snider (enjoying another fine spring) and Lee Walls working happily. The unemployment problem is embodied in the case of Moon, a real star who appeared in only 95 games last year, could not hit stride, and wound up with a .242 mark...