Word: meer
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...picked National League players were five Cincinnati Reds, an unprecedented number for the league's perennial tail-enders and a larger representation than that of any other club. Even more unprecedented was the fact that two of them were rookies, and one, 22-year-old Johnny Vander Meer, who had skyrocketed to fame a few weeks earlier when he won two no-hit, no-run games within five days, was to pitch the first three innings...
...young Vander Meer, who proved he was no flash in the pan by continuing his winning streak until he had nine victories in a row, was by last week accustomed to the spotlight. With more poise than many a seasoned oldtimer, he stood up to American League sluggers like Jimmy Foxx, Charley Gehringer, Joe Di Maggio, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, faced only ten batters, required only 31 pitches, allowed only one hit (single). With Pitcher Bill Lee of the Cubs, the National Leaguers, who scored a run in the very first inning, continued to humble the highly favored Americans...
While Brooklyn fans were shouting to each other over this unexpected bargain performance, the unprecedented feat of Johnny Vander Meer spread all over the world. First to congratulate him was Spectator Babe Ruth. "Nice going, kid," boomed the Babe, a pitcher once himself, as he put his arm around the youngster and blinked into the floodlights, doubtless recalling his own famed streaks of three homeruns in one game in the World Series of 1926, again...
...Cincinnati townsfolk went wild. For the first time since 1919 there was talk of a National League pennant for the Reds (in third place and only four games behind the League-leading Giants). The club front office was stampeded for tickets. A sportswriter suggested that a statue of Vander Meer replace that of onetime U. S. President James A. Garfield in Garfield Square. In special session at Columbus, the Ohio Senate passed a resolution in "tribute to the newly crowned king of the baseball world...
Meanwhile, there was great moaning in Brooklyn when its baseball fans read the life story of young Vander Meer in the newspapers. They were not stirred by the fact that he had pitched five no-hit, no-run games in one season when he was 16 (for New Jersey semi-pro teams), nor the fact that he had played the role of "the typical American boy" in a movie short, nor the fact that he had struck out 295 batters two years ago during the twelve weeks he was pitching for the Durham Bulls (a Red farm)-for an average...