Word: mel
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Pampered Legs. At 23, Mel Patton looks fragile enough to be bowled over by the smell of locker-room sweat. But he has run the 100 yards faster than any man living or dead-in 9.3 seconds (an unofficial world's record). In the chow-line last week, a husky teammate yelled at him: ''Step aside and let us weight-men in. No fuss, now-you're the one man around here I can lick." Patton, grinning, yelled back: "Better be careful, Moose, I gained a pound last week...
...Mel Ott, manager of the New York Giants, had thrown in the sponge. Leo Durocher, who was hated worse by Giant fans than any living man, had resigned as manager of the arch-rival Brooklyn Dodgers-to take over Ott's job. Soft-spoken old Burt Shotton had soft-shoed back from exile to take over the Dodgers...
Melancholy Mel. The fireworks were set off on the Fourth of July, but the explosion wasn't heard for twelve days. The Fourth was the day when Mel Ott, once-great ballplayer and prince among his fellows, recognized the obvious: he wasn't tough enough to be a manager. He couldn't handle his men-especially pitchers. The fans who cheered him loudest when he was socking home runs (in his day he had hit 511, an alltime National League, record) were down on him. His players were loafing on him, and second-guessing his decisions after...
When Horace Stoneham, the Giants' president, asked Ott what the club needed, Mel replied: "Maybe a new manager." Stoneham agreed. At last week's All-Star game in St. Louis,* Mel Ott and his boss secretly called it quits and set out to hire Durocher. But could Leo Durocher be hired...
Third Down. For the 100-meter dash, the crowd's favorite event, Mel Patton ("the world's fastest human") wore a pair of brand-new spikes; his old shoes had gotten wet and fallen apart. Patton got off to a slow start, along with Dillard, who was hoping to qualify in two events (dash and hurdles). Ancient (30), competition-wise Barney Ewell, a Negro foundry-worker and a father, whom nobody had given much of a chance to win, made a flying start, pumped furiously with knees high for the first 60 yards, then relaxed...