Word: mounds
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...second inning, the Yankees looked like a pennant-winning ball club; Manager Casey Stengel was the hunch-playing "perfesser" of old. The score was tied (1-1), there was one out, and the bases were full of Yanks. Pitcher Rip Coleman, who was holding his own on the mound, was due at the plate. But Casey yanked him in favor of Pinch-Hitter Bob Cerv, who stepped up and hit a single. Two runs scored. Then Outfielder Elston Howard bounced a home run off the right-field foul pole...
...Behind him, vague and impersonal, rises the roar of the crowd. His chest is covered with a corrugated protective pad, and his big mitt is thrust out as if to fend off destruction. Exactly 60 ft. 6 in. straight ahead of him, the pitcher looms preternaturally large on his mound of earth. As he crouches close to the ground, his field of vision gives him his own special view of the vast ballpark. The white foul lines stretch to the distant fences; the outfielders seem to be men without legs. Between him and the flycatchers, from the far outfield grass...
...team. The pitcher waits for his signals. (Earlier, team and manager have talked over opposing batters, come to some tentative conclusions about strategy.) Campy calls for the curve or the fast ball, the change-up or the slider. It is a rare event when the man on the mound shakes him off, i.e., refuses his signal. By now most Dodger pitchers, reveling this week in an unbeatable 13½-game lead in the National League, know that their catcher knows best...
...roommate, Don Newcombe. "Hum that pea." Neither Newk nor anyone else is permitted a moment's carelessness. Once, when Don Newcombe crossed up his catcher with a slow curve after taking the signal for a fast ball, Roy promptly flipped off his mask and padded out to the mound. "How come you give me the local when I call for the express?" he demanded in singsong irritation. Campy believes that his chatter helps. Says he: "You shouldn't be a dead pants out there...
...seemed like old times. On the mound, large, loose-jointed Don Newcombe leaned forward to take his signal; behind the plate was his best friend, Catcher Roy Campanella, back in action after a two-week layoff with a bad knee. The best battery in baseball was back in business again, and though the visiting Cardinals tried to make a game of it. they didn't have a chance...