Word: shortstop
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Chicago.Cubs had lost five games in a row when the team's rangy Negro shortstop set to work one day last week against the Philadelphia Phillies. The score was 2-2 in the sixth as Ernie Banks. 27. stepped into the batter's box. He stared stoically while the Phillies' Lefthander Curt Simmons wound up. then whipped around his light (31 oz.) bat like a willow switch. Rising steadily, the ball whistled out of Chicago's Wrigley Field to ricochet crazily through the neighborhood beyond. And the cumbersome Cubs were finally on their way to winning...
...victory left their team at the bottom of the National League. Few bothered to grouse that the pitching was still spotty, the fielding fumble-thumbed, the base running lead-footed. In their misery the Cub fans this season have something to cheer about: Ernie Banks, the hardest slugging shortstop in the business, is having his greatest year...
...with 42 home runs and the league with no runs batted in.* Far behind were such famed sluggers as the Giants' Willie Mays (23 homers) and the Yankees' Mickey Mantle (83 runs batted in). Banks seemed a sure bet to become the eighth player-and the first shortstop-ever to hit more than 50 homers in a single season. Moreover, Cub fans with a faith in miracles hopefully noted that Banks was just three games off the 1927 pace of Babe Ruth when he hit his record 60 homers...
...determined youngsters became a bunch of pint-sized sluggers, walloped Pearl Harbor 11-5 as Torres pitched a one-hitter, then whipped Connecticut's Darien team 11-5. In the finals against Kankakee, Ill., Torres got plenty of early batting support. Andrés Galvan, the 65-lb. shortstop, homered over the center-field fence in the second inning, and Monterrey had six runs before Kankakee even got a base runner. Torres had a no-hitter for four innings, a shutout for five. Backed by four homers, he struck out eleven in the six-inning game, coasted...
...ability to handle pitchers. Third Baseman Jim Davenport is a fielding fiend, tightens the once porous infield. Slugging Outfielders Leon Wagner (.343) and Willie Kirkland (8 homers) are taking up the hitting slack for Mays, and Outfielder Felipe Alou provides sound insurance. The Giant veterans are performing well, too. Shortstop Daryl Spencer, always a flashy fielder, is hitting as he never hit before, has already matched his 1957 homer and RBI figures; Third Baseman Ray Jablonski made 40 hits count for 38 runs...