Gothams in Uncharted Territory
Surging New Yorkers Will Finish in Third
NEW YORK (Sept. 13) -- A 7-1 surge has lifted the New York Gothams to a comfortable 8-game lead over Brooklyn, virtually assuring the Bronx club of its highest finish in club history.  Heretofore, the Gothams have consistently won between 76 and 79 games and finished fourth or fifth -- a true middle-of-the-pack team.  But the G's are 12 games over .500 (77-65), and barring a complete collapse, will set club records for wins and highest finish.
   The key players in their current hot streak are centerfielder Larry Doby (.305-23-95) and pitcher Early Wynn (15-18, 5.00), who won back-to-back POWs.  Doby, 29, hit .556 with a .680 OBP and 9 RBIs the week ending Sept. 5.  Wynn, 34, won both his starts the following week, including one shutout.  Doby, who broke the American League's color barrier, is on pace to have his best UL season, with new highs in hits, RBI, batting, OBP, and slugging.  He is seventh in batting and home runs, and third in RBIs.
   The Gothams won six straight starting with a 15-2 blowout at Boston Sept. 3, in which Irv Noren homered twice and drove in four runs and Joe Astroth added four RBIs.  The next day, Ewell Blackwell shut out the Beacons with a 1-hitter, and on Sunday Larry Doby's 13th inning home run proved to be the game-winner in a 11-9 win at Chicago.
   Other hot performers this month have been Frank Thomas (.366-1-7 in 9 games) and Bubba Church (2-0, 2.12 in 2 starts). New York lost Thomas to San Francisco in the expansion draft.  

Detroit Wins Four Straight, Closes Cellar Gap
DETROIT (Sept. 13) -- The last place Detroit Sound were recently five games behind Louisville, but a rare four-game winning streak, combined with a six-game Colonels' slump, has narrowed the gap to a single game.  The club opened the month with six straight losses, including a pair to Louisville, which seemed to condemn the Sound to the cellar for the first time.  But mini-sweeps of Boston and Brooklyn rapidly closed the gap.  Don Mossi won his first game since July 18, snapping a personal six-game losing streak, with a six-hit complete game in a 11-2 rout Sept. 8.  Willard Marshall (.264-17-83) collected four hits, including two round-trippers, and drove in a career high six runs.  The next day, Bob Porterfield and Clem Labine combined to beat Harvey Haddix 4-1.  On Saturday, the Sound rallied from a 4-1 deficit with two runs in the eighth and two more in the ninth.  Catfish Metkovich tied the game with a one-out RBI single off Hoyt Wilhelm, who then walked Toby Atwell and Fred Marsh to lose the ballgame.
   The streak was Detroit's longest win streak since April 27-30.  Ace Robin Roberts has regained his form lately.  He pitched a four-hit shutout on Aug. 29 and has a 1.37 ERA in his last three starts.  Offensively, the star has been Marshall, who is hitting .375 with 10 RBIs in 10 games.  Marshall will join teammate Jerry Priddy in San Francisco next season, as 7 of Detroit's 8 expansion picks were selected by the Spiders.

Ford, Pascual Officially Shelved
by Lance Mueller
olts manager Lance Mueller announced today that pitchers Whitey Ford and Camilo Pascual have official been shut down for the season despite the fact that both will be ready to pitch in less than a week. Ask for a reason, Mueller responded, "Hell, everybody knows Whitey is prone to gettin' hurt. For crap sake, we're talkin' about a guy who once strained a hammie lettin' a fart loose on the bench! The last thing I need is for him to comeback looking for a win or 2 and end fallin' off the mound and bustin' a leg, so he's sitting." As for Pascual? "I was runnin' low on cigars so I sent him home to Havana to replenish my supply. Don't worry, he'll be back in the bigs at the start of next year. I looking forward to seeing what the kid's got."

Nippy gets the Nod
Despite being a perennial minor leaguer, Nippy Jones was awarded a one year contract extensions today, getting the nod over such "proven" player as Mel Parnell and Connie Ryan. The reason? Seems manager Lance Mueller had been preparing for the possibility that all his non-Yogi catchers might get snatched up in the expansion draft and had assigned Nippy to Single A to learn the trade of being a backstop. With little more than a month of experience under his belt, Jones has already earned an "E" rating with a .981 fielding percent. The Nipster has been called up to the 40 man roster for the remainder of the season and is expected to see a little time behind the dish in order for team officials to assess his abilities as a catcher. If manager Mueller is unable to obtain a suitable replacement for Andy Seminick in the upcoming drafts, expect to see Jones filling in at catcher whenever Yogi Berra is so drop dead tired he becomes delusional and actually begins to speak coherently.

Players Union Wins Concessions
Salary Floor Raised, Bonuses Expanded
NEW YORK (Sept. 13) -- League President Timothy J. Smith announced a new contract with the UL Players Association that gives the players nearly everything they asked for in recent contract negotiations.  The biggest issue for the players' union was stagnating salaries, at a time when most clubs were sitting on multi-million dollar largesses.  "It's time we got our fair share," Boston player representative Warren Spahn (who makes $7.6 million per year) said.  The biggest complaint was that low starting salaries for top rookies preserved the most perverse aspects of the reserve clause system.  "Eddie Mathews at $1 million a year would be a steal," Boston owner Charlie Qualls said.  But Mathews or Aaron at $500k per year is "grand theft slugger," Smith added.
   Thus, the first modification was to increase the rookie pay scale, to give future stars a leg up on the lucrative contracts of their predecessors.  First round rookie picks will now get 3-year, $1 million contracts, and second rounders will get 3-year, $500k deals.  In addition, the first three picks will get additional bonuses ($1.3M for first pick, $1.2M for second pick, and $1.1M for third pick) to differentiate the blue chip prospects from mere first-rounders.
   The second alteration will see the league minimum salary increased to $500k.  In a move meant to reward the lowest-earners who have been chafing at the increasing disparity in player earnings, every player in the under-$1 million bracket will get a one-time raise of $200k, subject to a $1 million ceiling.  The move will impact over 140 of the league's lowest-paid players and will raise the league's aggregate payroll by over $25 million, or more than 5 percent.  "Once you have raised the bar for rookies, you have to give some kind of recognition to guys who have been toiling at the fringes of major league rosters," Detroit's Robin Roberts said.  "Paying some unproven punk kid nearly twice as much as a veteran is a recipe for clubhouse strife."  "We aren't talking about huge sums here," Smith stated at the press conference.  "We are talking about distributing $25 million in excess profits, the same amount as the league's top three players, to 140 of the lowest paid players. . .  Besides,"  he asked rhetorically, "Is Jackie Robinson really 30 times better than Sibby Sisti?"
   In a nod to the league's top players, the new contract will greatly expand salary bonuses.  Starting next year, the performance bonus formerly reserved for pennant winners only will be expanded to cover all but the bottom two teams in the new 10-team alignment.  The pennant winners' bonuses will increase from 12 to 16 players, with a sliding scale for second through eighth place teams by order of finish (16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2).  Each bonus is a permanent salary increase of $100k.  The new system expands the number of bonuses from 12 to 72, thus increasing the league's aggregate payroll by an extra $6.0M per year.
   Smith discussed the motives behind the new salary scheme.  "In the present system, there are few financial constraints, because salary levels are so low and club balances so high that teams can keep their best players.  In the long run, this is detrimental to the league, the clubs, and the players.  Raising starting salaries and expanding performance bonuses is a way to give the best players their due pay."  When asked about owners' concerns that expanding payrolls may quickly outstrip club revenues, Smith responded that the league was was tapping huge markets through expansion and that "the league's financial prognosis continues to be rosy."  He added that the average club's payroll decreased by $6 million as a result of the expansion draft, with "no commensurate decrease in revenues expected."

AROUND THE HORN