Behind the Eight Ball

"One is too young to know what they've done to him, the other so old he doesn't care." Thus a New York sportswriter summed up last week's big baseball news. The "one too young" was 24-year-old Lou Boudreau, shortstop of the Cleveland Indians. The "one so old" was 60-year-old Hans Lobert, coach of the Philadelphia Phillies. Within 24 hours of one another, they were appointed managers of their respective ball clubs.

Lou Boudreau, a handsome, intelligent kid just two years out of college, is younger (by two and three years respectively) than Bucky Harris and Joe Cronin were when they first became managers of the Washington Senators. He would be the youngest manager in big-league history, had not Roger Peckinpaugh (whom Boudreau supplanted last week) once, at 23, managed the New York Yankees for two weeks.

Boy Wonders Harris and Cronin, with eight years of professional baseball behind them, each won a pennant in his first year as manager. Hot-stove habitues have no such hopes for Boudreau, who is practically a papoose. Moreover, the Indians are a group of notoriously temperamental individuals, often referred to as a "good team on paper because it folds so easily."

If misery loves company, young Boudreau can shake hands with John Bernard ("Hans") Lobert, the Phillies' new manager. Lobert is a big-nosed, bighearted, bowlegged little gaffer, dubbed Hans because in his early playing days he resembled and tried to imitate Immortal Hans Wagner. He has 39 years of baseball behind him. But it will take more than experience to shove the Phillies out of the National League cellar. Reason: in order to keep the club from the sheriff, its owner, Gerald Nugent, is forced to sell his most promising players.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.