Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 76

The Milwaukee Braves quickly dispelled any lingering doubts that major league baseball could play in new arenas. A crowd of 34,000 jammed barely completed County Stadium for its first home game on a cold and drizzly Wisconsin day. They continued to fill the park, again and again. It took just 13 home dates for the Braves to surpass their total 1952 attendance at Boston.

Like wayward kings worshiped in a new kingdom, the Braves responded to the adoration and won 18 of their first 24 home games, and vaulted into first place, where they stayed well into June. Not bad for a team that lost 90 the year before.

The Braves were a team full of individual highlights. Veteran pitcher Warren Spahn would lead the NL with 23 wins and a 2.10 earned run average. Most impressive of all was the monster

performance of 21 year old third baseman Eddie Mathews, who in his second big league year not only led the NL with 47 home runs while batting .302, but also drove in 135 runs.

All that got in the way of the Braves achieving their ultimate fairy tale were the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Hardly intimidated by big crowds, the Dodgers won their first six games at Milwaukee, stealing first place away and contributing to a nine game Braves losing streak to end June. Brooklyn sped away after the All-Star break and never lost more