By removing three baseballs and ancient Denny Galehouse from the vicinity of Fenway Park yesterday afternoon, Lou Boudroau and Kenny Keltner spared Boston the aesthetically unpleasant experience of a city series. We say aesthetically unpleasant because the horrid fact of the matter is that the majority of Boston rooters are Red Sex partisans, and a city series would have found Billy Southworth's gallant crew in the position of villain in the piece.

What's more, the spirit between the two clubs themselves could hardly be said to reflect the highest ideals of Happy Chandler. Admittedly the Braves lacked discretion when they publicly announced that they would far sooner play with those nice boys from Cleveland or New York with the 70,000 seating capacities. But the Red Sex rebuttal expressing deep sorrow that Jeff Heath had broken only his leg when it might so easily have been his neck bordered on the boorish.

The Sox Have Fans, but the Braves Have Disciples

There is even more fuel for the fire to be found in the Boston press. Dave Egan '22 recently went on record with the reflection that only one Brave--southpaw Warren Spahn--could make the Sox first string.

Had the Braves-Red Sox issue been brought to a boil via the world series, much bad blood would have flowed in the streets. Most of it would have been the blood of Braves partisans, for Sox enthusiasts take full advantage of their numerical superiority to exert majority tyranny.

Apparently, this Sox appeal stems from their ability to field a group of nice family men who can hit the ball with authority if not with fluesse. Women love the Fenway glamor-boys, a preference based partially on the fact that Dave Ferries (he's cute) managed to win 20 games during the war, and partly on the fact that one can follow the team with far less trouble than is necessary at the Wigwam.

Cocktail Drinkers Need Basic Appeal

The basic nature of American, League play also seems to be the factor that draws small boys of the autograph-seeking variety and the hordes of casual spectators who pick a team for purposes of cocktail party conversation and that exhilirating sense of being one with the mass.

Thus it comes about that had the Sox snatched the pennant untimely from Cleveland's grasp, Billy Southworth and his tight-lipped little band of disciples would have taken a week of the most concerted and unjust verbal battering in the history of baseball. His magnificent achievement in bringing a second-division club home first, with room to spare, would have gone by unnoticed amid futile and prejudicial controversy.

But justice, like pigeons after a night game, has come home to roost, and 34 years of patient waiting by baseball's intelligentsia has been rewarded.