Time of His Life

Even the batting practice pitchers were beginning to bear down. It was time for a tangle-foot rookie like the Cardinals' chunky No. 72 to be writing: "I'll be coming home soon, Ma. They're beginning to throw curves." But No. 72 was having the time of his life. And if the Cards have their way, no one--not even hardcase Manager Eddie Stanky--will be sending him back to the bushes. No. 72 is the new and popular owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, Beer Baron August Anheuser (Budweiser) Busch Jr.

Not a Chance. Day after day, at the Cardinals' spring training camp in St. Petersburg, Fla., 54-year-old Gussie Busch still gets into uniform, still stumbles happily through "pepper" drills in deep left center, where he is reasonably safe from line drives. The only man who wants him out of the Cards' camp is Colorado's senior Senator Edwin C. Johnson. Something of a baseball man himself (he is president of the Western League), Johnson wants Congress to legislate all brewers and distillers out of the game. "Baseball to August A. Busch," says he, "is a coldblooded, beer-peddling business, and not the great American game which good sportsmen revere."

St. Louis fans, at any rate, are not likely to agree. Gussie has already done too much for their Cards. A couple of years ago he was little more than an avid fan; then he went on a hunting trip with Outfielder Stan Musial. "Why don't you buy the Cards?" asked "Stan the Man." "Not a chance in the world," said Gussie. But, not long after, Cardinals Owner Fred Saigh was convicted of income-tax evasion and forced to sell the team (TIME, March 2, 1953). Gussie got his chance, and he jumped at it. In one year he has spent nearly $7,000,000 in an earnest effort to give St. Louis one of the best teams and one of the flashiest stadiums in big-league baseball.

For Gussie's folding money, the Cards have picked up the Yankees' aging (34) Vic Raschi to beef up a pitching staff weakened by the loss (to the Army), of Wilmer ("Vinegar Bend") Mizell. They have a 25-year-old, $100,000 shortstop named Alex Grammas, out of Kansas City in Class AAA, who should give Regular Solly Hemus a run for his position. For another $100,000 they have hard-hitting Tom Alston, a first baseman and the first Negro on the Cardinal roster. And they have an impressive list of seasoned money players: Outfielder Enos Slaughter, Second Baseman Red Schoendienst, and Lefthander Harvey Haddix, not to mention the one and only Stan Musial.

A Flying Squad. Back home in St. Louis, the Cards have a thoroughly renovated stadium. There is a new tile drainage system for the playing field, and every tired old seat has been replaced or repaired. Outfield fences have been shorn of advertising (even Budweiser signs are absent) and painted a deep, simple, hitter's green. Among other things, there are 16 luxurious boxes where, for $2,500 a season, upper-bracket fans can whoop it up with waiter service; all 16 are already rented for the season.

Even in training camp, Gussie is an openhanded spender. He lives in a swank bus fitted out with shower, toilet, kitchen and bar; for after-workout leisure he has a borrowed yacht, and his company DC-3 stands by along with a Cadillac. When the season starts, he expects his personal $300,000 railroad car to be finished so that he can follow the Cardinals in comfort. Last week, hardly stopping to calculate the cost, he took a 42-man Cardinal squad on a flying trip to California, to mix it up with rivals training in the West.

All this, Senator Johnson fears, may drive Cardinal fans to drink. Cardinal fans themselves are looking forward to the happiest, hustlingest team since the pennant-winning Gashouse Gang of the '30s.

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