Sport: Into the Stretch

True ball fans are mathematicians. They worship averages. A player's performance at the plate, a team's actions on the field, are all judged by intricate accounting. But when it comes to judging pennant races, the fans themselves are the most important statistic. Last week, as the season rounded the late-summer turn, big-league attendance figures testified to one of the tightest stretch drives in years. Fans were piling into Milwaukee's County Stadium at a record 40,000-a-game clip. Cleveland had already surpassed its 1953 home-attendance figure. The Dodgers and Giants set turnstiles spinning whenever they met. The race was so close, a man was hard put to pick a winner.

Front-Running Indians. In the American League, front-running Cleveland was an odds-on favorite with the men who make book on baseball. Outpaced in the stretch three years in a row, the Indians were now playing the steady, workmanlike baseball of champions. Their first-line pitchers (Wynn, Lemon, Garcia) have turned in some of the best performances of the season. Onetime Fireballer "Rapid" Robert Feller, now grown gracefully ancient (he will be 36 in November), has surprised even himself with a fine 11-2 record. Rookies Ray Narleski and Don Mossi have been fogging their high, hard ones past late-inning batters. And the Indians have been winning the tough ones; they have taken 25 games by a single run.

In the field, injury-hobbled Al Rosen has moved between first and third with ease; Negro Al Smith has switched from benchwarmer to one of the hottest out fielders around; Veteran Hank Majeski, 37, stepped in for Bobby Avila and batted a resounding .350. Whenever a regular smoldered, his substitute caught fire.

Far from a flashy, holler-and-hell-raising club, the Indians have been concentrating on the happy habit of hitting the long ball at the right time. "We get 'em when we need 'em," says General Manager Hank Greenberg. "We're a worrisome ball club to the opposition." Not only have the Indians been worrying their closest competitors ; they have been regularly knocking over the league's Humpty Dumpties. As the week began, after a three-game series with the unsinging Orioles of Balti more, they were 5½ games in front.

Young Yankees. On the long end of 8-5 odds, the world champion Yankees have won 53 out of their last 72 games, put together a 10-game winning streak and still not been able to catch Cleve land. But no one ever worried about a Yankee outfit quitting; they have a long, proud record as year-end leaders.

Surprisingly, the Yankee youngsters are carrying the team. While old reliables such as Lopat and Reynolds have been taking their lumps on the pitching mound, Bob Grim, Eddie Ford, Harry Byrd, Tom Morgan and Jim McDonald have turned in 50 victories among them. Mantle, Noren and Skowron are living up to advance billing and outhitting such veterans as Woodling and Collins. Now, in the stretch sprint, the Yankees will face teams that have been their cousins all season. If they take up their old, winning ways, professional Yankee haters will begin to worry that Casey Stengel will take his sixth pennant in a row.