19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER

October 31, 1966

DEFEATSirs:As is oft said, "One picture is worth a thousand words." The nearest approximation to this adage that has met my eye in many a day was presented in the issue of SI containing the coverage of the World Series (Oct. 17). The moment when fate struck Willie Davis for the first time that afternoon is graphically depicted, but there is something more stunning in the photograph than the Dodger center fielder's bobble or the ball that is falling from his grasp. It is the faces of the crowd behind him. Nothing written by the capable men of the press, nothing uttered by the knowledgeable broadcasters, has captured or could ever capture the exact moment of Dodger defeat as does that photograph. And it was defeat, gentlemen, as surely as Sandy Koufax is the best pitcher of this modern era. From that moment on, the Dodgers and their fans became disbelievers in the fact that the L.A. club was the best team in baseball. It was this belief that carried the Dodgers to the pennant. They didn't win the pennant with pitching; they won it because they parlayed the arms of Koufax, Osteen, Drysdale and Sutton with the belief that they were the best team in organized baseball. When Davis bared his mortality in that fateful inning, both the Dodgers, and their fans, realized the horrifying possibility that maybe they weren't the best. Look at the faces in that crowd, and ask yourselves if it is not defeat and disbelief that you see. There, gentlemen, in that photograph, is the unbelievable story of the 1966 World Series.FRANK GRIFFIN Somerville, Mass.