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"There's only one place to play base-baseball--that's in the major leagues."
That was the only comment Ulysses "Lupe" Lupien'39, recently recalled by the Boston Red Sox, had to make on the two summers he had spent in the minor leagues. A Harvard athletic great of recent vintage, he was snapped up by the Red Sox organization immediately upon graduation and farmed out to the Scranton club of the Eastern League.
Quiet and unassuming, Lupien, who captained the Varsity baseball team in his Junior year and led the basketball squad in his last year at college, showed no much stuff in the minors that at the end of their current season Manager Joe Cronin had him recalled to fill in for the tiring Jimmy Foxx.
Leads Sox With .500
Since "the Lupe" joined the Sox in Cleveland on September 12 he has been at bat 16 times, knocked out eight hits for four runs and leads the team in batting with an average of .500.
He appeared in a major league uniform for the first time as a pinch hitter on September 18. Two series later against Bob Harris of the St. Louis Browns, he got his first hit, a 315 foot double off the screen in right field.
Tripled Yesterday
His Boston debut yesterday afternoon was spectacular. Relieving Jimmy Foxx late in the game he went to bat only twice but singled in his first trip to the plate and tripled the next time up to drive in two runs.
A left-handed batter, Lupien while at college had the same success, twice leading the Eastern Intercollegiate League in batting to take the Charles H. Blair batting trophy two years in succession. His average in his Senior year was a fat .442.
"It's a lot different in professional ball," he claims. "In college baseball you have to face a good pitcher only once in a while. In professional you're up against a good man every day a man who's being paid to go out there and win."
Hit .310 at Scranton
Despite the better brand of pitching "the Lupe" found the going fairly easy in the minors. At Scranton, a Red Sox farm in the Class A Eastern League, he ended up the season with a .319 batting average and fielded .989, making only eight errors.
At the beginning of the summer just past the Red Sox sent Lupien to Little Rock in the Southern League where he was regarded as the outstanding all-around first baseman in the league. He led the league in stolen bases with 26 to his credit and batted for an average of .307.
Just where he'll be playing next year Lupien doesn't know yet, but the chances are good that he'll stay with the Red Sox to fill in for the aging Foxx.
"I'm in the big leagues now and I want to stay here," he asserted. "Riding for twelve hours in a day coach from New Orleans to Birmingham and then playing a night game isn't all it's cracked up to be."
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