19th HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER

THOSE SMALL LOANS
Sirs:
As an avid reader of SI I can find no better place to vent my feelings concerning the recent action Tug Wilson has taken against Ohio State and Woody Hayes (SI, May 7).

To keep the record straight, I am not attending nor have I ever attended Ohio State, but I have had the distinct honor and privilege of having Woody and members of his staff consult with me in seeking positions for either players or their wives (SI, Oct. 24, '55). In every instance it was soundly legitimate and with no favors asked, only a position to help the family get ahead.

What would Commissioner Wilson do if he had a worthy boy ask him for a lift, with a small loan, which could mean the difference between finishing school or dropping out?

Woody is a tough taskmaster with one attribute that is outstanding, character and trust in his fellow man.

A word of caution to "Smug" Wilson. Don't let the Ivy League influence creep into the Big Ten. If you do, it will disintegrate to the same level of has-beens. As a former Pennsylvanian, I watched with sadness the decline of a great institution in sports, and it happened only because of their adoption of a holier-than-thou program.

If a boy can hold his scholastic average legitimately and can also represent his school on the athletic field with honor, he should be granted every consideration for whatever financial assistance he may need.
STANLEY T. HARVEY
Columbus

OUR IOWA FRIENDS
Sirs:
Gripe letters generally amuse me, but when your editor adds support to the gripers, I'm disgusted (19th HOLE, April 30).

Willie Naulls is a fine basketball player, but so is Carl Cain. He can do everything on a court and make it look easy. And most important of all, Cain is one of the greatest defensive players in the country.

Our California friends scream that Naulls outscored Cain in the Olympic tryouts. So what? For the tournament Cain outscored his opponents, which is more than you can say for Naulls.

Naulls scored 14 points against the Buchan Bakers, but Boushka got 20. Cain had only three, but his man didn't score any. Cain didn't score against the Phillips Oilers, it's true, but neither did his man Burdy Haldorson, the Oilers' best scorer, while Cain was in the game.

In the finals of the NCAA tournament, in which Iowa lost to San Francisco, Cain scored 17 points. His man Farmer didn't get a point. The previous night Farmer scored 26 against SMU.

In four NCAA tourney games Cain scored 99 points, an average of just under 25 a game. He hit 28 against Morehead State, 34 against Kentucky, 20 against Temple and 17 against Frisco.

Naulls is a natural center, not a forward like Cain. And the Olympic team has some fair country centers. Russell and Darling would seem to be fair representation at the center post.

Naulls in many ways would be out of place at forward, particularly on defense. I feel the Olympic committee was looking for the best men in each position.
KEN KEW
Sports Director, KGLO
Mason City, Iowa

•Carl Cain is every bit as good as Mr. Kew says, but we still would have picked Willie Naulls.—ED.

A GOLDFISH FOR A BROWN
Sirs:
Until a few months ago, I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Friday nights would drive to Dillon, Mont, or Pinedale, Wyo. to try and match wits for a weekend with the wily brown trout (SI, April 30). We always felt that the brown trout was the greatest test for a fisherman. We all tried desperately to catch browns with dry flies, but always had to resort to using our spinning outfit, always sinking "streamer flies" or using good old "goldfish" lures to get the real big browns.
JIM CORBIN
New York

THE GREATEST TEAM
Sirs:
In response to your inquiry for nominations for the greatest team in major league baseball history (19TH HOLE, April 30), I choose the great Chicago Cubs of 1906 to 1910. During this time they averaged 106 victories and 47 defeats per season. Their finest year was 1906: the record was 116 won, 36 lost. Four members of this great team are in the Hall of Fame.

Following closely are the 1929-31 Athletics and the 1926-28 New York Yankees.
CHARLES M. CORDEN
Waterbury, Conn.

THE ONE GRACIOUS VOICE
Sirs:
The letter of Robert W. Wood Jr. of Princeton, N.J. (19TH HOLE, April 30) points up one of the great journalistic delinquencies of our time, to wit: no one has ever realized that a "profile" of Fight Announcer Harry Balogh is a feature boxing fans and literati alike would enjoy and treasure. Harry is one of the most unique "champions" of the contemporary sports scene.

Cancellation of the "Eastun Pockway Arener" shows marked the end of an era.

Harry, a throwback to Dickens, personified with artless ease the character that the late great W. C. Fields strove to develop.

Harry's mastery of pinpoint geographic location extending to the farthest reaches of the Borough of Brooklyn did suffer somewhat when projected into the narrow fringe areas west of the Hudson. As a result of this cartographic foreshortening Harry would introduce "a classy contender from the Bedford-Stuyvesant section" and match him with a "worthy adversary" from Nevada or Pennsylvania. Harry's love of grandiloquence never permitted him to debase his native tongue with such vulgar terms as "fight" or "fighter." "Athletes," "crowd-pleasers," "pugilistic protagonists" would engage in "contests,' "fiascos," "fistic encounters," and even "cross gloves." His introduction of a newlywed as "a great contender of yesteryear" was in the truly classic tradition.

The little world of pugilism has lost its one gracious voice, and the larger world of TV is the poorer for it.
TAYLOR POORE
JAMES A. SHANAHAN
Chicago

TWO SNEERS BEFORE THE MAST
Sirs:
Apropos the article by James Murray on Sailor Bogart (SI, April 30): by actual count, two leers, three snarls, two sneers, one glower and one roar—what a fine skipper he must be to sail with!
F. K. ALEXANDER, M.D.
Germantown, Pa.

AUTO-UNION'S BOOMING BUSINESS
Sirs:
In the course of the article The Ghosts: Mercedes Magic (SI, March 12), you refer to the "now defunct German Auto-Union firm." Investigation would have revealed that in 1955 Auto-Union produced 112,493 vehicles. Such investigation would also have demonstrated that in 1955 Auto-Union had more than 11,800 employees and that this figure is substantially increased as of this date.
FRANK WICKHEM
Los Angeles

•Auto-Union ist nicht kaputt. The original combine was created in 1932 through the merger of four well-known German marques: Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW. By 1940 the company had produced over a quarter-million passenger vehicles in addition to being the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles. In 1945 its plants in East Germany were expropriated and, with others, combined into a State Trust, which today mass-produces older models of the DKW. Seven years ago some of the Auto-Union's former engineers and production men established the first of three new plants in West Germany. Up to the beginning of '56 more than 140,000 front-wheel-drive DKW's have rolled off the D√ºsseldorf assembly line. Although the DKW (fondly nicknamed Das Kleine Wunder, or The Little Wonder) is basically a touring car (see cut), it has been successfully entered in many European sports car races and rallies and has won class victories in California's Torrey Pines and Santa Barbara road races.—ED.

BAREFOOT BOY
Sirs:
I would appreciate it if you would explain why Ernie Shelton, the high jumper, has only one shoe on (WONDERFUL WORLD, April 23).
BILL KAREM
Louisville

•Ernie Shelton wears no shoe on his right foot for two reasons: to prevent his spikes catching as he swings his right foot through and up, and, secondly, to get better leverage. In high jumping, the foot that goes up toward the bar first, swung energetically, supplies a certain amount of lift. Without a shoe, the bare foot can swing forward smoothly just a fraction of an inch over the ground and then up. With a track shoe, the foot must be lifted just a little to afford clearance for the¾-inch spikes. This disrupts the smoothness of the pendulumlike swing and also costs the high jumper a tiny bit of leverage. Ernie Shelton's one-shoe technique is neither uncommon nor new: not the first, but one of the best-known one-shoe jumpers was Johnny Wilson, also of Southern Cal, who went 6 feet 9‚Öú inches back in 1940.—ED.

TWO ILLUSTRATIONS

© AJAY

MR. CAPER

PHOTO

THE NEW DKW THREE-SIX