19th HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER
BASEBALL: ON THE CAMPUS
Sirs:
Finally, after far too many years, college baseball has been properly recognized by your excellent publication (The Men Look Over the Boys, SI, June 24). I have often wondered, as a follower of this game and as one who knows the important part that college training plays in the development of your ballplayer, why some publication of your prominence has not before recognized this segment of our sporting world. I congratulate you on this excellent coverage and I hope that you will continue from time to time to give due recognition to the colleges of America for their part in developing our national pastime.
BARRY GOLDWATER
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C.
Sirs:
As a very ardent baseball fan and long a follower of collegiate baseball, I was delighted to see the excellent coverage which your magazine gave to the College World Series at Omaha.
Congratulations for a fine job!
EDWARD T. MCCORMICK
President, American Stock Exchange
New York
Sirs:
I have enjoyed your magazine ever since its first publication. With four sons it is sometimes difficult to get to it before it is pretty well used.
We are sports enthusiasts in every field, but particularly in baseball. For this reason we are very happy with your recent emphasis on college baseball. I assume you will now move into the Little League.
RICHARD H. FORSTER
Los Angeles
•The Little Leaguers? Coming up.—ED.
Sirs:
It came as a distinct surprise—and pleasure—to find that somebody, other than myself, knew that there was such a sport as college baseball. Since your June 24th issue recognized that there is such an animal, I sincerely hope you will continue to issue occasional bulletins on this greatly neglected facet of the sporting world.
Even the daily papers treat college baseball as if it was an extension of the obituaries and the Lydia Pinkham ads, and I was developing a complex because I like the sport.
ROBERT M. CLARK
Detroit
Sirs:
You people are headed in the right direction with regard to publicizing baseball as conducted in colleges these days.
JOHN EHLERS
San Diego, Calif.
Sirs:
Such articles will do much for baseball and will do more for boys who have hopes of a baseball career. "Every educated feller ain't a plumb greenhorn."
CHARLES B. PROVENCE
San Diego, Calif.
TV BASEBALL: ALLEN YELLS
Sirs:
You guys think you have troubles. We've got Mel Allen! Mr. Allen insists on:
1) Talking constantly about trivial and boring topics, come home run or double play.
2) Yelling into the mike every time a ball is hit out of the infield.
3) Encouraging people to wire in unimportant questions, i.e., What are bases made of?
4) Advertising beer all night by generous gulps.
5) Being superstitious about announcing that a man has a no-hitter going.
6) Talking 99% of the time when he is supposed to be interviewing somebody.
He could learn a lot from Phil Rizzuto.
HAROLD STULTS JR.
Short Hills, N.J.
TV BASEBALL: WEST COAST BLUES
Sirs:
In regard to Mr. Aronson's and Mr. Satzburg's comments on baseball announcers (19TH HOLE, June 10):
They haven't heard anything until they have heard our boys in Los Angeles. I give you the five best bad announcers—Bond, Brundige, Scott, Harmon and Welch.
Bond and Brundige don't know what the score is—either in the game or otherwise—and half the time don't know what inning it is or who is at bat.
We also have Hesler, who in my opinion is one of the best, and Kelley. The latter, like Wismer, has every play a crisis, but at least he's never dull and again, in my opinion, is the best around here.
A. J. BARTNETT
Camarillo, Calif.
TV BASEBALL: OLD PODNER FAN
Sirs:
The TV baseball announcer seems to be taking his lumps lately. Complaints are flying right and left. A certain J. W. Kennedy (19TH HOLE, June 24) had much to say in this line. He especially picked on my favorite announcer, the old podner, otherwise called Dizzy Dean. Dizzy puts a little color into the game. I like baseball, but I admit it can become boring at times. His chatter in between pitches makes the game much more interesting. He gets my vote as the best announcer of today.
LEONARD EDWARDS
Menlo Park, Calif.
NATURE: EDUCATING THE INDIAN
Sirs:
Some time ago there appeared in SI a very interesting article on fish printing (How to Print Your Fish, June 18, '56). This I read with pleasure at the time but, unfortunately for me, I failed to keep the copy for future reference.
I have just returned from a fishing trip to Fort Babine in British Columbia, where to my surprise I found the gentle art of fish printing carried on. If you concluded that this kind of fish reproduction (as distinguished from spawning) had been learned from the northern Indians you would be wrong, but if you attributed its source to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED you would be right. Your subscribers do get around; one from Milwaukee brought the word to Fort Babine, and one from San Francisco found it there.
I wonder if you could send me a copy of the original article so that I can determine if any of the information it contained was omitted by my Fort Babine instructor.
G. D. STRATFORD
San Francisco
NATURE: OF DONKEYS AND IRISHMEN
Sirs:
Oh for the life of a donkey—and oh for the life of Mr. O'Reilly!
ROGER P. STONE
Hingham, Mass.
MOTOR SPORTS: MISSIONARY ZEAL
Sirs:
As a recent arrival from Montreal, I find the protocol of sportscarmanship in this area in a shocking decline (E & D, July 1). I have today been waved at by MG-A's (two, male), TR-3's (one, female) and, I shudder to recall it, a Ford Anglia while driving an Austin A-50!
I would vigorously suggest appropriate missionary activity in this benighted area.
EDWARD D. LEVINSON, M.D.
Evanston, Ill.
GOLF: WORD TO THE WISE
Sirs:
Thanks to you and Ben Hogan's lessons (SI, March 11 et seq.), which I read and practiced diligently, I am now a proud member of the Hole-in-One Club!
The miracle took place Sunday May 26 at Shore Acres Golf Club on the 141-yard 14th hole. I drove with my four-wood.
It was my first game of the season—a mixed foursome with my husband and the Lester Armours.
I am now a Ben Hogan fan!
MRS. JAY N. WHIPPLE
Lake Forest, Ill.
GOLF: EVERYBODY'S DOIN' IT
Sirs:
Modest man that I am (adverbial comment censored), I hesitate to point something out to you which I think might be most interesting to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED.
On the 4th of July, about 11 a.m., I made a hole in one (the first one after 28 years of golfing) on a very tricky 14th hole here at Manistee Country Club. I hit a five-iron shot which split the pin all the way, hit directly in line about 10 feet short, bit in and rolled into the cup without touching the pin. This is a very tricky hole and a hard green to hit.
About 10 minutes later when my foursome were playing on the 15th green, we told two foursomes on a nearby tee about the hole in one. One of these individuals slated that they would try to match our low ball on the hole and kidded me about failure to use my wedge on the hole. I have a reputation for using a wedge for too long a shot.
At about 11:20 or 11:25 one of these foursomes, playing the very same hole, had a second hole in one. Mr. John Stefanick was the culprit. However, his shot hit about five to 10 feet to the left of the line of flight but with a little English slid to the right and entered the hole, again apparently without touching the pin.
Records here do not indicate, as I mentioned above, any previous holes in one on this particular hole, and as far as we can ascertain from our golf professional (who is one of the old school) there is no record nationally of two holes in one on the same hole on the same day. It is especially interesting in light of the fact that the second hole in one was made within about 20 minutes of the first one and also that the individual who made the second hole in one was aware of the first hole in one and was making an attempt to tie me.
ROBERT R. LUTZ
Manistee, Mich.
GOLF: USGA BLUNDER
Sirs:
My heartiest congratulations to Herbert Warren Wind for his fine article The Tragic Fourth (SI, July 8).
It's obvious the USGA blundered [in disqualifying Jackie Pung], as the intent of the rule was not violated.
CHARLES W. UPCHURCH JR.
Charlotte, N.C.
GOLF: SO THERE!
Sirs:
Golf is for the birds and Ike and old men.
TOM WALSH
Denver
BASEBALL: EAST END?
Sirs:
That fellow Creamer (Al Lopez, SI, July 1)! He lost me in the second paragraph: "...the quiet east end of Chicago." Indeed! To me, a native Chicagoan, he talks about Chicago's "east end." That really is something.
There is a north side, a south side, a west side; but where is "east end"? After being brought to an abrupt halt by the foregoing I did manage to pick up and start going again, happily engrossed.
ED DEUSS
Chicago
•Since the "east end" would be Lake Michigan, Creamer was obviously so "happily engrossed" that he got his directions mixed.—ED.
BASEBALL: TYCOON TRADE
Sirs:
Re PAT ON THE BACK (SI, July 8), concerning Motorola's sports program: since athletes are fast becoming an integral part of our corporations' business, it won't be long before our sports pages will triumphantly announce an awesome trade, with First Baseman Henry Ford II traded to American Motors for Pitcher George Romney and two 1954 Nash Ramblers.
S. MEISNER
Oak Park, Mich.
BASEBALL: ROOKIE ROOTERS
Sirs:
As a long-suffering Red Sox rooter, I ask you please not to ignore our spark of hope, our rookie of the year, Frank Malzone. How come his virtues are not recorded in your Baseball X-Ray under "The Rookies"?
JOHN F. HARVEY JR.
Hartford, Conn.
•With no clear-cut definition of a rookie, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S baseball team considers Malzone a sophomore, since last season he played in 27 games, was at bat 103 times and was a Boston Red Sox regular for more than 45 days.—ED.
ROWING: MY ACHING BACK
Sirs:
Lungs burning, back nearly broken, hands blistered: that was my condition after reading Don Parker's superb account of Cornell's hard-earned IRA victory on Onondaga Lake (SI, July 1). This piece of living sports literature is the kind of thing which makes SPORTS ILLUSTRATED a truly great publication. Parker did more than describe an exciting race, he put the reader in the boat and handed him an oar.
ALVIN S. FICK
Fort Johnson, N.Y.
YACHTING: BURGEONING BURGEES
Sirs:
May I take this occasion to compliment you on the cover design and also on Ezra Bowen's article on Yachting Heraldry (SI, July 1).
I must confess that I was rather crestfallen to note the omission of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Ensign in the collection of flags and pennants appearing on page 25. With our 15,000 members throughout the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, we feel that we should be regarded as one of the leading national boating organizations. Our sponsorship of the current National Safe Boating Week program has been considered a signal and worthwhile contribution to the American boating public by most interested groups.
BLISS WOODWARD
Commodore, Third District
U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary
Mamaroneck, N.Y.
Sirs:
No doubt you will receive a great number of letters from clubs passed over in your selection of 39 Leading North American Yacht Clubs.
My main complaint is this: Houston Yacht Club is represented, and they are our competition. The two clubs are approximately seven land miles apart and 15 nautical miles apart. Why isn't the Lakewood Yacht Club represented? Our club is larger in membership, has more land, over 100 boats standing in club sheds (all power yachts ranging from 27 feet to 130 feet) and better than $3.5 million in assets (not including boats).
We are young in years—not quite two years old—but we're growing by leaps and bounds daily.
ROBERT H. ANDREWS
Seabrook, Texas
Sirs:
Your issue of July 1 was of great interest to yachting enthusiasts. In particular, I regard your illustrations of signal flags, club burgees and private signals a very fine job.
However, as a member and past commodore of the Riverton Yacht Club, I feel a bit put out by your omission of any sample of the few still-legal club burgees which use the stars and stripes as part of their design. You will find enclosed a replica of the burgee of the Riverton Yacht Club, which uses this design.
JOHN H. THOMPSON
Riverton, N.J.
•With almost 1,000 club burgees to consider, Yachting Editor Bowen used geographic distribution of important yachting centers as the criterion for choice.—ED.
PHOTO
MR. O'REILLY ENJOYING LIFE
THREE ILLUSTRATIONS