19TH HOLE: The readers take over

BASEBALL ISSUE: GOOD CHEER
Sirs:
The best baseball issue (SI, April 14) yet! Robert Creamer's The Unbarnacled Truth was a masterpiece and should be read by every baseball fan. It did so much to bolster the spirits of fans everywhere.
PAT WILLIAMS
Wilmington, Del.

WRIGLEY: WISE, WISE MAN
Sirs:
I spent a good hour working my way through Robert Boyle's article on Phil Wrigley and found it fascinating. That man is a complete paradox. How different most of us would be from him were we born to wealth and a name. But he's a wise, wise man and he knows where the real values are.
A. N. WETCHER
Chicago

PAY-AS-YOU-DON'T-GO TV
Sirs:
Mr. Creamer points out in The Unbarnacled Truth regarding subscription television that at 50¢ a set one World Series game will bring in an estimated $10 million. Six and one-half million of this would go to the company that owns the pay-TV franchise. Spread over the baseball season this income represents fantastic money.

The money of course comes from the fan, who will have to pay for exactly the same thing he now sees free of charge. Just what are the proprietors of the pay-TV franchise going to offer the television audience that they are not getting now? Nothing. But if you don't put your 50¢ in the living-room slot machine you can't see the ball game.
PAUL HARRIS
Los Angeles

THE VOICES: SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
Sirs:
Why blast Philadelphia Announcer Gene Kelly? The quote you gave, "Don't set the table, Mabel, we'll be here for extra innings," is often heard by the fans here, but your comment that this "can wear" is simply uncalled for.

That expression is Gene Kelly, the man we Phillies fans love to follow during the baseball season. In the opening game of the season Kelly came up with an expression, I'll always remember: "Spring training is over and it isn't next year, it's this year."
BETSY MORRELL
Newtown, Pa.

...SILENT IN CINCINNATI
Sirs:
In your analysis of the 16 clubs, you mentioned every announcer in the business with the exception of one: me. I have been broadcasting the Cincinnati games with Waite Hoyt for four years and, as you know, getting your name before the public in a magazine such as yours never did any harm.
JACK MORAN
Cincinnati

•Jack Moran (37, modest), the No. 2 radioman with Waite Hoyt, was a nine-letter man at Bellevue, Ky. high school. Moran spent several years broadcasting over stations in West Virginia, New Mexico and Wisconsin before joining WSAI in Cincinnati. In the summer of '54 Moran won out over 125 other applicants to become Hoyt's assistant. A good enough ballplayer to have been offered a contract by the Albuquerque Cubs when he was announcing their games, Moran is a knowledgeable observer of the game.—ED.

...MOVED IN ST. LOUIS
Sirs:
Everyone in the St. Louis area and any Cardinal fan knows Harry Caray (43, exuberant) for his "Hol-ly co-ow."

Maybe the Braves' Earl Gillespie says it, too, but surely not as heart-rendingly as Harry Caray.
ETHEL BURGARD
Mascoutah, Ill.

•What else is a man in the grip of deep emotion to say?—-ED.

BROOKLYN'S OPEN WOUND
Sirs:
Roy Terrell made the ridiculous, ill-documented and idiotic statement that "if Brooklyn fans had wanted the Dodgers badly enough, by their very presence in the ball park they could have assured themselves of a team for all time."

This is unadulterated hogwash.

The Brooklyn fans paid $1 million for each of the past 11 seasons.

O'Malley didn't respect the Brooklyn fans. He didn't think enough of them to paint the park annually as his so-called "cheap" predecessor Branch Rickey did. Nor did he keep the field presentable by hiring a capable groundkeeper. More than once green dye was used when grass failed.

Brooklyn fans have been the best the world has ever seen. How they have been stabbed in the back! Remarks such as Mr. Terrell's, no matter how unmalicious their intent, push the knife a little deeper!
ROBERT SEGRELL
Emmitsburg, Md.

...AND BOSTON'S HOPES
Sirs:
Your "wonderful" report on the Boston Red Sox stating that that team would go nowhere but down is rather hasty. Please notice who in the Grapefruit League topped the teams in the American League. No further comment on that. Casey Stengel was quoted as saying that Boston would definitely have to be considered a serious contender as well as Chicago.
DONALD B. SAMBURG
Geneva, N.Y.

GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN...
Sirs:
The YMCA looked like a convention of Italians having a ball with your new game.

The boys tried A Handful of Baseball and like it. It should be great on our day camp buses this summer.

Thanks again to the creators.
KENNETH DYKES
Patchogue, N.Y.

HR WITH SNAKE EYES
Sirs:
My attention was especially attracted by the "finger game."

I have received considerable enjoyment the last few months from a baseball game I invented employing two dice.

There are two players. Each player tosses the dice until he is retired by three outs. There are nine innings.

Dice total= 2 home run
3 double play
4 foul out
5 ground out
6 single
7 fly out
8 strikeout
9 ground out
10 base on balls
11 double
12 safe on error

For an attempted steal of second, 2 through 8 is successful, with the runner being thrown out on 9 through 12. For a steal of third, 2 through 7 is successful and, for a steal of home, 2 through 6 is successful. Double plays count as one out with the bases empty.

The average score is within a fraction of the average major league score, which you will discover if you play several games. It is based upon the actual percentage of two thrown dice.
KINNON McLAMB
Goldsboro, N.C.

WONDERFUL MILWAUKEE
Sirs:
I thought Robert Gwathmey's paintings of baseball in Milwaukee were beautiful.
PEGGY ELIOT
Great Neck, N.Y.