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WONDERFUL WORLD OF SPORT
THE HIGH AND THE MIRED
Mr. Wonderful, Henry Aaron, wields his buggy-whip bat in County Stadium to golf a single to center. The Braves outfielder has two movie projectors and two films, one showing him in a slump, the other when he's hot. When anything goes wrong, Aaron sits in the dark between the whirring projectors. Aaron hasn't been in the dark this year, for at week's end he was batting .483, had a 20-game hitting streak, 10 homers and 32 RBIs. Aaron explained his eminence: "You got to have confidence. You got to be real comfortable and relaxed. You got to have luck and you got to attack the ball. You can't' let the ball attack you."
Mr. Wondering, Casey Stengel, dourly regards Pitchers Ryne Duren, Don Larsen, Whitey Ford and Outfielder Norm Siebern from a solitary vantage in Yankee Stadium's left-field bullpen. The Yankees had postponed their game with the league-leading Cleveland Indians, and shortly before the rain fell on The Bronx, Casey stomped off, reappearing, almost peevishly, 402 feet from home plate, perhaps to escape the photographers and writers, perhaps to ponder the dark miracle of seventh place. It was yet another bleak week for the inept World Champions; even Broadcaster Phil Rizzuto dropped a foul pop in the radio booth.
ALL OUT FOR 'FUTEBOL' IN RIO
Most Brazilians would rather win a soccer game than a war for, in Brazil, national enthusiasm for the game known as futebol makes the fanaticism of rabid sports fans elsewhere in the world seem apathetic by comparison. In Rio de Janeiro the world's largest sports arena, Maracana Stadium, stands virtually empty for every other kind of athletic contest, but during a foot ball game its 155,000 seats are filled to overflowing, with sometimes as many as 50,000 more fans cramming all available standing room. The field itself is isolated from the stands by a wide moat to prevent an even greater spillage of spectators and possible mayhem.
Shown here is Maracana Stadium as wildly enthusiastic Brazilian fans burst from its every seam: Brazil's world championship pros are beating a team of visiting British all-stars by a tense 2-0. As the game proceeded, with the Brazilians in command all the way, one visiting Briton gazed, not irreverently, in the direction of the world-famous statue of the Savior which crowns Corcovado Hill (at right). "I wish," he murmured with some fervor, "that we could call Him in as a substitute."
SHERBET FOR THE WINNER
The career girls of professional golf added a new event to their circuit the other day: the $6,000 National Ladies Invitation at Southern Pines. Since the sponsor is the eminent ice-cream maker Howard Johnson, Winner Joyce Ziske was presented with a trophy bowl full of, natch, orange sherbet (see below)—210 scoops of it, or one for each of Joyce's strokes for 54 holes. Her excellent score, which equaled the Ladies' Professional Golf Association record, brought Joyce's money winnings at halfway mark this season to $5,608.04, fifth among professional women golfers.
Career Girls Murle MacKenzie and Katy Whitworth (right), who joined Joyce in eating the sherbet at Southern Pines, are not yet in the money (or just barely in). Murle, who started playing golf at 15 in St. Petersburg, Fla. (she's now 20) joined the circuit last year, and her biggest winning to date amounts to a seventh-place $375. Katy, from Jal, N. Mex., is in her first year on the circuit. She is backed by a four-man group, including her father, which pays her $5,000 a year and collects half her winnings. So far they have got back $35. The circuit's biggest chore, as both girls agree: packing and unpacking.
SPIKING TO VICTORY
Fat white balls zipped through the air like streaking moons. Deftly the back-row setters blunted their speed and finger-lofted them toward the forecourt. There crouched the spikers, watching as the balls floated down, then springing up to slam them forward over the eight-foot-high nets. On service, in a tactic that may be new since you played the game yourself, the serving sides formed arms-up screens to hide the course of the ball as long as possible. And so it went for four days in Des Moines' North High School, where 54 volleyball teams from all over the U.S. had come to punch out national championships.
The outcome in the women's open division followed the pat, pretournament predictions. For the fifth straight time the winners were the Santa Monica (Calif.) Mariners, and officials chose six of them for the 12-woman squad which will represent the U.S. at the Pan American Games this summer. Said blonde Jean Gaertner, 20, the top U.S. woman player: "It was the same old thing for us. All we do is win."
First demonstrated in the 1890s in the Springfield, Mass. YMCA (the birthplace of basketball), organized volleyball is now played by a million and a half Americans, but has had its greatest development in Southern California, and that area now dominates U.S. championship play. The Hollywood YMCA Stars won the men's open division, the Hollywood Comets won the masters' division, and the Los Alamitos (Calif.) naval air station won the armed forces division. "People used to think volleyball was a game for fat girls," said the Stars' strapping Bill Olsson, "but they don't think that in Southern California any more." After seeing the national championships, they don't think that in Des Moines any more.
THREE PHOTOS
FOUR PHOTOS
THE BRAZILIAN TEAM SCORES FOR THE SECOND TIME AFTER 28 MINUTES OF PLAY AS BRAZILIAN FORWARD HENRIQUE GIVES THE BALL A MIGHTY KICK, SLIPS AND FALLS TO THE GROUND, THEN WATCHES IN LAUGHING GLEE AS THE BALL SLIDES PAST THE BRITISH GOALIE
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MURLE MACKENZIE AND KATY WHITWORTH PACK FOR TOUR'S NEXT STOP
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WINNER JOYCE ZISKE ACCEPTS SHERBET FROM ICE-CREAM MAKER HOWARD JOHNSON JR. AFTER SOUTHERN PINES VICTORY
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SPIKED BALL WHISTLES OFF THE FIST OF SANTA MONICA'S JEAN GAERTNER
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CALIFORNIA DOMINANCE of U.S. volleyball was reflected in women's division as Santa Monica Mariners won their fifth U.S. title.
