19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER

JOHANSSON VS. PATTERSON VS. KANE
SIRS:
I NOMINATE MARTIN KANE AS THE GREATEST BOXING PROPHET OF ALL TIMES (Why Ingo Will Do It Again, June 20). HIS PREDICTIONS ARE POSITIVELY UNBELIEVABLE.
JIM WILLIAMS
Albuquerque

Sirs:
In a way, I'm glad you made an extremely human mistake.
JOHN ROMAN
Philadelphia

Sirs:
Your boxing writer, like Dempsey, Tunney and other self-styled prognosticators, will need a prescription before partaking of smorgasbord again.
JAMES B. HERRING
Baltimore

Sirs:
My curiosity is aroused over what kind of award you will give Sportsman-of-Last-Year Johansson this year. Maybe a plaque outside the Polo Grounds inscribed "Johansson slept here"?
CAPTAIN W. E. BRANCH
Fort Gordon, Ga.

SIRS:
YOU OWE US PATTERSON FANS THREE COVERS, THE BACK PAGE AND THE CENTER SPREAD. IT'S A MATTER OF FAITH.
J. F. TIBBETS
Dayton, Ohio

•Reader Tibbets should recall at least three covers (July 29, 1957, Sept. 1, 1958, July 6, 1959) and innumerable articles in the past; and he may anticipate many pro-Patterson words to come—there are a few on pages 8, 42, 43, 44 of this issue.—ED.

THE ARTIST'S FIGHTER
Sirs:
Many of us who earn our living in the arts felt sad and defeated last year when Patterson lost the title to Johansson. It was incredible, and it was wrong. It was as though John Philip Sousa had beat up Johann Sebastian Bach. It is a measure of our culture that boxing is still one of our sports, but in a spectator sport that is basically unwholesome, let us at least be grateful for artistry when we find it.

Skill is rare in a generation of painters who cannot draw, of scarcely literate writers, and composers who score for table radios and hot-water bottles. Skill is moral, and order is the basis of whatever we have of beauty and goodness on a rather dirty little planet.

Floyd Patterson has always been an artist's fighter. Many were happy to see him lose his title to a businessman from Goteborg with a strong right hand. Now he has won the title back, and won it by fighting a fight as correct and polished as a Bach fugue. Order is on its way back to the arts, and Patterson is its avant-garde.
RUSSELL HOBAN
New York City

•For a sample of Painter Hoban's own pugilistic artistry from SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (March 18, 1957), see below.—ED.

WANTED: MORE EMOTION
Sirs:
Frankly, I think it's a good thing to see a player show some animation and spirit for a change. How can anyone complain about Jimmy Piersall's "antics" (A Hero of Many Moods, June 20) after seeing the way some of these players hit a home run and don't even smile about it, or steal a base and just casually get up and dust themselves off? I like watching baseball but I also like to feel that the players are enjoying themselves, too, instead of just earning their money and looking bored with the whole thing.
MRS. C. R. NEVILLE
Wilmington, Del.

Sirs:
Thank you for your EDITORIAL (June 13) supporting my stand on crowd emotions at tennis matches. However, I never advocated yelling like the fans do at baseball, football, hockey and basketball games. On the contrary, I distinctly said that I thought the "kill the umpire" attitude was wrong.

It is simply my contention that people can go to a tennis match and express their emotions in a way that tennis will be the better for it.
DAVID L. FREED
Captain,
U.S. Davis Cup Team
New York City

UNCIVILIZED AMIABILITY
Sirs:
Congratulations for John O'Reilly's excellent article The Amiable Gorilla (June 20). The facts unearthed by George Schaller and his wife must give some of our heroic big-game hunters pause when they learn how "vicious" some wild animals are in their natural habitat.
J. D. DEFOREST
Assistant Professor of Economics
Denison University
Granville, Ohio

ACADEMIC DEGREE
Sirs:
I do not think that Dave Davis of San Fernando State College deserves the satirical ridicule that you have heaped upon him (The Shotput Explosion, April 25, SCORECARD, June 20). An Olympic caliber shotputter does not have to defend his academic curriculum before a kangaroo court of ill-bred sportswriters.
JOHN LINTON
Pittsburgh

Sirs:
I have completed courses similar to those Dave Davis is taking. I, too, have maintained a B average and I can assure you that the courses in physical education are not as easy as your article would make them appear.

I might also add that my studies in physical education closely resemble those of a premedical student.
OTTO A. SCHWARZ
Department of Physical Education
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio

MISPLACED POWER
Sirs:
Your "frisky polliwogs" must have been swimming faster than your camera lens could shut (Power on the River, June 20). The looming powerhouse in the background is actually part of the Detroit plant of U.S. Rubber Co., which is about two miles downstream from the Detroit Edison (not Con Edison).
CHARLES S. TANNER
U.S. Rubber Co.
Detroit

ILLUSTRATION

HOBAN'S NEW CHAMPION AND OLD FRIENDS