19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER
THE FANS' SERIES
Sirs:
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED: I love you (Beat 'Em, Bucs!, Oct. 3).
SHIRLEY C. LANGLEY
Pittsburgh
Sirs:
Selling Casey short is one of the easiest ways to lose money there is.
C. R. HAYNES
Clinton, Conn.
Sirs:
"If Groat had been injured earlier, Schofield might be a candidate for the Most Valuable Player award." Schofield or Groat at short, it won't make any difference to the Yankee offense or defense. The Yanks in six games.
TEMME PATTERSON
Evansville, Ind.
Sirs:
Best rewrite and rename your article Yanks in Four.
JAMES TRIPPE
New York
Sirs:
Yankees in five.
PAUL M. HUMANICK
Wilmington, Del.
DOUBLE TAX
Sirs:
Re your editorial "Deductio ad Absurdum" (Oct. 3): Is the Internal Revenue Service so stupid as to think that anyone can come out ahead combating the mutuel machines? Don't they realize that one of the foremost reasons why so many people gamble in America today is to try to gain a little "keeping" money? The wealthy satisfy their urge by trying for capital gains in real estate, stocks, oil and other investments. The little man can only afford the $2 window, the daily double, the football card and the bingo table.
The IRS makes a big publicity stunt out of collecting on daily doubles over $600, which will net the country very little money. Yet the bureau will not urge Congress to pass realistic tax laws on gambling that would net the country millions.
We note that wise old England makes her football pool winnings absolutely tax free. But, of course, we have fanatics over here who won't admit that millions love to gamble in every manner, shape or form and who think that they can stop these people from gambling by passing tougher and tougher gambling laws. This is not the way.
TOM JENKINS
New Orleans
WILD CARD GAME
Sirs:
Why should football be different from any other sport (EDITORIALS, Oct. 3)? In baseball, does the batter have the privilege of hitting without a signal from the bench? In basketball, do they take all those time-outs near the end of a close game just to rest? Between rounds, a boxer listens to his handler, instead of to a wild card substitute. The Davis Cuppers receive instructions during each change of court. Sure the coach can push the button, pull at his hat, draw on the floor with chalk or send in a messenger boy to talk to his faceless puppets, but he can't carry the ball, hit the home run, put the ball in the basket or knock an opponent out. I think there will be some exciting football left to enjoy.
DON GEORGE
St. Louis, Mo.
Sirs:
Of course, the wild card substitution is stupid. The entire substitution system in college football is pretty silly. The game officials, in addition to their duties on the field, have to be interrogators, recognition experts and bookkeepers.
Nevertheless, in answer to the age-old controversy of letting the quarterback call the plays: In my opinion, this boy has enough to do what with blocking, faking, passing and running without taking the responsibility for a coach's keeping or losing his job or a school's receiving additional aid from happy alumni—to say nothing of boring or enraging the fans who pay their money to see perfection in football. I am all for letting the quarterbacks call the plays and giving the game to the boys if they let us spectators in free.
RALPH MAGUIRE
New Orleans
OLD NEW FACE
Sirs:
Porter Shreve (FOOTBALL'S SECOND WEEK, Oct. 3), the star of Penn's opening victory over Lafayette, may be a "new face" to college football but he is certainly not a new face to your magazine. You ran his picture four years ago (Jan. 23, 1956), along with both local and national sports stars, when he received the Washington Touchdown Club award for the best prep school player in the Washington area for 1955. He was an outstanding single-wing tailback for St. Albans School at that time, and Penn is very fortunate to have him as they switch back to the single wing this year.
JONATHAN RICKERT
Mackinac Island, Mich.
•See picture.—ED
YOUNG PICKER
Sirs:
I was surprised to find that your writer had picked Washington to beat Navy, Northwestern to beat Iowa, and Pennsylvania to beat Dartmouth. All four members of my family have done better. Our 10-year-old picked 19 out of 22.
RUTH MARCH
Wellesley, Mass.
IRRESISTIBLE LION
Sirs:
Re "Immovable defense is symbolized by Colts' Big Daddy Lipscomb, here toying with Lion Guard Harley Sewell while waiting to see where play is going" (The Fanciest Game in Town, Sept. 26).
The fundamentals of offensive line blocking are to get under the opponent's arms, make contact with his body, straighten him up, and use head, shoulders and forearms to drive him into the cheap seats. In the picture it appears the "toyed with" Lion Guard Harley is a pretty irresistible force, and the "immovable Big Daddy" is about to be moved.
GLYNN CONLEY
Medford, Mass.
BEST SET
Sirs:
You can't really be of the opinion that the trio of James, Vereb and Sutton forms "the best set in the East" (NFL Scouting Reports. Sept. 26). What with Sutton being given his release the day SPORTS ILLUSTRATED was on the newsstands, Vereb being a refugee from the Canadian League, and James being used to a great extent on defense in his tenure with the 'Skins, I question your observation.
You must have forgotten the likes of Barnes, Peaks and rookie Ted Dean of the Eagles; how about Gifford, Webster and King of the Giants; or maybe Mitchell, Renfro and Gautt of the Browns.
TUCKER W. RUMBERGER
Alexandria, Va.
ERRATIC BALLY ACHE
Sirs:
"Bally Ache has been as erratic as a hurricane's path" (SCORECARD, Sept. 26).
I may be wrong, but if memory serves me correctly, Bally Ache's record is as follows:
[originallink:10501481:41990]
This is erratic?
HlLLER HESDORFFER
Monroe, La.
TIDAL POOL
Sirs:
As a native San Franciscan, I trod the beach near Fleishhacker Pool many times in my early youth (Pool of Pride, Oct. 3), but I believe that the caption to the effect that this pool "is certainly the world's largest," is in error.
On a motor trip through Morocco not so long ago I photographed the swimming pool at Casablanca, which, according to the figures of the local Syndicat d'Initiative (Chamber of Commerce), measures some 1,600 by 250 feet.
As I watched this gigantic pool I was amazed to see Arab girls swathed in robes and veils from toes to eyebrows enter a cabana and within a few minutes emerge in brief bathing suits.
CHARLES J. BELDEN
St. Petersburg, Fla.
•As a kind of man-made tidal basin, the Casablanca pool (see above) is in a different league.—ED.
BASEBALL SYM-PHONY
Sirs:
Your piece The Music of Baseball (Oct. 3) evoked many pleasant memories and some regrets that we all weren't around in those halcyon days of yore.
However, I missed reading about the inspired musical renderings of the Dodger Sym-phony and the great Music Depreciation Night that was staged at Ebbets Field in 1952. On that night thousands of fans showed up, at the urging of Walter O'Malley, with multifarious musical instruments, and the air was split with a hideous cacophony.
Also of interest are the various songs that were written for ballplayers of a more recent vintage. One remembers fondly, and with a faint stirring of the heart strings: Joltin' Joe DiMaggio. And the one that posed the musical question: Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball? Four years ago we had the slightly more obnoxious and infinitely cuter I Love Mickey, in which the champ himself intoned the immortal lines "Mickey who?" But then I never did think the latest crop of Yankee supermen have ever had the bearing of real musical heroes.
JOHN L. GARDNER
Morris Plains, N.J.
PHOTO
PORTER SHREVE (front row, center) with other winners [left to right) Brennan, Cassady, Flynn, Luce; (back row) Morris, Halas, Williams, Brito, Mavraides and Welsh.
PHOTO
IMMOVABLE LIPSCOMB, MOVER SEWELL
PHOTO
CASABLANCA'S POOL IN MEDITERRANEAN
Year | Starts | 1-2-3 |
1959 | 16 | 6-6-3 |
1960 | 14 | 10-3-1 |
