DESIGN FOR SPORT

Author:
Fred R. Smith

In the garden of New York's Museum of Modern Art this week the Maillol bather, poised over a reflecting pool, and the bronze Henry Moore family, seated beneath a sycamore, got some unexpected but worthy company. Under an 80-foot-square tent, a sailplane soars above lighted vitrines that display baseball masks and hockey gloves. A hydroplane shows its potential for speed in every curve. These and others are part of the first museum exhibition of contemporary objects ever drawn from the world of sport.

For The Museum of Modern Art, a Design for Sport show is not the artistic reach that it might seem. Since the museum opened in 1929, one of its major roles has been to recognize excellence of design found in man's contemporary artifacts. It has presented a Machine Art show (1934), a series of Useful Objects shows, two automobile shows (1951 and 1953), an American textiles show (1956) and a packaging show (1959). These, with its own design collection, have established the museum as America's most respected arbiter of 20th century design.

The 115 objects selected for the sports show (they are listed at the end of this article) come from 56 sports pursued in 17 different countries. They were chosen by the museum's Director of Architecture and Design, Arthur Drexler, and its Associate Curators of Design, Mildred Constantine and Greta Daniel. The show, which will continue through July, is jointly sponsored by the National Sporting Goods Association and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, whose editors approved the objects for their performance qualities. For more color photographs and an essay on the role of design in sport, please turn the page.

The car and the sulky in this picture satisfy separate but similar cravings for speed. The Houghton harness-racing sulky is basically the same today as it was in 1908. The Formula Junior Lotus was designed by Englishman Colin Chapman in 1960. Both vehicles speak the language of speed, but with a vocabulary as different as the times that created them. The Lotus is, in the opinion of The Museum of Modern Art, beautiful because of the way its solid forms are combined. Its low-slung torpedolike mass spanning out-sized wheels gives it a powerful, almost menacing, forward thrust even when it is standing still. The cast magnesium wheels are solid, made strong by their undulating shapes. The form of the cowling is repeated by the windscreen. The sulky, by contrast, is an expression in linear composition. It achieves its strength with lightweight bent woods—hickory for the frame, ash for the shafts—and the rigid geometry of steel bicycle spokes. Unlike the car, covered by its fiber-glass skin, the sulky is skeletal—all its workings show. Asymmetry gives it a poised tension, like that of a sprinter in the blocks.

CHALLENGE OF FORM

To a hitter, the beautiful thing about a baseball is the sight of it soaring into (or over) the bleachers. The beautiful thing about a bat is the sound of it connecting. But to The Museum of Modern Art, which has spent a year examining the artifacts of sport, a baseball is beautiful even on a shelf. Every handsome element of a baseball's design is there for a reason. Nothing is extraneous. Everything works. It is a perfect example of the law that in sport, as in architecture, a thing has to do what it is designed to do or it is as useless as tai If ins on a houseboat.

A ball is one of sport's simplest expressions of the form-follows-function credo. Without the figure-eight pattern of its hand stitching, a baseball would be just another sphere. But the pattern is not for decoration, nor is it merely to hold the horsehide sections together—that could be accomplished by a seam around the middle. The curvilinear design provides a grip for the pitcher, and when the ball is released with a spinning action the seam gives the sort of resistance in flight that makes a controlled curve possible. The same principle works on tennis balls. A football, on the other hand, being elliptical and pebbled, is stabilized in flight by its spin, in the manner of a gyroscope. And the linear sectional grooves of a soccer ball keep it in a straight path when it is kicked.

While acknowledging the important place of function in determining the characteristics of a well-designed object, the museum's Arthur Drexler feels that the best designs for sport display a second important attribute—the mark of a designer's individual taste. Not everyone entirely agrees—Howard Head (SI, Dec. 18), for example, the designer and manufacturer of one of the most esthetically satisfactory products in all of sport, the Head ski, has this to say: "There should be an absolute concentration on function, a logic to design. And if the designer concentrates on function, it is a subtle fact that he comes up with a thing of beauty as well." But for Drexler a designer's role is not so simply stated. Of Head and his ski, he says, "He still had an element of free choice, and not all his design decisions can have been determined entirely by function. Even with the little latitude that was allowed to him in the design of his ski, he was able to exercise his personal taste. This can be seen in the proportion of bright metal to black plastic and in the extraordinarily sensitive modulations of thickness."

In addition to function and taste, Drexler believes, a third and less tangible force motivates good design for sport. It embodies a classical concept of the Greeks—that winning the race is not so important as running it well. This is the concept defined in the citation accompanying SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's annual Sportsman of the Year award, which goes each year "to that individual who, in the opinion of the editors, has most closely approached the degree of excellence suggested by the ancient Greek concept of arete—a unity of virtues of mind and body to which the truly complete man of every age must aspire." Arete has a place in every sport, and the pursuit of excellence has a refining influence on the equipment of sport as well as on men.

Thus, when the sportsman buys a piece of equipment he also buys a potential—the possibility that the skills of the craftsmen who designed it may combine with his own skills to produce true excellence. He could equal Anderl Molterer on his Kneissl White Star skis. He could break par with the clubs Ben Hogan designed, or catch a record trout with his Orvis bamboo rod. The potential is there in the object; and in its challenge and in its use the object tests the man as the man tries the object. The relationship is a very close and personal one, indeed more personal than that of a consumer to a product in any other field. Englishman William F. Hardy, who does his designing on a riverbank, says: "When you are fishing, the tackle is part of yourself."

When the implement of sport becomes a part of the person, and the two join in the pursuit of excellence, there is no room for superficial decoration. Equipment that poses a challenge to the user tends to be honest and functional. By contrast, consumer goods that work on a pushbutton basis and ask nothing of the buyer except money often develop a jukebox character. The housings of outboard motors intended for nonboatmen may swell up like vacuum cleaner bags and often are striped with useless paint and chrome; cars and boats are both adorned with tailfins borrowed from airplanes (where they have a function).

This sort of thing rarely happens to sailboats. "I've never seen a gaudy, gadgety sailboat," says Drexler. Sailboats, whether as simple as Ian Proctor's English-made MiniSail, an ingenious, scooped-out surfboard with a sail, or as intricate as an America's Cup 12-meter challenger, have no deck room for unnecessary gadgets.

Nor do competition motorboats—when they are designed by someone like Ted Jones. Jones is the creator of such Gold Cup-winning boats as the famous Slo-Mo-Shuns, and he is to hydroplanes what Howard Head is to skis. Like Head, he got his pre-sports training in the aircraft industry. The Jones hydroplane in the museum's exhibition was commissioned by the Kiekhaefer Corporation to test its Mercury outboard motors. It is as lyrical as a fiddle in the sweep of its polished plywood. But those racy curves were not put there by Jones simply to please the eye. "I start with the lines that function best—make a boat turn well, accelerate well and give it good handling at top speed," says Jones. "If I used formal engineering and designed my boats with a slide rule, things would not have worked. I make my blueprints after I design the boat."

For Drexler, a Ted Jones hull has a preferred set of proportions that, like handwriting, cannot be disguised. They produce, within the Jones-tested formula for speed on water, an elegantly refined craft that is its own best trademark.

The design of sporting goods is further disciplined by the necessity in sport for using appropriate tools. No sportsman would go after deer with a .458 magnum or brook trout with salt-water tackle. Contrarily, the Winchester Model 94 carbine, a versatile sporting firearm ideally suited for short-range North American big game hunting, is the most popular rifle ever made. It is so appropriate for the American rifleman that it hasn't changed in any notable respect since it was designed by John M. Browning in 1894. Says Drexler, "It has the Yankee qualities found in a Seth Thomas clock—a Spartan, straightforward trimness." More than 2.5 million Winchester 94 rifles have been sold.

To many fly-fishermen, the finest rod is one of split bamboo, and the finest bamboo rod is made by the Charles F. Orvis Co. There are 14 rodmakers at this 106-year-old Vermont shop. Any one of them can machine a piece of bamboo that weighs only .06 ounce, on a milling machine weighing 5 tons, to 1/1000 of an inch. The six triangular pieces of bamboo, milled, cemented, impregnated with phenolic resin, their guides of tungsten steel hand-wrapped with silk and the butt set into a cork grip, become an expression of ultimate refinement for function's sake and a sporting tool of great beauty.

An economy of statement is also as important in the design of an object as is apparent effortlessness in a sporting endeavor. It is important in sport to have something do more than it seems capable of doing rather than less. Bill Boehmke's class E Skeeter iceboat, poised lightly under the exhibition's great tent, looks as fragile as a mosquito. Its thin runner planks sprout from its clean fuselage of Sitka spruce. Yet under only 75 square feet of sail the Skeeter goes three to four times as fast as the wind.

Ernest Schweizer's all-metal sailplane has a wingspan of 52 feet 8 inches and a length of 20 feet 10 inches, yet weighs only 560 pounds. This model holds the world's soaring altitude record of 46,267 feet. And George Pocock's one-man racing scull of Washington and Alaskan cedar and spruce is 26 feet long and weighs only 30 pounds.

Stanley Bogdan's salmon fly reel (see color) is such a simple thing that it can be taken apart by loosening three screws with a dime. Bogdan works all alone in his machine shop in New Hampshire, making each part of every beautiful reel, turning the frame and spool from a solid aluminum bar. Until two years ago Bogdan worked as a machinist by day, making reels at night. But Abercrombie & Fitch discovered him, and now he works full time, producing only 75 to 100 reels a year.

Not all good design for sport is confined to the clean grace of sailboats and skis, rods and reels, any more than all modern sculpture is as streamlined as a Brancusi fish. The brutal and the rugged are just as appropriate to some of sport's great objects as they are to a Picasso iron goat. The competition crossbow made by Anton R√ºegg in Steinhausen, Switzerland, is a thing of extraordinary power—and it looks it. Drexler's description of it could be a description of an abstract sculpture: "The flat planes of its steel spring and barrel, accented by the precise small scale of sights and trigger, grow out of polished carved wood stock and grip, whose forms derive from the shapes of a bowman's hand and shoulder."

Ice hockey affords another example: roughness is an integral part of the game, and its gear, both in the way it looks and the way it works, reflects this prime characteristic. Similarly, a lacrosse stick, another powerful weapon for a rugged game, is aptly crude in its use of leather thongs and gut, beautiful in the way the laminated hickory of its frame is shaped, with planes that change direction as the handle turns to form the bentwood scoop of the basket's rim.

The paraphernalia of golf, while intrinsically handsome, is at the same time among the most controversial in all of sport. It ranges from the voodoo of its practice gadgetry to the clean straightforwardness of Ben Hogan's Exact Balance putter or a Tommy Armour wood. In the rules of the game considerable latitude is given to the design of a putter, and this accounts for the 2,000 different models on the market. Woods and irons, on the other hand, are more strictly defined—and makers of clubs, in consequence, tend to overdecorate their products in order to catch the eye of the buyer. They change the color of the "homogeneous mass" of plastic inserted in the persimmon-wood head. They shift the design of painted lines that are meant to define the club's "sweet spot," trade talk for the point of address. The decorations change every year, whether the basic club does or not. "It's like the auto industry," says one manufacturer. "Our pro shops don't want to have last year's stock hanging around any more than a Ford dealer does."

Golf also decorates its equipment with "magic words"—the expensively purchased names of the famous professionals who endorse clubs, balls and everything connected with the game. The sales managers who commit these minor subterfuges are working on the strong attachment sportsmen feel for their gear, the pride of possession—plus the identification with his hero that a Little Leaguer feels for his Roger Maris bat or a golfer feels for his Tommy Armour clubs. In the eyes of the museum, these fetishistic feelings get out of hand when they prompt the maker of a fine shotgun to engrave the blue steel with images of the quarry the gun is designed to kill. Many a lover of guns will disagree here with the museum's insistence on purity: to most gun collectors the elaborate checkering on the stock, the engraving on the fine blue steel, add to the beauty of the gun.

It will be a long time before a first-rate shotgun, decorated or not, becomes obsolete. But because of improved materials and methods of manufacture this is not true of many sporting objects today. Spalding's new soccer ball, for example, uses vulcanized rubber seams instead of stitching. Plastic coatings have tripled the life of bowling pins while maintaining the old solid-maple bounce. "The surfboard industry has been as revolutionized by the advent of polyurethane foam and fiber glass as the aircraft industry by the jet," says Hobie Alter, the West Coast's leading boardmaker.

Fiber glass is causing the biggest change of all. More than 90% of all fishing rods are now made of it. They range in price and quality from the $3 drugstore variety to such excellent high-priced rods as those made by Sila-Flex, a company that also manufactures fiber-glass vaulting poles and golf club shafts. Fiber glass eventually will relegate split bamboo poles, with their cherished craftsmanship, to the category of collector's items. Golf club shafts of fiber glass and "woods" with plastic heads have been introduced or are being tested by almost every manufacturer.

But no matter what changes occur, whether boats are powered by jets or the "sweet spot" shifts again or extruded titanium replaces fiber glass, one thing will remain as constant as it has been since the first Greek tossed the first javelin. The pursuit of excellence will continue to challenge designers to create sporting goods, like those on the preceding and following pages, that properly challenge the man.

The contours of turned-maple Indian clubs, like the Rawlings one-pounders (right), invite handling and twirling. The similar silhouette of the Brunswick bowling pin is a derivation of 5th century German "Kegel," or twirling clubs, which were often used as targets for bowls. The shape of bowling pins, standardized in 1895, is slim at the top—which made it easier for pinboys to set them up quickly. The broad base makes the pins carom rather than tumble when hit by the ball. The plastic and fiber-glass globe of the sleek Bell-Toptex racing driver's helmet protects the skull with a cradling inner shell while the outer shell stands comfortably free from the face, providing good visibility through a bulbous snap-on shield.

The English firm of Hardy truly defines a fine fishing reel as one strong in construction and simple in design. It should have the fewest possible working parts consistent with efficiency and be as light as possible consistent with strength. The Museum of Modern Art has selected the four reels below as those that not only meet these requirements but are particularly beautiful as well: an Orvis 100 spinning reel, Hardy's Zenith fly reel, Bogdan's salmon reel and Shakespeare's Executive casting reel. The sailor's knife at the left, the Curry lock-spike, was chosen because of the way all of its stainless steel parts—the blade, marlinspike and case—combine into a workmanlike whole.

MUSEUM CHOICES

All of the objects selected by The Museum of Modern Art for its exhibition are listed below. Those photographed in color in this story are starred. Unless the designer's name appears in parentheses, the object is a company design.

1. Arrow. Model A-51, Bear Archery Co., Grayling, Mich. $2
2. Arrow. Model Fox 151, Bear Co. 75¢.
3. Baseball. National League model, A. G. Spalding, Chicopee, Mass. $3.25.*
4. Baseball bat (Pete Browning and John A. Hillerich, 1884). Hillerich &. Bradsby Co., Louisville. $4.70.
5. Baseball bat (Ty Cobb and company design, 1908). Hillerich & Bradsby. $4.70.
6. Baseball bat (Stan Musial and company design, 1953). Hillerich & Bradsby. $4.70.
7. Baseball bat (Roger Maris and company design, 1960). Hillerich &, Bradsby. $4.70.
8. Bicycle. Model DL22AW, Raleigh Industries, Ltd., Nottingham, England. $63.65.
9. Boat, folding type. Aerius Flagship, Hans Klepper Corp., Rosenheim, West Germany. $349.
10. Boat, MiniSail (Ian Proctor). Richmond Marine, Ltd., Richmond, England. About $335.
11. Boat, round. Yamaha Motor Co., Hamamatsu, Japan. $1,995.
12. Bobsled (Alvarado Podar). Two-man model, Alvarado Podar, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. $1,250.
13. Boomerangs, nonreturning types (native design). Central Australia.
14. Boomerangs, returning types (native design). Central Australia.
15. Bow (Bill Stewart). Kodiak Special, Bear Archery Co. $74.95.
16. Bowling pin. Brunswick Corp., Chicago. $52.50 for set of 10.*
17. Boxing head protector. Model 585, Leonhard Erhard S√∂hne, Rothenburg, West Germany. $6.50.
18. Boxing speed bag. Wilson Sporting Goods Co., River Grove, Ill. $17.50.
19. Boxing training gloves. Model H1152, Wilson $28.
20. Canoe, inflatable. Single-seater model, Pirelli, Milan. $50.
21. Car, Formula Junior (Colin Chapman). Model 20D, Lotus of England. $5,900. Lent by Dutchess Auto Co., Millerton, N.Y.*
22. Catcher's mask. Model FCM, Rawlings Manufacturing Co., St. Louis. $21.
23. Catcher's mask. Model JM, Rawlings. $13.95.
24. Catcher's mask (C. Hagemeyer). Model OV42, Rawlings. $10.95.
25. Catcher's mask. Model A3004, Wilson. $21.
26. Catcher's mitt (R. Latina). Model RL, Rawlings. $45.
27. Court tennis racket. Bancroft Sporting Goods Co., Pawtucket, R.I. $22.50.
28. Cricket bat. Model 9000, Slazengers Ltd., London. $19.95.
29. Cricket gloves. Model 3122, Slazengers. $14.95 a pair.
30. Crossbow. Anton R√ºegg, Steinhausen, Switzerland. $150.
31. Curling stone. Made in Scotland for John Braidwood &. Sons, Ltd., Montreal. $70 a pair.
32. Dart board. Nodor model, made by Dunlop of England for Haecker Industries, Philadelphia. $25.
33. Discus. Made in Sweden for Sports Beconta, Inc., New York City. $12.95.*
34. Engine outboard (E. C. Kiekhaefer). Mercury Mark 75-H, Kiekhaefer Corp., Fond du Lac, Wis. $1,200.
35. Fencing mask. Model FMA, Castello Fencing Co., New York City. $9.*
36. Fencing saber. Model SN, Castello. $12.
37. Field hockey stick. Imperial Driver model, Slazengers. $14.
38. Fielder's glove. Model A2001, Wilson. $40.
39. First baseman's mitt (R. Latina). Model TMH, Rawlings. $39.95.
40. Fish landing net. Model 11, Charles F. Orvis Co., Manchester, Vt. $10.25.
41. Fishing reel. Salmon fly model, Stanley Bogdan, Nashua, N.H. $130.*
42. Fishing reel, salmon fly (W. F. Hardy). Zenith model, Hardy Bros., Ltd., Alnwick, England. $29.50.*
43. Fishing reel, spinning. Model 100, Made in Italy for Orvis. $28.95.*
44. Fishing reel, casting (Henry G. Shakespeare). Model 1992, Shakespeare Co., Kalamazoo, Mich. $45.*
45. Fishing rod, bamboo fly. Model 30715, Orvis. $145.
46. Fishing rod, Fiberglas spinning (Herb Jenks). Model PT70, Sila-Flex, Costa Mesa, Calif. $69.50.
47. Football. Model F1100, Wilson. $23.50.
48. Golf club. Tommy Armour No. 3 wood, MacGregor Co., Cincinnati. $26.
49. Golf putter (Ben Hogan). Model P102, Ben Hogan Co. Division of AMF, Fort Worth. $15.
50. Golf putter (Ben Hogan). Model P107, Ben Hogan Co. $14.
51. Gun, superposed 12-gauge (John M. Browning). Made in Belgium for Browning Arms Co., St. Louis. $315.
52. Gymnastic buck. Sportarticles Co., Helsinki. $61 FOB Helsinki.
53. Helmet, racing driver's (Roy Richter and Frank Heacox). Model 500TX, Bell-Toptex, Inc., Bell, Calif. $37.*
54. Helmet shield for above. Model 235-3, Paulson Mfg. Co. Fallbrook, Calif. $5.50.*
55. Hurling stick. The O'Doherty Co., Dublin. $4.
56. Hurling ball. Made in Ireland for P. J. Grimes, New York City. $3.
57. Hydroplane (Ted Jones). Model FX, Ted Jones Craft, Inc., Seattle. $995.
58. Ice ax. Designed and made by Fratelli Grivel, Italy for Trailwise, Berkeley, Calif. $16.75.
59. Iceboat. Side-by-side Class E Skeeter, designed and made by Bill Boehmke, Crystal Lake, Ill. $1,800. Lent by William Hickey.
60. Ice hockey elbow pad. Model EK25, Cooper-Weeks, Ltd., Toronto. $15.
61. Ice hockey glove. Model 544, Stall & Dean, Brockton, Mass. $39.
62. Ice hockey goalie catching mitt. Model GM10X, Cooper-Weeks. $29.50.
63. Ice hockey goalie leg guard. Model GP59, Cooper-Weeks. $85 a pair.
64. Ice hockey goalie stick. Model 401, Northland Ski Mfg. Co., St. Paul. $6.
65. Ice hockey goalie stick mitt. Model 570GS, Stall &. Dean. $28.*
66. Ice hockey shinguard. Model DG42, Cooper-Weeks. $22.50.
67. Ice hockey stick. Model 403G, Northland. $4.75.
68. Ice speed skates (I. Ballangrud). Model Ving 100, Wilhelm Rosenvinge, Moss, Norway. $35.
69. Indian clubs, one-pound models. Designed and made by Holbrook Company for Rawlings. $7.95 a pair.*
70. Jai alai cesta. Designed and made by José Echave, Guernica, Spain. $25.
71. Javelin, man's. Seefab, Sweden. Imported by Sports Beconta, New York City. $14.75.
72. Javelin, woman's. Seefab, imported by Sports Beconta. $13.75.*
73. Kite, water ski. Race &. Race, Inc., Winter Haven, Fla. $237.
74. Knife-ax set (Harvey Platts). F6610, Western Cutlery Co., Boulder, Colo. $9.75.
75. Knife, hunting (Deane Russell). Russell Belt model, Grohmann Knives, Ltd., Pictou, N.S. $9.95.
76. Knife, fishing. Model 1010, designed and made by Angelo Patin, Maniago, Italy. 80¢.
77. Knife and lockspike, sailing. Model 468, made in England for The Crow's Nest, New York City. $5.95.*
78. Knife, throwing. Edwin Jay Co., Solingen, West Germany. $2.75.
79. Lacrosse stick, attack. H. J. Gray & Sons, Cambridge, England, for Alex Taylor, Inc., New York City. $17.95.
80. Pistol, target. Model 103, H√§mmerli Ltd., Lenzburg, Switzerland. $160.*
81. Polo mallet. Model 8, Salter & Sons, Aldershot, England for Miller's, New York City. $8.50.
82. Rifle, lever-action repeating (John M. Browning). Model 94, Winchester-Western Division of Olin Mathieson, New Haven, Conn. $83.95.
83. Rugby ball. Victory model, Slazen-gers. $12.95.
84. Saddle, hunting. Model 488. J. Stubben, Krefeld, West Germany, for Miller's, New York City. $199.50.
85. Saddle, leather jockey. Hermes, Paris. $118.35.
86. Saddle, patent leather jockey. Model 2194, Miller's, New York City. $110.
87. Saddle, horse show. Hermes, Paris. $193.35.
88. Sailplane (Ernest Schweizer). Model I-23H, Schweizer Aircraft Corp., Elmira, N.Y. $5,795.
89. Scull, single racing. Designed and made by George Pocock, Seattle. $550.
90. Shuttlecocks. Pennsylvania Sporting Goods Co., Philadelphia. 20¢ to $1.
91. Ski poles (Howard Head). Head Ski Co., Timonium, Md. $24.50.
92. Skis, cross-country wood (N. Bonna). Competition model, Lommedal Ski-fabrikk, Oslo. $30.
93. Skis, fiber glass (Franz Kneissl). White Star model, Kneissl Skifabrik, Kufstein, Austria. $195.
94. Skis, metal (Howard Head). Standard model, Head Ski Co. $98.50.
95. Snowshoes, racing. Model 12x36, Snocraft, Norway, Me. $25.
96. Snowshoes, walking. Model Bear-paw, Snocraft. $32.
97. Soccer ball. Last-Bilt model, Spalding. $24.95.
98. Sulky, harness racing. Model 21927. The Houghton Sulky Co., Marion, Ohio. $445.*
99. Surfboard, balsa and fiber glass (Hobie Alter). Expert model, Hobie Surfboards, Dana Point, Calif. $150.
100. Surfboard, polyurethane and fiber glass (Greg Noll). Model 859, Greg Noll Surfboards, Hermosa Beach, Calif. $164.
101. Table tennis paddle. Model 7, Ju Rapida, Treviso, Italy. $2.60.
102. Targets, archery. Saunders Archery Target Company, Columbus, Neb. 200 to $3.50 each.*
103. Tent (C. William Moss). A-Tent model, Powers and Co., River Forest, Ill. $89.95.
104. Tent (Robert Blanchard). Two-man Polaris Alpine model, Eureka Tent and Awning Co., Binghamton, N.Y. $81.90.
105. Toboggan (Donald Peters). Model 2907, F. D. Peters Co., Inc., Gloversville, N.Y. $23.
106. Underwater boots. Model SDB1, W. J. Voit Rubber Co. Division of AMF, Los Angeles. $4.95 a pair.
107. Underwater fins. Nemrod 6022HL, The Seamless Rubber Co., New Haven, Conn. $10.95.
108. Underwater hood. Nemrod 6231, Seamless. $4.
109. Underwater mask. Alfeo model, Pirelli. $3.50.
110. Underwater mask. Narvalo model, Pirelli. $2.
111. Underwater mask. Nemrod 6011Y, Seamless. $6.95.
112. Underwater mask. 5049, U.S. Divers Co., Santa Ana, Calif. $5.95.
113. Underwater mitts. Model 3064, Non-Terfoam, U.S. Divers. $4.
114. Underwater sling gun. Model 4006, U.S. Divers. $4.95.
115. Water ski. Joe Cash slalom, Hedlund Mfg. Co., Nokomis, Ill. $27.50.

PHOTO

MARK KAUFFMAN

The contours of this mask, shown before an archery target, guard the fencer and render him anonymous, thus heightening the mystery of a romantic sport.

THREE PHOTOS

MARK KAUFFMAN

PHOTO

MARK KAUFFMAN

Stitched leather forms the artful simplicity of an official baseball, the armorlike padded-and-laced intricacy of a hockey goalie's stick glove.

PHOTO

MARK KAUFFMAN

The baroque curves of this Swiss-made H√§mmerli target pistol are carved of walnut to fit the hand and steady the grip of a contestant.

PHOTO

MARK KAUFFMAN

Two of the simplest shapes in the exhibition are found in two of the oldest designs for sport—a discus and a javelin.

PHOTO

May 14, 1962