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PEOPLE
Before a crowd of 10,000 Mark Twain fans in Calavaras County, Calif., Tarheel Terror II, the splotchy dark green entry of North Carolina's Governor Terry Sanford, soared a sensational 11 feet 9 inches to wrest leaping honors from California Governor Pat Brown's Rocket (who jumped a nothing 3 feet 5) in the 99th local frog-jumping contest. But, in the kind of storytelling switch that Twain liked best, Nevada Governor Grant Sawyer's sleek and graceful Paiute Pete was judged Grand Champion of the whole tournament just because he was so beautiful—to frog lovers, that is.
Out on the field Dodger Infielder Maury Wills was busy stealing bases (two) from the New York Mets. Inside the Dodger Stadium locker room another pro (with a greater passion for anonymity) was busy stealing the diamond ring Maury got for helping the Dodgers win the World Series last year.
The atmosphere of Paris has not proved particularly healthy for the organization known as NATO. But to NATO's newly appointed boss, Italian Ambassador to France Manlio Brosio, it is as stimulating as fine French wine. Practically every morning just before dawn, Brosio leaps out of bed and bounds over to the Bagatelle tennis courts in the Bois de Boulogne for some fast sets with his staff. "I do it," he says, "just for fun." His associates have remained diplomatically silent about why they do it.
"When we get to town I call up a pro and get him to take me on," said tennis nut Edward Everett Horton, one of the stars of the touring musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. "But we play by my rules," added the young 77-year-old actor who manages at least a set a day. "That means I stand in one place on the court, and the ball has to come to me. And if anybody happens to wander up to watch, the pro has to make me look like I'm playing a strenuous game."
Charles (King Kong) Keller has long since stopped racing around the bases for the New York Yankees. Now his harness horses do all the trotting and King Kong is on the coaching line. Last week he was joined there by another benched Yankee as Sports-caster Phil Rizzuto bought a leg or two of one of Keller's new 3-year-olds named, appropriately, Tepid Yankee.
Maybe it was the fact that they had just clinched the match on the 16th hole. Maybe it was because one of their defeated opponents was that past master of the old soft shoe, Ray Bolger. Maybe it was just the Pennsylvania Dutch country near which the match was played. Whatever the reason, it was enough to inspire Golfers Dwight D. Eisenhower, 73, and Arnold Palmer, 34, to a pretty do-si-do (right) in celebration of their victory over Bolger and Jimmy Demaret.
"Boxing," said 140-pound Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, as he stopped off at Tokyo's Kuramae Kokugikan arena to watch some 300-pound sumo wrestlers in action, "is inhumane, but sumo is a worthwhile sport, combining strength, stamina and a sort of classical beauty. Though I am a small man and cannot compete with them, I can take pride while I am watching that I am one of the male sex."
Figuring that justice is justice and that any man who can successfully send Leo Durocher to the showers can sentence anybody, a Texas judge invited National League Umpire Jocko Conlan to share his bench for a day. "In a sense we are trying to be good umpires down here," said the judge as Jocko took his seat in court. "Well," said the visiting man in blue, "you have two weeks to reach a decision. I never get that kind of time."
"There is a possibility," said Rejoneador Angel Peralta of his new pupil, Geraldine Chaplin, "that she might take up bullfighting professionally." But more analytical aficionados made a correction. The possibility, said those who have been watching famed Charlie's susceptible 20-year-old daughter flutter like a butterfly between ballet school in Paris and torero school in Madrid, was that Geraldine might take up Teacher Peralta matrimonially.
Any day now American Football League Commissioner Joe Foss will be headed for Africa to hunt some big game. And if the big game are not panicked at the thought, it may be that they have heard about Joe's deadly aim—on the golf course. Seeking to sharpen his eye on the links one afternoon recently, Joe picked up a one-wood and sliced his first tee shot right into the weeds. His next shot landed among the trees and his next back in the weeds. After that it was the weeds once more, then the water, then a sand trap. It was a long day, and Commissioner Foss wound it up with a 31—for the first hole.
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