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PEOPLE
Edward Charles (Whitey) Ford (below), an elderly ex-pitching coach, stopped off at New York's Roosevelt Raceway the other day to spend a few idle hours training harness horses for Owner Billy Haughton. The next day Ford pitched a three-hitter. Haughton thinks the Standard-breds helped Whitey relax, and Whitey thinks so, too. Fortunately for Ford, who has always been crazy about horses and three-hitters, the baseball rule that forbids players to own racing horses doesn't say anything about training them.
Patrick Wayne, son of John Wayne, may be the first man in recorded history to eat his way out of a world fishing record. Down in Baja California Sur, off Socorro Island with angling friends, the 25-year-old actor got most of the action. He landed the heaviest martin, the heaviest dolphin, the heaviest yellow-fin tuna and a huge wahoo. That wahoo, landed on 30-pound test line, called for special care in measuring: it was 74 inches long, had a girth of 34 inches and weighed an estimated (because there were no scales on board) 125 pounds. Wahoo being tasty, the fish was filleted and fashioned into a fine repast. Yep, someone just happened to check the record book when they got back. The International Game Fish Association record for a wahoo caught on 30-pound line is 73½ inches long, 33 inches in girth and 98 pounds 10 ounces in weight. All measurements are below those of Pat's fish, which is ineligible because it is already digested. "At least," said Wayne, swallowing the last of his disappointment, "that wahoo was mighty good eating."
Sculptor Carl Christian Mose, commissioned to do the 9-foot bronze figure of Stan Musial for St. Louis' new riverfront stadium, is fast becoming an expert on baseball (or at least on The Man, which—as any St. Louisan can tell you—is practically the same thing). "He's a good subject," says Mose. "From chest to waist Musial is like a wedge. That's where he got the power." The real measure of Mose's perception, however, is his awareness of one little pitcher-intimidating detail. "What bothers me," confesses the artist, "is how to put that little wiggle in Musial's stance. You know—he gets set, then shakes that fanny. Maybe we'll just have to put a motor in the statue."
"I have to keep trim like a fighter, diet rigidly and just keep slugging away," says Pop Pianist Roger Williams. Onetime amateur lightweight, Williams is convinced that physical stamina is needed for survival in popular music and cites his 140 concerts a year, minimum of 46 recording sessions (he has sold 11 million records) and need for constant practice besides. Slug away is just what Williams does. He still punches a light bag when he isn't working on judo or karate.
It was the first time, and almost certainly the last time, that this couple would be featured on the society page of a paper as cosmopolitan as the Portland Telegram, only Sunday newspaper published in the state of Maine. "Mrs. Charles Liston, a visitor to Maine from Denver, Colo.," Telegram readers were fascinated to learn, "was not at her hotel upon our arrival. It turned out she was in Lewiston at the laundromat." Elegant in "lavender stretch pants and a trench coat, her hair straight in bouffant style," Geraldine finally appeared and "spoke affectionately of her husband as Charles but we know him as Sonny." Absorbed subscribers were also able to devour the interesting information that Sonny loves, among other things, fried chicken, corn on the cob fried in butter, two-crust strawberry pie, peach cobbler and pound cake. That could explain something.
"It seems you can't do anything in this town without breaking some ordinance," grumbled Dallas Mayor Pro Tern R. B. Carpenter Jr. But the city council approved another one anyway. It is now officially illegal to ride a bike inside a public building in Dallas. One dissenting councilman, Bill Roberts, was quite disturbed. "Does this apply to bears riding bikes in circuses?" he asked. "What about bicycle races in Dallas Memorial Auditorium or at the State Fair?" The new ordinance was provoked by a Dallasite who finally rebelled against those labyrinthine airports. This gentleman had been wont to enter Love Field terminal, assemble a portable bicycle and careen madly down the long, long corridors to catch his plane.
Congressman Omar Burleson, a Democrat from Anson, Texas, writes a weekly newsletter to his constituents. One of Burleson's latest advised the voters: "Not all fishermen are the Lord's apostles, and the love of fishing and the payment of debts does not make a perfect man. On the other hand, it is doubted there are very many out-and-out rascals who like to fish." The Congressman signed the letter, shorter than usual: "Gone Fishing."
The rubber-suited grandmother water skiing one-handed at Ruislip Lido is, of course, England's Lady Docker (below). Who else would it be but the only woman ever banned from Monaco by Prince Rainier, the only woman ever to ride about London in a gold-plated Daimler? Now 58 and recently recovered from a two-year virus illness. Lady Docker chose this means of re-entry into the Jet Set. She also hopes it will put her in condition for the rigors of a forthcoming three-month yacht cruise.
TWO PHOTOS
