SCORECARD
THIS WAY EVERYONE GETS HURT
Hardly had Dennis Ralston, No. 1 U.S. amateur, been reinstated to the Davis Cup team than Captain George MacCall announced the loss of another member, Cliff Richey, who had been expected to play the No. 2 singles position against the Mexicans two weeks hence. On orders from his father-teacher, George Richey, Cliff quit just as he was about to be fired by MacCall.
The real antagonists in this unpleasant situation are Father Richey and Captain MacCall. MacCall feels that the elder Richey was encroaching on the team captain's responsibilities. The Richeys retort that MacCall made Cliff take an experimental and unproved drug when he injured his thumb in Europe. They were also put out when MacCall objected to young Richey's frequent transatlantic telephone calls to his father. Nor have Cliff's uncourtly court manners helped the situation. In one of his volatile seizures he cursed a Greek opponent who, understanding English perfectly, demanded that MacCall order Cliff to apologize. MacCall did, and this further incensed the 18-year-old.
It would seem that it is the Richeys who must give in. Cliff's talent, nurtured by his father, who is undoubtedly one of the finest teaching professionals in this country, has grown too big just to stay in the family. U.S. tennis needs him this year and beyond. And Cliff will need Davis Cup competition to reach the top as quickly as he desires. He has no right to say, as he does, "I could never play for MacCall." George MacCall is the U.S. captain, and the U.S. is the only team Richey can play for.
SLAUGHTER ON THE HIGH SEAS
The world's supply of billfish—striped marlin, blue marlin, black marlin and sailfish—as well as various tunas is being subjected to a heavy drain by commercial fishing operations of the Japanese, the Chinese and, perhaps, the Russians, according to the July Bulletin of the Sport Fishing Institute. It quotes Dr. James E. Morrow of the University of Alaska as reporting that the Japanese process more than one million pounds of black marlin each year, converting the fish into sausage. And, he says, Chinese and Japanese commercial landings of striped marlin "run into millions of pounds annually."
The effect of this slaughter has been noted in the once renowned sport fishing waters off New Zealand's Mayor Island, where no big fish were taken on rod and reel in 1964, as against 900 in 1949. In the early 1950s Japanese fishing boats appeared in these waters and took great quantities of black marlin and broadbill swordfish. The Bulletin rightly notes that the Japanese require tremendous quantities of fish to feed their people, but it adds that "if the stocks are being depressed as severely as these reports suggest, there is need for quick action at the international level to devise and apply adequate conservation programs." To which we add our own voice.
DRINKERS IN THE DRINK
As part of Mexico's ambitious border improvement program, the government has built a plush new tourist hotel in Juàrez near the Museo de Arte e Historia and the city's elegant horse and dog track. The Camino Real Motor Hotel opened this month, landscaped in a tropical theme with waterfalls, flowers, shrubbery and one special item that is causing talk in every dusty bunkhouse and missile site in the Southwest. Its swimming pool has a wade-in bar.
IF THE SHOE FITS
Americans nervous about the speed with which Russia is catching up to us in basketball are warned that the U.S.S.R. will have two new giants ready for the 1968 Olympics. An order received by the Converse Rubber Company from a Russian sports commissar requested 42 pairs of sneakers in the normal (for basketball players) range of sizes 11 through 13. But there also were requests for two pairs each of sizes 18 and 19. (Wilt Chamberlain wears a 17 and Bill Russell a 14.)
The Converse people at first refused the order for the extra-large sizes because they would have to charge extra-high prices for such specially hand-lasted shoes. But a Russian consular official in New York appealed to what he called their "capitalistic instinct" and outlined a rosy picture of future business. Converse finally took the order, charging the Russians only twice the normal sales price of $5, though the cost to the company was 10 times that.
For the record, the largest shoe Converse ever has made was a size 22 for Primo Carnera, when he was barnstorming as a wrestler.
DEEP FINANCE
The America's Cup is worth only $40 but yachtsmen have poured at least $40 million into it. (It has a hole in the bottom.)
Where does the money go? Well, for its 1967 challenge Australia has employed four designers, developed its own testing tank, created a new concept in coffee-grinder winches and drums and even sponsored experimental work on a synthetic textile—for sails—to equal America's Dacron. In Britain, Tony Boyden, who had two 12-meters built for his last attempt, is preparing a challenge for 1970 that may be the most expensive in cup history. While Australia has everything but sailcloth, England has nothing but Boyden and his bare billions. Though design information is not secret (Australia photographed every inch of our Constellation and had a sailmaker-in-residence learning the art from the Marblehead magician, Ted Hood), apparently there is no one in England who can interpret and apply the available knowledge. Boyden must, in fact, create his own creators. He needs a naval architect to transform the 12-meter rule into a hull shape; a fluid dynamicist to design the keel-rudder combination and the sail plan; a structural engineer; and some method of continuous feedback to coordinate all three.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S., data from the Wright Brothers wind tunnel and the ship model testing tank at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been analyzed by Computer IBM 7094 for more refined designs of the 1967 defender's hull and sails. The MIT computers have a reputation for success. The other day PDP-6 was programmed with rock 'n' roll. It shuddered a moment and then rendered its version of a hit-parade tune.
To beat the Beatles takes only a strong stomach. More sophistication is required to plot a rendezvous with Mars. Between the two lies the deep blue sea. That's where the money goes.
DRINK UP YOUR COLOGNE, SONNY
Summer camps used to be just places where kids went for vacation, learned to swim, fish and sail, hiked, sang around campfires and were fed starchy foods so that they would put on weight. Over the past two decades camps have changed radically (the word itself has been given a new meaning by hipsters and the avant-garde). All kinds of special camps have arisen. Some dedicate themselves to theatrical work, some to music, some specialize in fat girls, some are traveling "camps" that go all over the world, some teach foreign languages and some specialize in science. Then there are the charm camps, where girls are taught makeup, speech, poise and hair styling.
This might be considered the living end, except that there is now on the market an "audacious new cologne for boy and girl campers." It is called "Summer Camp" and it is packaged in milk bottles—half pint, pint and quart size. That should be campy enough for almost anyone.
RECESSIONAL FOR THE HUSKY
The Canadian icebreaker C. D. Howe sailed from Montreal last week on its annual 15,000-mile supply mission to the Arctic, flagship of a score of vessels that will make the voyage this summer. In its cargo was 24,000 pounds of dog meal, gift of the Ontario Humane Society, which is concerned that the Eskimo sled dog is going out of fashion and that some dogs are starving. "What is happening to the sled dog," an old Arctic hand explained, "is quite similar to what happened to the horse when automobiles and tractors came along."
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, government administrators and those who man the Hudson's Bay Company posts all used to have their own dog teams. Now they have aircraft and snowmobiles. Even many Eskimos, their culture changing as they seek jobs in towns and send their children to school, are abandoning the animal that was essential to their survival in the old days. There are still some 25,000 huskies left in the Canadian Arctic, an impressive number when it is considered that the Eskimo population is less than half that. And so far there are only about 500 snowmobiles. But as the Eskimo moves into town, away from the hunting and fishing grounds, the husky population becomes annually less.
The husky probably cannot adapt to community life like his human master, who never has had a desire to train him except as a beast of burden. The Arcticraised husky's nature, whether he is hungry or not, is to seek food constantly, anything from a chunk of whale meat to a sealskin boot, and he has wonderful cunning, even ferocity, in the fine art of stealing it. He would be a nuisance in a settlement. After all, snowmobiles don't bite.
MANY-STORIED MOUNTAIN
Since the earth gave a prehistoric spasm and produced the jagged teeth of the Alps, peaceful little Switzerland seldom has experienced such an upheaval as she had last week in celebration of the centennial of the first conquest of the Matterhorn. The imperious, 14,701-foot mountain was not climbed until July 1865, when Edward Whymper, an English artist, scaled the Northeastern Ridge on his eighth attempt. It was a tragic first. Four of his companions were killed on the way down, and the Matterhorn's enticing slopes have since claimed more than 90 victims. But during its 100 years of reluctant submission, 100,000 persons have reached the peak, as many as 158 in one day. One British sportsman made the climb extemporaneously; for an alpenstock he used his neatly furled umbrella. The first woman to climb the Matterhorn did it in a white print dress, and assisted her 63-year-old father to the summit. That was in 1871. Since then a barmaid, an 11-year-old girl, an octogenarian and a cat have made the top. Four Swiss bragged they could push a cow to the peak. They froze. The cow never was found. At one time, before ropes and railings made the ascent less perilous, the Vatican looked askance at the idea of Catholics trying it. Subsequently Pope Pius XI, then a priest, made the climb himself.
The centenary celebration led off last week with banquets, a movie about Whymper, a premier performance of The Alpine Symphony and a raclette (melted cheese, potatoes and pickles) party. A motley, if unhistorical, mock invasion of Switzerland by Augustus Caesar, Roman legionnaires and Hannibal's elephants never came off. Alpine elephants are hard to come by these days. Highlight of the festivities was a TV spectacular. Home viewers saw, and heard, a live, on-the-spot ascent via five fixed cameras, several portable cameras and walkie-talkies. The TV team, encumbered by 10 tons of equipment, duplicated Whymper's 13-hour climb in only nine hours.
THE WANDERING HAMBLETONIAN
Once again the trotting trade journals are carrying notices inviting tracks to bid for The Hambletonian. The present contract between The Hambletonian Society and the Hayes family of Du Quoin, Ill., where the race has been held for eight years, expires in 1966. The society will meet next September 2, open the bids and decide where the event will be held beginning in 1967.
It is hard to believe that trotting's elders still do not understand how they demean harness racing by putting up for auction its most significant race. (Imagine the Kentucky Derby becoming the New York Derby for a few years, and then the Arizona Derby.) In addition, each successive auction is another slap in the face of the Hayes family, which has done such a superb job of promoting and staging the race. The Hambletonian should stay in Du Quoin.
ILLUSTRATION
THEY SAID IT
•David H. McConnell, New York millionaire, on why he would bankroll a National Football League franchise in New Orleans: "I could go out and buy 200,000 acres of timberland, but then what would I do? Cheer for the trees?"
•Charlie Smith, Met third baseman, on Yogi Berra as a batting practice pitcher: "With that dinky slider, he's so bad he's the only batting practice pitcher who can get people into slumps."