PEOPLE

Unlike last year's injury, which occurred in a New York taxi accident, Comedienne Carol Burnett's latest fractured fibula was suffered in a most improbable locale. Carol cracked her right leg in four places while playing Softball with neighborhood children at her Lido Beach, Long Island summer home. "I was just killing time," said Pitcher Burnett, whose technique in cutting off throws from the outfield apparently leaves something to be desired.

Iowa Governor Harold Hughes (below) never should have let his wife peddle this means of exercise to him. Judging by his expression as he cycles around his home, Hughes fears that the only weight he will lose cycling will be whatever he skins off.

Everett Dirksen wasn't about to lose the biggest game of his career just because a committee had thrown him a spitball. His bill to restore to states the right to constitute their own legislatures had been prevented from reaching the Senate floor for a vote, but Dirksen had another turn at bat coming. In a managerial move blending acumen and humor, the Illinois Senator moved to substitute his amendment for a resolution declaring Aug. 31 to Sept. 6 National American Legion Baseball Week. Paul Douglas, the other Senator from Illinois and a leader of the anti forces, was able to contain his admiration of the parliamentary maneuver. Declaring that his side was for "baseball unencumbered..., baseball pure and undefiled," Douglas referred to the motion as a "foul ball." He also called it an "end run around the Judiciary Committee," then apologized for mixing metaphors. Rising to heights of impassioned oratory on baseball ("I yield to no one in my fidelity to baseball. Shed no tears and have no cares.") and constitutional representation, Dirksen forgave his colleague and promised to preserve the purity of baseball—and of his amendment. The Senate was delighted. If the big-city forces really try their threatened filibuster, they had better have some relief aces ready in the bullpen.

Racing fans will be fascinated by a news release from Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico. It reads, in part, "Ever-popular George (Pee Wee) Koyk, newly out of the hospital after having been kicked by a motorist in a Juàrez parking lot, makes his umpteenth comeback here Thursday." Makes one wonder what happens to unpopular jockeys.

As he has been proving for years at third base, Giant Player Jim Davenport has good hands. Plying his talent in an udder field, Davenport outmilked Pittsburgh's Gene Freese and won himself a color television set. Setting up shop on the infield with bovine and bucket, Jimmy squirted five and a half pounds of milk to Freese's one and a half pounds.

Red Sox Center Fielder Gary Geiger, sidelined since June with a broken left hand, had—in his own words—"been going crazy since the injury. All I did was sit around and listen to the games on the radio." It seemed only one further stage of insanity to Lynn Geiger, therefore, when her husband snapped off the set, borrowed her golf clubs and ran out of the house mumbling something about playing golf one-handed. But that is just what he did. Geiger played the par-73 Blue Rock course on Cape Cod one-handed—and shot a 39-36—75. "Well," said Gary apologetically later, "the doctor told me not to use my left hand at all."

Jack Lemmon, whose next movie will involve him in close contact with pro football, was dolefully relating Director Billy Wilder's inspiration for the film. Wilder was watching a game on television, according to Lemmon, and saw a big fullback make an end sweep, gallop out of bounds and fall right on top of a spectator. The field was so slippery the fullback then slid 15 more yards through mud and snow—still on top of the spectator. "Billy Wilder saw this thing," swears Jack, "and he says to himself, 'That's a movie, and the guy underneath is Lemmon.' "

Cincinnati Royal 6-foot 8-inch, 260-pound Center Wayne Embry, who needs lots of nourishment, almost went hungry on a recent basketball tour of European and Near Eastern countries. Embry, however, wants it understood that he has no complaint about his hosts' generosity or culinary skills. "They tossed a real feast for us in Beirut the last night we were there," he says. "The plates of food were stacked to the ceiling. The first dish looked pretty good, but I had to ask the guy next to me what it was. 'Sheep brains,' he said. 'I think I'll pass,' I told him." Along came the next dish, and Embry had to ask what that one was, too. "Snails," said the interpreter. "Pass," said Embry. The third course, he recalled later, looked about the best, but he couldn't identify that either. "Roasted sheep spleen," said the interpreter. "Pass," mumbled Embry, rather green around his own spleen.

When he signed up to do that cat-food commercial, Yogi Berra (below) knew he would have to talk to a cat and that his first lines would go something like this: "Wow!" (Laugh) "Ugh!" (Whistle) "Gee, champ, you're in great shape. What do you eat to keep you going?" He did not suspect, however, until he saw the commercial for the first time, that the dubbed-in voice of the cat would be that of Whitey Ford.

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