19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER
CANADIAN BACON
Sirs:
Congratulations on an entertaining and humorous article concerning our Canadian Football League (Dodging the Draft in Canada, Aug. 23). I was very surprised but glad to see at least one major American sports publication recognize the fact that several top-ranked football draft choices of pro caliber are now under CFL contracts and playing excellent Canadian ball. It's certainly about time the average American sports fan found out how successful and good the sport is in Canada. Indeed, with the import of such stars as Theismann, Still-wagon and McQuay, the impact has been tremendous. The increased ferocity and competition as well as the intensified emotion (among fans and players alike) have truly made the game more exciting. I only hope (plead) that you further continue your coverage of the CFL.
Incidentally, we Torontonians counted on a Grey Cup for the Argonauts in 1970. Although we didn't get it then, you can be sure that this will be the triumphant season! Once again, my compliments on a fine article.
ROLLIN MATSUI
Toronto
Sirs:
Are we $8-per-game loyal American football fans to believe that all collegiate stars spurned by the NFL are overnight stars in Canada? Further, are we to assume that all para-Canadian stars relish the Canadian game over the premier institution in the world, the NFL?
The aggregate NFL represents the most finely honed group of athletes in the world. Scouts are paid to replenish the parts of the NFL machine. Would they jeopardize their jobs by letting these young men go North? If the Theismanns, Profits or Worsters had measured up, they would be presently kicking up the sod of good old American artificial turf.
These para-Canadians will soon end their hibernation with one of the world's rude awakenings. Canadian bacon is a poor second to even Pittsburgh's own kielbasa!
ROBERT A. DITLER
Silver Spring, Md.
Sirs:
The Canadian Football League reminds one a lot of the old AFL. Both turned into asylums for disgruntled pros and would-be pros, yet both featured some wild contests using some excitingly different rules. And just like the AFL, the CFL has offered big money for players and publicity. The AFL proved its equality to the Establishment and was soon fused into it. So if the future of the NFL is in expansion, as it seems to be, Canada is Mr. Rozelle's next horizon. Just think of the natural rivalries: Montreal vs. Boston, Hamilton vs. Buffalo, Toronto vs. Detroit....
LARS CARLSTEN
Lutherville, Md.
Sirs:
I very much enjoyed your article on Canadian football. I'm glad to hear that young talents such as Joe Theismann have a chance to make good money and play regularly in a league somewhat comparable to the NFL. I'm a San Francisco 49er fan and I've long watched the talents of John Brodie's understudy, Steve Spurrier, go overlooked. Thank you for the refreshing news about college stars who are not being wasted.
DONALD LAWE
Keesler AFB, Miss.
ESCAPE
Sirs:
Steve McQueen (Harvey on the Lam, Aug. 23) complains that noise is forcing him to do his cycle riding deeper in the desert. What irony! He loves and popularizes the very machine that has become one of the major noise polluters in this country. If McQueen really wants to cut down the noise, he might begin by junking his motorcycle and advising others to do the same.
DAVID K. SULLIVAN
Washington
Sirs:
In your article on Steve McQueen's great escape you quote him as saying that he is trying to escape from "other people and their noise and their crap." I hope you are imaginative enough to know in which category that would put a major article in a national publication on such an escape. With your help, the Harvey Mushmans of the world will run out of boonies and end up in Adios City.
TIM ROBB
Redlands, Calif.
Sirs:
Great, wonderful, superb! I just want you to know that I enjoy Robert F. Jones' work immensely and hope to see more of it.
GARY N. NELSON
APO New York
GIRLS GOLF WATCHERS WATCH
Sirs:
Thank heaven for little girls! Of course, I'm commenting on the article by Harold Peterson about the young ladies who competed in the U.S. Girls' Junior golf championship (Formful Win in a Most Formful Affair, Aug. 23). Here's to them all, the Misses Stacy, Baugh, Alcott, Budke, Horton, et at. and may many future links successes be theirs.
WILLIAM F. O'BRIEN
Cincinnati
Sirs:
You goofed! And we're not used to that. On page 48 of the Aug. 23 issue is a photograph of Hollis Stacy being congratulated by another girl whom you have identified as Amy Alcott. We have known Amy for years and that girl is not Amy. We did enjoy the article on the junior championships, however.
DOROTHY BURNS
Santa Monica, Calif.
Sirs:
The girl in the picture extending her congratulations to Junior Champion Hollis Stacy is not Amy Alcott by any means. She is Donna Horton, Kinston's own.
JOHN HARDY
Kinston, N.C.
•For a look at the real Amy Alcott see left.—ED.
STAMPING GROUNDS
Sirs:
Allow me to commend the verve and thoroughness of your article on stamp collector Herman J. (Pat) Herst Jr. of Shrub Oak, N.Y. (Absolutely Stuck on Stamps, Aug. 23). About the only thing that might be added is a note about his interest and, sometimes, intervention in U.S. commemorative issues.
Right now Pat is working to have one of the stamps that will mark the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution devoted to a Dutchess (and Putnam) County, N.Y. heroine named Sybil Ludington, described by the late Berton Braley as "a lovely, feminine Paul Revere."
On the evening of Saturday, April 26, 1777, word reached Sybil's father, Colonel Henry Ludington, in charge of the Dutchess militia, at his home in what is now Ludingtonville, that General William Tryon and a British force that had landed on the Connecticut shore were raiding Danbury.
Sybil, then 16, rode off through the spring night to warn and mobilize the countryside. She galloped south over Horse Pond Road to Lake Mahopac, through Red Mills to Peekskill Hollow, then back northward to Hortontown and Pecksville—some 40 miles in all!
Next day, Colonel Ludington led his militia into Connecticut. With other forces, he caught up with the British at Ridgefield and sent them bleeding back to their ships.
If Pat has his way, Sybil will gallop again on one of our 1977 stamps.
TOM MAHONEY
Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
LITTERLY SPEAKING
Sirs:
The citizens of Virginia Beach, Va.—who numbered 172,106 in the 1970 Census and are now being joined by some 1,200 people a month—are justly proud of their own identity. Therefore, it is somewhat distressing when a publication with the prestige and reputation for accuracy that SPORTS ILLUSTRATED enjoys locates a highly successful City of Virginia Beach project simply as "outside Norfolk" (From a Dump of Sorts to a Spot for Sports, Aug. 23).
Technically, Mount Trashmore is about six miles inside the city limits of Virginia Beach, and it stands as quite a monument to man's efforts to do something worthwhile with his trash. The unique project, conceived by local Engineer Roland E. Dorer, involves high density compacting of refuse with alternate layers of dirt in areas that were unusable. The project was begun in 1967. It has been featured at least three times on nationwide television, there have been numerous newspaper and magazine articles about it, and it has been studied by governmental officials from as far away as Australia.
The 35-acre "mountain" will be capped off at a height of 68 feet (which will be the highest point of land in Virginia Beach) by the end of September. The City of Virginia Beach has acquired surrounding land and already has under way a program to develop a 165-acre public recreation park that will include riding and hiking trails, sailboat and fishing facilities, ball fields, a Soapbox Derby ramp, a huge amphitheater and other facilities.
FRANK L. CREASY
Virginia Beach, Va.
PHOTO
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