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PEOPLE
Balding Bobby Hull of hockey's Chicago Black Hawks apparently could not bear to see all those athletes making money doing TV commercials, so he got himself some hair transplants to cover the bare spot. And viola! He has been hired to do a shampoo commercial. The hair plugs are very expensive, but with the money TV pays for its own kind of plugs, to mention it is splitting hairs.
Football buffs and sportswriters have had a marvelous time with the name Sonny Sixkiller this season—devising all manner of puns to play off against it. Good thing some of Sonny's Oklahoma ancestors aren't around to play football. One was named Houston B. Tee Hee.
After his win there over Tigran Petrosian, Chess Master Bobby Fischer toured Argentina's provinces for almost a month, getting the red-carpet treatment wherever he went. He reciprocated the hospitality, too; during his series of 14 exhibition sessions—at $500 each—he lost eight games. But his most disastrous session was in Buenos Aires at the Teatro General San Martin, the scene of his match with Petrosian. The appearance was scheduled for morning, but Bobby likes to sleep late and did not turn up until midday. By that time much of the audience and many of his intended opponents had left. Still, Bobby said he was "very happy" about the tour, and summed up the provinces: "The cows and horses look so healthy."
After so many years of concern about underprivileged kids, here is someone glancing at the other side of the coin. Word comes that tennis pro Stan Singer is running a six-week upper-crust camp at the Monte Carlo Country Club in Monaco in which Prince Rainier is a principal stockholder. At $2,000 a head, teen-agers get tennis instruction, French instruction, luxury accommodations, the use of Singer's home and pool, sports cars to drive and, informs a heady press release, a private discotheque where they "can unwind from the pressures of tennis, gourmet dining and the beach."
By the end of the year, Herve Filion, 31, had broken all horse racing victory records, harness and thoroughbred, by winning 543 times. And what does a fellow with a grueling racing schedule do for relaxation? Why, he gets back in the sulky, so to speak, only this time it is a snowmobile. Filion's frolic took place on his father's farm near Angers, Quebec.
Coming up in mid-February, the fourth annual Snow Carnival of the South near Boone, N.C., and guess who will be presiding over the affair? Why, Mickey Mantle and Bobby Richardson. Mantle admits he feels a bit out of his clement, since the closest he ever came to skiing was sliding down an Oklahoma hill on a piece of cardboard. Which might help explain the pair's reaction on seeing their first pair of clam shell ski boots, the kind that fold apart so you can get your foot into them. "We didn't know what they were," said Mantle. "I decided they were vests you wear in case you run into a tree."
Question: How can you be Young and old at the same time? Answer: When you are Stephen M. Young, 82, the outspoken former Senator from Ohio who used to answer angry constituents with letters that began, "Dear Mr. Jones: I thought you should know that some idiot has been writing to me using your name...." Now practicing law, Young manages a session of tennis every weekend at the Congressional Country Club, where he gave his analysis of his game recently: "I'm still a novice. I took it up at 79."
There is no end to the corny lengths to which football fans will go to support their teams. Take 22-year-old Mike Marchetti of Omaha. Since 1969, Mike has been carrying an ear of Nebraska's best corn to almost every game played by the Corn-huskers, who have now gone 31 without a loss. There was trouble in Hawaii, though, when Mike popped up with his 2-year-old ear. Agriculture quarantine officials confiscated Mike's talisman and would not permit it to leave the airport. Mike's father, a lawyer, had to threaten a suit before the state of Hawaii surrendered supercorn to superfan. After the Orange Bowl last weekend, Mike and the Cornhuskers were back in Nebraska, ear and record intact.
It was the sort of workout trainers call "breezing," and Muhammad Ali breezed for days. He began by doing his roadwork for his fight with Jürgen Blin in Switzerland accompanied by his twin children in a baby stroller. Then he knocked out Blin with ease in the seventh round. Finally, he closed out his week with trips to the Moslem holy city, Mecca, where Prince Faisal ben Fahd bestowed on him the accolade Fakhr al Islam or "Pride of Islam," and Medina, where he prayed at the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed.
Princess Anne of England, at age 21, is already, in a manner of speaking, a collector's item—or maybe that should read item collector. In November, the British Sports Writers' Association named her Sportswoman of the Year. In December, she collected another title when she was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Then Sir Max Aitken, chairman of Beaverbrook Newspapers, after a national poll conducted by the Daily Express, presented the lively young Princess with still another Sportswoman of the Year trophy. Everybody seemed happy about the honor—except maybe the dour chap peering over Sir Max's shoulder, Race Driver Jackie Stewart.
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