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Show F YOU look over the list of all the leading ball players for the ; last 30 years, including baseball's i hall of fame at Cooperstown, you'll find that over 90 per cent of them came from cities and towns under 10,000. Cobb, Speaker, Jackson. Mathew-son, Mathew-son, Alexander. Cv Young. John- 1 '2- j 'Vv y : fc,.yxy.x n ;y.j Mort Cooper son, Grove, Sisler, ! Eddie Collins, j Hornsby, Foxx, La-joie, La-joie, Home Run Baker, Ba-ker, Wagner, Bob Feller, the Cooper brothers, Keller, Dickey, the DiMag-gios, DiMag-gios, Hartnett, the Deans, Carl Hub-bell, Hub-bell, and so on came to their fame from isolated and unknown spots on , the map. Such instances run into the hundreds. New York's main contributions con-tributions have been Gehrig, Green-berg Green-berg and Frisch. Chicago has turned out a few stars, including Phil Cav-aretta. Cav-aretta. Baltimore gave the game Babe Ruth. But New York, Chicago, Chi-cago, Philadelphia, Boston and other oth-er crowded cities in proportion have lagged far behind. In towns running from 1,000 to 10,-000 10,-000 population there is always room for a ball field. In these "Sweet ! Auburns, loveliest villages of the plains," there is space in which kids can hit, run, throw and slide. They can play the game up to the hilt. But in a city such as New York, you can see thousands trying to play on crowded streets as cars come through to drive them back to the sidewalks. Ever try to slide over cobblestones while eluding a fast-moving fast-moving automobile? Few Stars From Cities Take a look at the now famous Cardinal roster, which embraces at least 30 stars. At least 95 per cent of these came along and up from places you never heard about. If these players had been born in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia,' etc., possibly two or three would have made the big leagues. That is the way the percentage runs. Gehrig and Frisch came along through Columbia and Fordham. But few street kids have a chance to get any college course and find a ball field where they can develop. Baseball's hall of fame, now and In years to come, would be extremely extreme-ly thin if it had to look to the crowd-ed, crowd-ed, thoughtless larger cities for its talent. If there isn't enough within these cities, there is always space enough outside and there are still busses running and there will soon be motor cars available. Complaining about juvenile delin-quincy, delin-quincy, youthful crime, is a waste of time. The responsibility belongs to older people who through sport and the full support of so many hard working organizations can change the entire picture in a few years. . Athletes and Condition What group of athletes keep in better physical condition or worst physical condition, so far as professional pro-fessional sport is concerned? At a recent gabbing session we ran into a number of coaches, assistant as-sistant coaches, trainers and assistant assist-ant trainers who know their way around, who have been in charge of various sports for many years. It was their belief that professional profession-al football players and professional tournament golfers on the average were in better physical condition than any other group, and that professional pro-fessional baseball players trailed the list. This statement will bring a loud and lusty squawk from many ball players, but it happens to carry more than a mere shade of truth. Anyway, the coaches and trainers who felt this way about it should know what they are talking about. "This, of course, doesn't include all ball players," one trainer said. "But it includes too many of them. Most of them couldn't do half the job a pro football player has to face. Watch most of them hit a triple and you'll find them puffing at third base and that's less than 100 yards. They don't turn in enough road work to build up their legs. A pro baseball player should last far longer than a pro football player, play-er, considering the punishment the footballer has to take, but few of them do. Last season the New York Giants had Mel Hein, Herber and Ken Strong, each with nearly 20 years of football behind him. There have been many others such as Hut-son Hut-son with 10 or 12 years already .cashed in. "For example I see where Detroit's De-troit's Tigers this season have 43 exhibition games. This means a total of 197 contests from March to October, a long march that demands de-mands the best sort of physical shape. Many of them will be ready for this endurance test. But quite a lot won't be, unless they make a far harder effort to get in shape and keep in shape than so many have made In the past. Those fellows fel-lows heading south early are the smart ones. This will be the toughest tough-est season any of them will have to tackle." |