OCR Text |
Show tjlSfamzMPl-s tjlSfamzMPl-s i. N ?ceJI . i T"E present year may not be the golden age of sport as far as outstanding out-standing ability goes. 1 can see little chance that it will produce master- l ! s W pieces even close to Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones, Tommy Hitchcock, Rogers Hornsby, Bill Til-den, Til-den, Red Grange and Man o' War. Not to overlook Earl Sande. But the year on ahead will outclass the postwar period E. Hornsby of the flrs wor conflict when It comes to the matter ol attendance and the actual amount of gold or its equivalent taken In at the turnstiles. turn-stiles. This 1946 season will make all other past years look like the tag end of a depression so far as crowds and cash are concerned. The recent basketball season flattened all past attendance records. We have had over 50,000 people clamoring clam-oring to pay $20 a seat for a non-title non-title -fight, meaning Graziano and Servo. California and Florida race tracks nave left the past far behind in this same respect Two Alabama football foot-ball squads, made up from Alabama Ala-bama players, recently fought it out before 25,000 spectators in Birmingham. Birming-ham. Racing at Jamaica has already al-ready taken long leaps beyond last year's earlier marks. The super-brilliant stars who followed fol-lowed the last world war may be missing,' but there are still enough good ones to keep the human mass rolling In the general direction of the next show, whatever game it might happen to be. Only Warming Up But these matters are only In the warm-up division. The real harvest from the golden crop is still on beyond us. Baseball expects to shatter all past crowd records by a wide margin. mar-gin. The Yankees hope to play before be-fore something approximating two million at home. The Dodgers would be right alongside if there was only enough parking room for the human frame. The Giants won't be far away If their ball club holds up. The 450 million dollar bet at New York tracks last season is likely to reach or pass 550 million dollars this year. We have seen crowded Derby and Preakness years before, but nothing to what this next May will offer in these two better than 100 thousand dollar tests. The Yankee stadium hasn't the attendance attend-ance space to equal the crowds that saw the two Tunney - Dempsey shows, but the Louis-Conn meeting will outdraw both financially in the way of extra carloads of cash. They are already talking about Graziano. Grazi-ano. being involved in a million dollar dol-lar gate and the rock-fisted entry hasn't even a title. The United States Golf association associ-ation is dead sure that the open at Canterbury, Cleveland, in June and the amateur at Baltusrol in September will run up far higher figures than either has ever drawn in the past. The crowds who want to see a contest have already far outgrown the limited spaces through spring and summer and fall. On a recent tour of the southeast we were often asked how long the money would hold out. Apparently It is going to hold out for at least another year. No one can say yet in just what fighting shape either Louis or Conn will be, but the rush to contribute at least three million dollars is still under way with the contest coming late In June. Apparently it isn't the entry list but the game that is drawing them out As far as one can see neither the Derby nor the Preakness nor the Belmont has any Count Fleet or any Whiriaway or Alsab running. run-ning. No outstanding star has yet shown for these events, but this won't affect the size of the populace on hand. Baseball comes nearer approaching approach-ing the first golden age in playing class. For baseball still has the Cardinals, Car-dinals, DiMaggto, Ted Williams, Bob Feller and many others with a high standard of excellence, Including Includ-ing Newhouser ajid Wakefield of the Tigers. Some one recently asked how large the crowds would be if Ruth, Dempsey, Jones, Tilden, Hornsby, were back in their prime. The answer is they couldn't be any larger for the simple reason there i isn't any more room. Today they'll rush to see anything at eny price. Apparently everything is worth $50 except $50. Genius in Sports What is this "know-how," this genius or inslinct for surerlative play in sport? Ty Cobb's father was a Georgia judge who had no particular particu-lar interest In any game. Ty Cobb'i ch.idren had no interest in baseball. ; Yet E:ll Tilden once told me that young Ty Cobb might have been a tennis champion. j Old man DiMaccio never had the ' slichtest iciea of what basrball rr.ear.L Yet he produced Joe, Dom j and Vir.ce DiMaggio. |