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Show Bacr in Comeback The Baer brothers Max and Buddyare Bud-dyare tough fellows to figure. A while back everybody agreed that Max was through as a heavyweight and the rising Buddy was the hope of the Baer clan. Now the reverse is true. Max Is headed straight for another chance at the heavyweight title with fair prospect) of success and Buddy is headed straight for i the discard. Buddy was an 8 to 5 favorite to beat Gunnar Barland In New York recently. Dopesters said he would win handily. Instead he took a terrific ter-rific beating and quit. Max was on 'Speaking of Sports SamcOldFour Will Fight for National Flag Cy GEORGE A. BARCLAY WHEN the front runners of the spring baseball season have petered out and the morning glory rookies who looked like the reincar- 4 ?. 'fy : Vflf. :': '.' " iiiiiiilliflsssTsWrf " ' lu"M"f" - , -rirri t jjs wwflhi,iiiijiity ' 4.r.J!!!t; nation of Ty Cobb have folded, the National league pennant race will settle down to a dog fight among the same contenders who battled it out in 1937. Four teams the New York Giants, Gi-ants, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals Cardi-nals and the Pittsburgh -Pirates again will hold the balance of power in the senior circuit. How they will rank in the final standings Is anybody's any-body's guess, but all four will hold berths in the first division, leaving the Boston Bees, Brooklyn Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds and the Phillies to scramble for positions in the second division. The race will probably be close, as usual, but not In the sense that powerhouse ball clubs will be Involved. In-volved. The standard of play should be about the same as last year, and that wasn't anything to brag bout considering what happened to the 'National league team in the All-Star game and later to the pennant-winning Giants in the world series when they met the Yankees. No Rookie Wonders Reports from the training camps and the spring exhibition games Indicate In-dicate that there will not be any radical change in the personnel of any of the four leaders. Here and there a newcomer may break into, the regular lineup, but the freshmen probably won't be sensational or numerous. nu-merous. The champion Giants will be shy of strength in the infield, with first base still a problem, with the ageing age-ing Mel Ott on third and Whitehead away from his post at second because be-cause of illness in the opening weeks. Still, Bill Terry won a pennant pen-nant last year with a makeshift inner in-ner defense. Remembering the Cubs' dismal flops in August of 1936 and 1937, it Max Baer the short end of 7 to 5 odds against Tommy Farr. Everybody expected him to take a licking. Instead he pounded out a decisive victory. Max has been called "the man who could fight but wouldn't." He apparently wanted to fight the night he met Farr. It was his battle all the way. He slammed Farr to the canvas three times in fifteen rounds. Joe Louis and Jim Braddock weren't able to put Tommy down once. Winning back the prestige he lost when he was so ingloriously beaten beat-en by Joe Louis two years ago, Baer showed he could take it as well as dish it out. Farr hit Baer aplenty. Max's left eye was completely closed before the fight ended. But his immunity to punishment bears out Joe Louis' contention that he hit Baer harder than he had ever hit any other man and still couldn't knock him out You will recall that Max took the route of a technical techni-cal knockout that time. So Max is now on the way back. He did more than pull himself level with Schmeling in the heavyweight runner-up class in taking the decision de-cision over Farr. nywum f, '!" imwiij"'u!.'-'- inww"iyyt'W"'t - ' ?i ! , ' ' 4 ' t " ' i ' 4 ' 1 " j 'i V Double Play Expert Baseball men say that Joe Tinker, immortal shortstop of Frank Chance's old Cubs, and the man who started the "Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance" brand of double plays may be back in the game again this year either as a manager or coach. A little over a year ago Joe Tinker was near death of Bright's disease down in Florida. Physicians had just about given him up, when some baseball pals came to the rescue. Joe Stripp, now of the Brooklyn Dodgers was one of them. He told Tinker he had a job for him as an instructor in his baseball school when he recovered. That was the best medicine Joe had had. He got well and less than two months after his life was despaired o', he was actually teaching youngsters in Stripp's school last year. Later that year he managed the Orlando Gulls of the Florida State league and when the financial support sup-port of the club gave out, he traveled trav-eled to Chicago for a reunion of old-time Cub stars. Here and There Arnold Statz, known as "Jigger" who was once a member of the Cubs outfield claims to have the longest record of continuous service as a player in organized baseball. He has been at it 23 years. He started in 1915 and is still going strong as center fielder of the Los Angeles club in the Pacific Coast league. Incidentally, Statz is one Charlie Grimm is difficult to muster enthusiasm about them as a pennant winner. Yet they cannot be dismissed. Undoubtedly Un-doubtedly Charlie Grimm has the best-balanced team in the league. It is still a young team, comparatively compara-tively speaking. The Cub outfield was the vulner-ah!e vulner-ah!e spot last year, but it looks as if this might now be solved with Jue Marty doing a smart job in center cen-ter and Carl Reynolds standing ready to help Dernaree and Galan. Spring reports indicate an improved pitching staff. The presence of Tony Lazzeri should help. Diz Is Question The league's big question mark is the St. Louis Cardinals and the biggest big-gest question mark on the team itself it-self is Dizzy Dean. If Dizzy makes a comeback and his brother Paul is able to pitch at all. Frankie Frisch's Gas House Gang who are tough enough to win some games on sheer nerve may wind up on top. Dizzy was a chastened athlete in the early stages this year and his effort to make people forget his 1937 flop may result in some gilt-edge pitching. pitch-ing. The Pirates will be shy of grade . A pitching, but they should have a powerful attack once more. The Waner brothers aren't getting any younger, but they're still effective. There isn't much future ahead this year for the Bees, the Reds, the Dodgers and the Phillies. Bill McKechnie, one of the most resourceful re-sourceful managers in baseball, may get results at Cincinnati, but it would be too much to expect him to work any wonders in a single year. Casey Stengel has inherited a scrappy team in the Boston Bees, but there isn't much punch there. The Dodgers may have helped themselves in getting Dolph Ca-milli Ca-milli at first and with Larry Mc-Phail Mc-Phail in the saddle as general manager man-ager there may be further efforts at improvement. The case of the Phillies looks rather hopeless. There are a number of weak spots and not nearly enough strong men to fill them. t : - tf I Red Burleigh Corriden Grimes of the best golfers in baseball. . . . Manager Burleigh Grimes of the Brooklyn Dodgers won 270 games in his active pitching career, being exceeded ex-ceeded in victories only by Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Eddie Plank . . . Johnny Corriden, oldest son of Red Corriden, Cubs coach, is a freshman at Indiana university and hopes next year to earn a varsity track letter. O Western Newspaper Union. |