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Show . Speakinz of Sports Who Started Nation's Game? Debate Rages By ROBERT McSIIANE TRADITION has it that Abner Doubleday, a young engineering student and later a Union soldier, created modern baseball 100 years ago in Cooperstown, N. Y. With baseball celebrating Its centennial, cen-tennial, the best thing to do is to string right along with tradition. From the small town nine to the big league club, baseball is co-operating in the nation-wide observance. The National Baseball Centennial commission, formed to celebrate the game's birthday, includes leaders in every field of endeavor. Evidence that a game called baseball base-ball was played more than half a century before the Cooperstown event has been found in the Con-! Con-! gresslonal Library. There, among the library's rare books, V. V. Par- ma, curator, recently Inspected a I - - , ' t I Why They Turn Pro A SURVEY made late In April by the National Football league revealed that of the 200 college seniors sen-iors on the preferred negotiations list, 127 had already signed contracts con-tracts or given definite assurance that they would play. That figure Is surprisingly high. Especially so In view of the fact that several National league clubs do not attempt to contact drafted players until after commencement. There are several reasons why so many have already signed up, chief among them being the steady Improvements Im-provements In general conditions pertaining to professional football. Desirable salaries have been made possible by Increased attendance. The status of the pro football player has been raised far beyond the expectations ex-pectations of a few years ago, and clubs have contacts which enable them to place players in good positions posi-tions during the oil season. It is obviously impossible for players play-ers of the calibre of Whlsier White, Davey O'Brien, Kl Aldricb and other oth-er big-name players of the past couple cou-ple of years to command the salary sal-ary In any other line that they will be paid in their first season of professional pro-fessional football. White, who ' played one season before going to school in England, received $15,000. Exceedingly few college graduates can find good paying Jobs immediately immedi-ately after graduation. For example, exam-ple, the average income of lawyers in America last year was $700. Physicians Phy-sicians averaged $2,000. National league teams no longer resort to rosy promises in signing college players. Experience has proven that candor bring the best results. A statement sent by the Brooklyn Dodgers to all players sought, tells them: "We do not present professional football as a major life pursuit, nor do we offer It as the short bridge to fortune. It does, however, amply provide a young graduate with the means to tide over that perilous period pe-riod between graduation and the time for deciding upon what shall be his life work." National league clubs seldom accept ac-cept volunteers. Ordinarily the club makes sure through scouts and college col-lege coaches that the player is a likely candidate. The Green Bay Packers withheld offers from several sev-eral men this year after selecting them in the draft. Further investigation investi-gation proved to the club their ability abil-ity had been overrated or that they would not fit into the Packers' system. sys-tem. Among those who have signed pro contracts this year are Larry Buh-ler Buh-ler of Minnesota and Charles Brock of Nebraska, who were assigned to Green Bay; Waddy Young of Oklahoma, Okla-homa, Brooklyn, and Mike Parry, St Mary's, Cleveland Rams. Publicized Prep DILL DE CORREVONT, most " highly publicized prep football star of last year, tasted his first defeat de-feat in the college game this spring when his team lost 12-13 in a regulation regu-lation game between two squads of Northwestern university players. In 1937 De Correvont led Chicago's Austin high school to city championship. champion-ship. Ever since he decided to matriculate ma-triculate at Northwestern, midwest fans have been watching him as a possible threat in Western conference confer-ence competition. Though the publicity brought BUI nationwide fame, it might have been better all around if It had been avoided. Bill didn't ask to be glorified glori-fied as the high school football marvel mar-vel of 1937. He didn't ask to be established es-tablished a,s a great star before he bas played one quarter in big-tune competition. In his first varsity game he turned in a better-than-average performance. perform-ance. He gained 110 yards in 19 at tempts, handicapped by three fumbles. fum-bles. He completed five of eight passes for a total of 53 yards, had one intercepted and two incomplete. He recovered one fumble and the opposing eleven grabbed the other two. He is a fast runner, cuts sharply, and can pick his spots. Bi,s kicking has never been out of the ordinary, and he is only a fair passer. Much of his future success and fame depend on the Northwestern line. Even though the fan gives all the credit to the ball carrier, a hard charging, tough blocking line with a couple of fast backfield mates can make a fair back into a great one. Sport Shorts XfISS PATTY BERG, United AV1 States women's golf champion, will defend four championships that she captured last year . . . Philadelphia Phila-delphia is spending nearly $1,000,000 on golf courses this year, building two new ones and renovating thro 1 wammMumMmiautmmiBww:.', m FRED GOLDSMITH A newspaper clipping, written by Henry Hen-ry Chadwick, proves that Fred Goldsmith Gold-smith pitched history's first curved ball on August 17, 1870. miniature volume titled "A Little Pretty Pocket-book." It was printed print-ed in Massachusetts in 1787, and contained a woodcut of boys playing on a field marked by posts instead of bases, with this verse: The Bull once struck off, Auay flies the Boy To the next destin'd post. And then Home and Joy. The ti,t!e of the verse and the game is "Base-ball." Historian Frank G. Menke, in his "Encyclopedia of Sports" declares that the present ruling powers In the sport have been misled relative to baseball's origin and development, develop-ment, and have seized upon the wrong date, the wrong place and the wrong man for bestowal of honors. Menke's Claims Menke, perhaps the nation's outstanding out-standing authority, summons logic to prove that (1) baseball was evolved from the British game of cricket and, in a crude way, was played in this country before Doubleday was born. (2) The game was played in perhaps a score of cities long before it was known to Cooperstown. (3) In 1845 or 1846 Alexander Cartwright of New York city drew up the "baseball square" which is now the diamond. (4) Cart-wright Cart-wright and members of the Knickerbocker Knicker-bocker Ball club of New York drafted draft-ed the first definite rules for baseball base-ball during the winter of 1845-1846. The commonly accepted version dates from a report made in 1907 by A. G. Mills, third president of the National league. Mills headed a committee named to search out the real facts concerning the origin and development of the game. A. G. Spalding, noted figure in the game for more than half a century, disagreed with the committees. Games in 1820,s? Spalding quoted from a booklet, 'Base Ball," written by John Montgomery Mont-gomery Ward, an early day player, and later an attorney: "Col. James Lee, elected an honorary hon-orary player of the Knickerbocker Club in 1846, said that he had often played the game when a boy, and at that time he was a man of sixty or more years." Spalding also quoted Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who told a Boston newspaper reporter that baseball was one of the sports of his college days at Harvard, and Dr. Holmes graduated in 1829. Mills and Doubleday, according to Menke, were members of the same Grand Army post for 25 years. Yet when Mills became chairman of the investigating committee he conceded conced-ed that he did not know that Double-day Double-day had anything to do with the game until he learned about it through circuitous channels. Henry ChadvutX, revisor of many baseball rules and originator of the modern scoring system, was born in 1824. He was the historian of his generation. An authority, he wrote millions of words about the game. When he died in 190g he left his papers to Spalding, who was unable to uncover any mention of Double-day Double-day in connection with baseball though he was or Doubleday's time! Let the argument rage. Even those authorities who question the bestowal bestow-al of honors are solidly behind baseball's centennial. From fans to players, the nation is doing its best to make 1939 baseball's biEEest year. 65 m j ,i i w m m i k. Xi.1.a' i others ... Joe Di Maggio will marry Dorothy Arnold, movie actress, some time in the near future. fu-ture. The bride wiD continue her film career ca-reer . . . Steve Meaner Mea-ner of the Cubs, modern Buck Weaver, Weav-er, thinks a clean uniform is unlucky, and manages to do something about it after three or four Joe DiMaggio innings of play . . . Eighty-seven candidates turned out for spring training at Indiana this spring . . . The largest number of entries for a golf tournament was 50.000 from 1.056 clubs who played in the London Post's handicap event last year . . . A similar tournament for women drew 25,000 starters from 962 clubs C Western Newspaper Union. i |