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Show COMMENT I ON SPORTS By Ed Sims FOOTBALL . . . NAVY SHOULD WIN THIRD STRAIGHT OVER ARMY Each year at about this time, after most of the series sentiment has died down, one begins to hear the familiar argument, "The Middles Mid-dles versus The Cadets." There are numerous college teams which are better, which play a smarter brand of football, but if you crave excitement ex-citement and are easily whooped up over a keen and hard-fought rivalry you can't beat the Service Ser-vice Man's Classic. This rivalry dates back many years, each new season bringing forth a new edition, and at this early date It looks as though it's all Middies again for 1941. If so, the Midshipmen will have won the last three classics. Army's team hasn't shown up very well thus far, while the Navy eleven has played about the brand of ball they were doped to play which put them a bit out of Army's class. But one of the factors that make this classic such a thrilling affair Is that ever-present element of surprise. No matter how each team's past record stands, when the soldiers and sailors take the field on their "big day" anything can happen. If Army whips the Navy, but loses the others, the Cadets have completed a successful success-ful season. Likewise, with the Navy. The Middies have had their familiar "so many days 'til Army" sign up since August, when your correspondent watched Navy's opening drills. The day is still a long way off but the rivalry is really getting hot. EAGLES AND VOLS BACKFIRE Two big teams that turned out to be not so big after all are Boston Bos-ton college and Tennessee. The Eagles, you will recall, were supposed sup-posed to have the best team they had ever turned out up in New England, which would have been some gang, girlies. But not so long ago, before the weather turned turn-ed cool, the Eagles ran into Tu-lane's Tu-lane's Green Wave. They shouldn't have scheduled that one, it seems. Anyhow, the Eagles never got off the ground; each time they were waved down. As for Tennessee, the Vols had a long string of victories behind them and a few had come at the expense of Wallace Wade's Duke Blue Devils. Determined to get long-awaited revenge, Wade sent ou the Devils to do the trick this time. The Vols never scored. The Blue Devils tallied thrice, as you probably remember, and put themselves them-selves in a class with Tulane and some of the others as one of the teams to watch. (Incidentally, there's already talk around New Orleans about asking Duke to the Sugar Bowl but a little too early for anything definite of that kind yet.) BASEBALL . . . RUSSO AND BONEHAM, THE YANKEE HEROES WHO PITCHED PITCH-ED BEST TWO GAMES OF THE SERIES, FAILED TO GET DUE CREDIT Taking a last look into the fading fad-ing picture of the 1941 World Series, Ser-ies, one or two facts come to light which weren't stressed so much during the excitement of the Series itself. Who was really the hero of the Series? There were two or pitching staff as superior to that of the New Yorkers. Wyatt, Fitz-simmons, Fitz-simmons, and other Brooklyn hurl-ers hurl-ers such as Casey were good, but they weren't better than Russo, Boneham, Ruffing, and Murphy. There you have the main reason why the Dodgers didn't win the Series. The Yanks' twirling corps was better than it was supposed to be if you want to put it that way. And after two years fans had forgotten for-gotten just how good the New Yorkers were which is somewhat similar to the case of fight fans who since last June had forgotten just how good Louis really was. three twirlers who'' were heroes and two of them didn't get much hailing. These two were Russo and Boneham. Each of these two Yankee aces twirled four-hitters at a powerfully hitting foe when that same foe was dropping behind and trying desperately to hit safely. Each went the full distance, never weakening. weak-ening. As one writer puts it, Russo Rus-so broke the Dodgers' spirits when he won that third game 2 to 1, and Boneham broke their backs by beating Wyatt in the clincher of the Series. If you remember correctly, before be-fore the Series began the experts gave the Yankees the edge defensively de-fensively but rated the Dodgers' |