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Show I Sport Comment By Guy Steveyis The hot race in both major leagues can be partially credited to the fact that many ace twirlers of last year are not coming through this season in a comparative compara-tive manner. Take--the Boston Red Sox for instance. in-stance. True, they're right up there battling, but if their pitchers were clicking today like they were last year, the Red Sox would be way out in front again. This same time last season, Hughson had won 8 ' games, Ferriss 12 and Harris 11. That's a total of 31 games. At ! because he didnt think he was ready. If he is as good as hi! j knockout victory over Bruce I Woodcock seems to indicate he is, Baksi is in line to make some real money and should hang around for a few more years at least. He con- fessed that he would like to meet Louis so maybe the two will get together. Right now he's in Stockholm, Stock-holm, Sweden, where he tangles with Ole Tandberg. Jimmy Dykes, manager of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific I Coast League, and Bill Veeck, boss : man of the Cleveland Indians, are 1 pretty close friends. If the Indians don't win the pennant, it's more than possible that Dykes may be 1 back in the big leagues in 1948 as manager of the Indians. Boudreau j is very popular with Cleveland fans but when a team starts skidding, skid-ding, popularity sometimes goes with it. Dykes, of course, has had plenty of experience in the majors and would like nothing better than to be back in big time. Since the the -Rose Bowl game became a closed shop deal between the Big Nine and the Pacific Coast Conference, several Los Angeles organizations have been trying to get the Coliseum to stage an inter-sectional inter-sectional college game in December. Decem-ber. The move was started last year right after the new Bowl arrangement ar-rangement had been announced. The plan is to select the two top teams in the country and invite them to play . in Los Angeles. Many fans throughout the country coun-try feel that the Rose Bowl now is just a yearly contest between the two conferences and will not have the interest that it once enjoyed. The Coliseum seats 104,000 and the new Bowl game will probably be played on the Saturday following follow-ing Christmas Day. Like Old Man River, Luke Appling, Ap-pling, of the Chicago White Sox, just keeps rollin' along. He's hitting hit-ting .313 and shows as much pep playing the infield as a youngster. Most major league veterans have been shifted around a good deal but Luke started playing pro ball in 1930, and that same year joined the White Sox. He's been with them ever since. When you consider con-sider that he is now in his 39th year, one must doff his hat to Ol' Luke and wish him many more years in major league ball. i JUST GAB Joe DeMaggio's heel must be in perfect condition . . . against the White Sox last week, he showed plenty of speed by stretching a single into a double. dou-ble. Evell Blackwell's no-hit, no-run no-run win over Boston last week was a smart piece of twirling . . . the Braves had been averaging 13 hits per game in their last four starts just before the no-hitter . . . over a third of all Cincinnati wins can be credited to Blackwell . . . and that's fancy pitching with a team in the second division. Los Angeles is all agog over their major league possibilities. this writing, Hughson has won 3, Ferris 4 and Haris, who has been on the sidelines since -early April when he hurt his shoulder in a barnstorming game, has seen no service at all. So these three have accounted for only 7 wins to date a difference of 24 games. In the National League it seems to be the same story. The St. Louis Cards would be right up there if Pollet and Dickson were showing anything like last season's form. Up to now, the two together have a total of 3 wins. A year ago, they had a total of 11. The difference differ-ence would put the Cards on top. Boston and St. Louis are not the only teams with pitchers having hard luck. Newhouser of Detroit has only 6 wins to his credit. Last year, at this time, he had 15. Bobby Bob-by Feller is having tough going too. So far, he's won 7. Last year he had 14. Chandler of the New York Yankees was another I big winner in 1946. Today he has 5 victories. Last season he had 12. Higbe, former Brooklyn ace now with Pittsburgh, has lost 5 games whereas laft year at this time he was undefeated. 5 The only top hurler of 1946 who seems to be doing all right today is Harry (The Cat) Brecheen. Harry was off to a shaky start last season though he did finish with a .500 pitching average. But The Cat stole the World Series show by winning 3 games a feat not accomplished since 1920. To date he has 7 wins as compared to 4 last year. However, in all fairness to the pitchers, many games were lost due to a lack of timely hitting. Without hits, the best hurlers can go down in defeat. Joe Louis has hinted several times that he may retire soon. After ruling the roost for ten long years, it would be a feather in Joe's cap to retire as the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world. He's entitled to that honor. The Brown Bomber has been a great champ and a credit to the boxing game. But when Joe hangs up those boxing gloves, boxing in general, and the heavyweight division divi-sion in particular, will probably hit a new low. Louis saved boxing I in 1937 when he won the title from Braddock. And ever since his two fists have kept fans on edge. Today To-day we only have a fair crop of contenders. The war was expected expect-ed to produce several title threats but not one has rated big time consideration. So if Louis does drop out of the picture, the old boxing game, indeed, will be in a sad state of affairs. We can only hope that another "Louis" or a "Dempsey" or even a "Max Baer" comes along before many days roll by. Joe Baksi's announcement last week that he, too, may retire in 1948 can be taken with the proverbial pro-verbial grain of salt. The Kulp-mont, Kulp-mont, Pa., battler may call it quits : if he feels that his boxing days are just about numbered. But Baksi Bak-si right now is one of the best of sur present batch of contenders. 1 In fact Louis wanted to meet him in a June fight, but Baksi said no |