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Show iIPP A I V fiCE Jt&&d.i OOL. ED BRADLEY still looks with much astonishment upon the optimism of mutuel players at the horse tracks. "They apparently never heard of the word 'Dercentace.' " he said. "And that is a big word to know about I have done fairly well In my time where the percentage percent-age was three, four and. five points in my favor. Roulette is only a trifle over 5 per cent against the player." "But at the track big crowds, all ex- wwmnmmtit. inn- pecting to win, Grantland Rice come bravely out bucking 11 per cent I wonder where I'd been able to pack all the money if I had had 11 per cent working for me from the start, In place of something some-thing like an average of 4 per cent. It has been rumored that Colonel Bradley never went hungry on the 4 per cent edge. "No one can beat percentage," he said. "Not for any length of time. The mutuels are all right for those who expect to pay something for a day's fun or for a few thrills. But they are not what yon'd call a aafe way of making money of making a living." Entirely Right The Colonel happens to be 100 per cent right. From the $500,000,000 (at? least) that will be bet this sea- son, $30,000,000 will go to various state treasuries. Different tracks will pick up another an-other $20,000,000 of which quite a chunk will go back to the collector of Internal revenue. In the course of spring, summer and fall the embattled mobs, who charge the mutuel windows with such optimistic dreams, will leave some $55,000,000 in their morbid wakes. And this doesn't include the tidy donations left with thousands of bookmakers. One answer to this is that if said public didn't lose this chunk at race tracks, It would soon find another way to pay its price for thrills that come from the gambling fever, fever now at its height. What else can be expected with around 15 billion dollars in added money chucked out upon the air? Great Outfields We get this query from a sergeant who is out to settle another of those acrimonious arguments about the all-time "greats" of baseball: "What were the greatest outfield combinations?" Here are a few to consider Old Cubs around 1906-07 Sheck- rd, Hofman and Schulte. Tigers Cobb, Crawford and Veach. Red Sox Lewis, Speaker and Hooper. Yankees Ruth, Meusel and Coombs. Cardinals Muslal, Moore and Slaughter. There may be others just about as good, but none better. From this list the greatest defensive outfield was the 1912 Boston outfit that carried car-ried Duffy Lewis, Tris Speaker and Harry Hooper. The two strongest assaulting outfield out-field brigades were Cobb, Crawford and Veach plus Ruth, Meusel and Coombs. Mexican Baseball "Mexican baseball," according to Dudley Roberts, a leading golfer and a keen baseball fan, would be a riot in the United States. - "It would outdraw all the race tracks, all the present ball games, all our football games and all the big fights." he said. "What has Mexican baseball got that we haven't got?" I asked. "Just one little trifling detail," Mr. Roberts replied. "Mutuel machines ma-chines and bookmakers who operate oper-ate batter by batter and inning by Inning. You can make a bet on every ev-ery man coming to bat, the result of any inning or on the full game as the odds change from time to time." ' "So far the race tracks have ent-drawn ent-drawn baseball through weekdays In the United States. Can you Imagine what weald happen If the ball parks could follow the Mexican system and Introduce the machines and the bookies?" We can alse imagine what would happen to Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landls. We have a vague Idea the Judge wouldn't care for this Mexican system sys-tem In American baseball. Not very much. "Mexico is the only place I've seen," Roberts continued as he began be-gan to pack for another Mexican trip, "where the ballplayers often ride the spectators harder than the spectators ride them. Ballplayers there understand the art of making certain gestures that can be rougher than words. "You know the verbal beatings some of the ballplayers take In this country. I'd like to have a few of these Mexican ballplayers handling this heckling contingent We might have a few riots, but there wouldn't be much more heckling. |