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Show FRANK K. BAKER iJLavJ 1 TELEGRAM SPORTS EDITOR Many Salt Lakers read of Jack Curley's death this week with more than passing interest, because hundreds of them knew him personally when he was in and out oi the state shortly after the turn of the century on the start of his spectacular pomotional career. Bill Rishel, -secretary of the Utah Automobile association and sports editor cf the old Herald, recalls Curley as the man "who brought John Willy, 200-pound fighter and wrestler to this part of the country." Rishel remembers, too, that Curley once set up shop with both Jim Jeffries and Frank Gotch in his employ as titans of the ring who would meet any and all comers, willing to accommodate them at either wrestling or fighting. Curley's dreams of a vast wrestling empire over which he reigned in recent years began away back in 1905 when he promoted the famous match between Gotch. long JeclareiJhe best in theworldandCeorgeJIackenr. Schmidt, the "Russian Lion" at Chicago. With Willy in tow, Curley made frequent trips in and out of Salt Lake City. He promoted attractions with his sturdy ringman as tha star here, at Ogden, ia the Pacific northwest and at Pueblo, Colo. As a promoter, Curley was a shrewd tactician, nevertheless neverthe-less a popular figure with the public, according to Rishel, who suspects that Jack's "finger was somewhere in the pie" for the Dempsey-Flynn fiasco at Murray and the Willard-Johnson Willard-Johnson debacle at Havana Just as it has been evidenced so frequently in modern wrestling. For all his showmanship, his hippodroming and stage setting, Curley had his dependable sides, too. "He neither drank nor smoked," Rishel said amid his reminiscences. "If he made a promise, it was as good as gold, he was that dependable. de-pendable. And he could sit down to the typewriter and pound out a good, complete story. He knew his way around, that fellow did. "He aspired to get a foothold In Denver, but Otto Flota and his associates gave him pretty stiff competition on that side of the mountains." When the rule makers started out to draw up regulations regu-lations for softball, they took regulation baseball as their pattern, but for some strange reason they did not require the catchers to hold onto the third strike as the receivers must do in hard ball. This situation whether it be plain oversight or by intention makes the catcher a rather unnecessary player at times. In fact, he might as well be on the bench or somewhere in the bleachers eating a hot dog for all the good he does on some occasions. If softball is supposed to be copied from regulation baseball, the pattern ought to be complete. And if an out is to be recorded when the batter whiffs aimlessly at empty air on his third strike, somebody ought to go definitely through the motions of making the putout. Hence our contention that the catcher ought either be required to hang onto the ball or pick it up and tag the batter or toss it down to first base ahead of him if he drops it. That's what the hardball catchers must do. Under the present setup, there is no use for a softball catcher at times except to be used as a target or something for the pitchers to throw at. Softball doesn't permit a runner to advance from third to home except on a batted ball or when a play is made on a runner at some other base. Therefore a run can't score on miscues behind the bat and a batter can't reach first on catching catch-ing mistakes, either. Unless he gets an occasional chance at a foul fly or tries to throw a man out stealing second or third, the softball catcher is really not more than a retriever of pitched balls. Just somebody to throw the ball back to the pitcher again. I asked a director of tha local softball association why their catchers didn't have to hang onto third strikes. He said he didn't know. As an after thought he suggested that the rule makers may have figured the batters could purposely cut at wild pitches high over his head and romp down to first base while the catcher was chasing the ball back to the backstop. back-stop. , He pointed out that pitches against the backstop are more numerous in softball with its underhand delivery than wild pitches are in regular baseball. Every game can develop its own peculiar rules. So long, however, as softball is supposed to be a real, honest-to-goodncss miniature of hard ball, I think it ought to be recognizable as an imitation. If the catcher doesn't have to hang onto the ball, why then make the first baseman snag the ball so long as the fielder gets it there ahead of the runner? Why be particular about touching' the bases? Why ask the catcher to hold the ball when he is trying to tag a runner out at the plate? Anyway you look at it, the rules provide a glaring inconsistency, and, as far as I can see it, the softball catcher has something of a snap, compared to what the rest of the team has. |