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Show r -r Sports Contest to Provide Money for Relief of Finns By PAT ROBINSON NEW YORK, Jan. 4 (INS Former For-mer President Herbert Hoover and a group of sports writers will meet today to map a nation-wide sports program that it is hoped will raise at least $300,000 for the relief of war-torn Finland. This drive will enlist the services of the great professional and amateur ama-teur stars in various sports, and it Is expected that through the Influence In-fluence of the former president several world-famed foreign stars may be freed from military service serv-ice long enough to compete here. Tennis will be high up on the program, and It Is hoped that this relief drive will be the medium of bringing about a sanctioned open tournament with such stars as Bill Tilden, Don Budge and Ells- i worth Vines from the pro ranks competing against Bobby Riggs. Frankie Parker, Elwood Cooke and other famous amateurs in Madison Square Garden. Such an evening's entertainment would net the fund at lra.it $50,000. Another highly approved plan would bring Taisto Macki, the Finn who is admittedly the greatest distance dis-tance runner the world has ever seen, to this country with Paavo Nurmi, to compete in a series of track and field meets In cities where Paavo did some of his greatest great-est running years ago. Such meets could be held here and in Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Pitts-burgh, Cleveland. Philadelphia, Bpffalo. Kansas City, Los Angeles Ange-les and San Francisco. Boxing, of course, will form part of th program, and the services of Mike Jacobs will be. enlisted to stage a major tight, Mike had planned to put on a bout between Max Baer and Tony Galento in Miami. But with ex-President Hoover's influence available. Mike hopes that the local boxing commission com-mission might be induced to lift a more or less Informal ban on Galento and permit the fight to be held here. This fight would draw at least J 150,000 here and at least a third of that sum would be available for the relief fund. Other sports will not be overlooked. over-looked. Some plan will be devised de-vised whereby golf will be able to contribute something toward the eauFe. and other minor sports may find a way in which to divert at least a part of their proceeds to the fund. I |