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Show Capitalism destined for the stars t UU5T W15U WE COULD is HELP THE ECONOMY AND STILL STICK We should have guessed that would happen movies started portraying the when science-fictio- n crews perils of cargo spaceships, their blue-collaliens. asteroid belts and hostile battling dodging True, it might take a few centuries for real-lif- e astronauts to cruise the universe, servicing distant THE RICH FOLKS. ar planets and space stations. But the same promise wealth and strange lands that led Columbus to discover the New World is bound to lure entrepreneurs to the moon and beyond. For now, Americas private sector has begun its venture into the commercial space age on a modest scale. On Aug. 27, McDonnell Douglas became the first private company to launch its own rocket. While Voyager II was transmitting spectacular photos from Neptune and its strange moon, Triton, the McDonnell Douglas Delta rocket performed the relatively simple task of boosting a British television satellite into orbit around Earth. Nevertheless, it represented a significant milestone. It put an American company in a position to compete for the lucrative satellite-launchin- g business. The United States lost its edge after the shuttle explosion in 1986. The accident not only set back our manned space program, it also shut down our commercial satellite-launchin- g capacity. With America out of the picture, at least temporarily, the Soviets and Europeans came to dominate the satellite market. The lesson was clear: Too much reliance on one effort can undermine other aspects of our space rockets or West Eurprograms. The lower-tec- h often enough for the worked opes Arianespace satellite-launching win the space race. company to But all the satellite launching was done by governments or government-owne- d companies. That is, until the other day, when an American firm put our country back into contention. Who knows just where the profit motive will take our space entrepreneurs? Today, satellites. Tomorrow, maybe some company will offer to take tourism to new heights, by operating an orbiting space hotel. Or perhaps some venture capitalists will find ways to mine precious ' minerals on Mars. '7? The possibilities are as limitless as space itself and perhaps as inevitable as the Dutch West India Co. following in the wake of the New Worlds discoverers. ITTD of new More fiber, less cancer sounds almost too good to be true: a simple change of diet could save tens of thousands of lives in America alone each year. But that is the finding implicit in the results of a study conducted by Dr. Jerome J. DeCosse, a New York surgeon and It researcher. Details of the study published by The Journal of the National Cancer Institute show that adding fiber to the diet can greatly reduce the risk of colon-rectcancer, the most frequent form of deadly cancer found in the United States. It affects more than al 150,000 Americans every year and causes more than 60,000 deaths. The study is significant because it is the first to show that an ordinary foodstuff can halt and even reverse the formation of growths that eventually turn cancerous. Over a period of four years, Dr. DeCosse examined 58 people with a very high risk of developing colon-rectcancer. Among those who ate two servings every day of a cereal very high in bran, the potentially lethal growths were much more likely to have shrunk in size and number than to have Life & other trivialities The By STEVE CHRISTENSEN Sun Advocate editor I have always felt a certain fondness for the World Series. Even though I dont follow baseball much during the year, its fun to get involved when the playoffs begin. I used to really get involved, when I was seven. I dont even know which team Ill root for this year. It wasnt always like that. I used to know. I used to root for the Yankees Americas team. the Bronx Bombers In 1961 1 knew the batting average of every Yankee. I never intentionally memorized them. Its just that I looked in the newspaper every day to see what was happening to the greatest baseball team of all time. I, like so many people my age, was rooting for Mickey Mantle to break g Babe Ruths record of 60 home runs in a single season. I rooted for Mantle, then Ruth, and then Roger Maris, who actually ended up breaking the long-standin- record. I didnt actually root for Maris I rooted against him. Somehow, I didnt think it was fair. Maris was a straight pull hitter who had a home run fence just 296 feet away to shoot for. He really wasnt that good of a baseball player at least not in comparison to Mickey Mantle. In those days the Yankees were on television every weekend. I distinctly remember seeing Mantle hit home runs into the third deck of Yankee Stadium. October classic Dizzy Dean was the announcer. I can still hear his voice immediately after the crack of the bat: That ball is gone. Its outta here. On the other hand, on more than one occasion I remember seeing the opposing rightfielder go to the wall in the rightfield corner, reach over and barely miss the ball hit by Maris. It was a home run, but only in Yankee Stadium, and only in that era. Even today the fence has been moved back slightly enough to have kept Maris out of the record book. I dont follow baseball like that anymore. As the playoffs get underway I know only a very few of the faces. It not to know almost seems who will play in the World Series. When I was a kid you only had to keep track of one league, since the Yankees seemed to win the American League every year, and indeed did win five years in a row in the early 60s. There was something reassuring about that. Today its a different team every year. If I am correct the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have won the world Im championship the past two years not even sure. Neither of those teams are even in the playoffs this year. The 1989 world champs will be from Toronto, Oakland, San Francisco or Chicago. I suppose those who follow baseball avidly know the names as I did in 1961. But, there are no more Mickey Mantles, or for that matter, even Roger Marises. the game is a science, with specialty pitchers, specialty hitters, specialty fielders and specialty runners. Roger Today Maris would have been lucky to have played half the time, die certainly wouldnt have played against lefthanded pitchers. The players are better, but the glamour is gone, at least for me. I think its the money. Mickey Mantle made a lot of $100,000 a year. It money at that time was more than any other player. There is a joke everyone has heard about Mantle making the same amount of money as President John F. Kennedy. It doesnt seem fair, Kennedy never hit .300 in his life. Today benchwarmers make many times what Mantle did. Good players make millions. It takes the fun out of it. Its supposed to be a game. I guess it is, but certainly not like it was in 1961. Its a game to see who can pay the biggest wages. It seems like the teams with the biggest payrolls win the most games. Players hold out for more and more money and sell themselves to anyone who is willing to pay a commercial fee. Even the glamour of the Yankees is gone. George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin, while creating their own interest, ruined the Bronx Bombers forever. I havent decided who Ill root for this year. Perhaps Cleveland. I understand they have the lowest payroll in baseball. Theyre also no good. So it goes. al mike royko grown. Understandably, the National Cancer Institute is treating the findings with professional caution. Dr. Peter Greenwald, director of the institutes Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, calls the results "encouraging and warns that further research is needed to refine and extend the findings At the same time, however, he is optimistic enough to recommend that the public be informed diet. immediately about the benefits of a fiber-ric- h He says fiber is particularly important to those with cancer because they family histories of colon-rectare three times more likely to develop the disease than the average American. Bran of the kind used in the study is an insoluble wheat fiber, but Dr. Greenwald said other types of fiber might also be beneficial, including vegetables, fruits, whole grains and dried peas and beans. As yet, scientists have no idea why fiber has such a beneficial effect. Not that it matters. The main thing is that it is harmless in reasonable amounts and it seems to work. al Punch line for Lennie (Editors note: Mike Royko is on vacation. While he is gone we are reprinting some of his past columns. A white-haire- d me a nice letter mah wrote that Id like to share. lie wrote that he had been at an amateur baseball tournament in Quincy, Mass. In the evening, he was sitting around with some of the sportswriters and baseball scouts who were swapping stories. Then one of them brought out a copy of Baseball Digest and with a grin started reading an article. It was my annual Cub quiz, which that magazine had reprinted. As Cub fans know, my quiz is about the futility of past Cub teams and players and is written strictly for laughs. Most of the quizzes contain at least one question about a former Cub shortstop named Lennie Merullo. Fans who go back to the 1910s will remember Merullo. He hit about .240 or so and usually led the league in errors. We Cub fans were not always kind to him with our boos and jeers. This years Merullo question went this way: Q. Everyone used to laugh at the immortal Lennie Merullo because he made so many errors at shortstop. And they laughed at the way he hit. But in 1974, he led the Cubs in stolen bases. How many bases did he steal that year? A. Four. They laughed at him for that, too. Everyone at the gathering got a laugh out of it except the white-haire- d man, who tried to grin, but couldnt. After the evening broke up, the white-haire- d man sat down at his desk and wrote me this letter: Dear Mike, I suppose I should have laughed or smiled to cover my feelings when one of the baseball men at this tournament read your Cub quiz. Everyone enjoyed it thoroughly. But Im writing because I thought you might like to know whatever became of your favorite Cub shortstop. Im now 66 years old, the father of four wonderful grown sons, grandfather of three, and still married very happily to my girl-next-do- or sweetheart (nee: Jean Czametzki). And Ive spent my entire a very years in baseball much respected scout here in the New England area and on (Continued on Page 7) |