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Show 7ERE the old timers in football a bit tougher than the modern crowd when it comes to durability? It might be. On Yale's 1889 team, Pudge Heffclfinger was still playing good football at the age of 65. He 1 ytT starred in a pro lVvS game for 58 min- . 1 utes at the age of ' 53. ' 1S A few nights ago mSl:- tf Wayne Johnson gave ysjj V -a small dinner to .' another old tinier iS vX j by the name of Shop SI VyOIj Homans. Shep Ho- -VsiZ-i mans was Snake .i.JSmM Ames' substitute at GrantlandRlce Princeton in 1889. Shep never got to play a minute that year. In 1890 and 1891, Homans, weiii-ing weiii-ing 165 pounds, never gave his substitute sub-stitute a chance to get' in any gome. Shep played the full 90 minutes for two successive years as the Tigers' fullback. How good was Homans? Well, he made Walter Camp's All-America both seasons. ' At the age of 71, he Is still just warming up as far as durability goes; although he has cut down his golfing pace to 36 holes a day. There was one big difference. In those days Yale, Harvard, and Princeton only had two hard games a year in their own circle. Today seven or eight tough games is a general average. Winning Sires The conversation among the horsemen at Belmont switched to the ages of winning sires recently. Some one brought up the point that The Porter, at the age of 28, still had a winning colt in Alorter who recently snipped off- a rich stake. Also that The Porter had a grandson grand-son running by the name of Dart-away Dart-away who had worked out a mile in 1:34,45. There is Man o' War still producing produc-ing winning colts and Big Red Is now 26 years old. Kingston at the age of 26 was the proud father of the star entry Novelty. By this time the autumn air at Belmont was replete with debates concerning the age where sires turned out their best colts. John Partridge, with more than l 40 years experience to back him up ' in the training game, named the winning average between 8 and 15. Ben Jones and Maxie Hirsch disagreed dis-agreed slightly. "It might be from 6 to 24," Ben Jones said. "Nobody can tell. Man o' War, who is over 26, might yet give the racing game a son or daughter who would be hard to beat" "Why don't they say something about the greatest dams?" John Partridge asked. "What about them?" I put In. "It's an entirely different proposition," proposi-tion," Partridge said. "I'll tell yon a story about that. I've always believed be-lieved that fast, winning mares seldom sel-dom produced a winning offspring. I'd rather have the strong, sturdy type that haven't run too much or too fast. "Now here's the story. Years ago I had to make a trip to the famous Mayo clinic at Rochester, Minn., for a check up. "Dr. Mayo kept me there for two months. All we talked about was horses, I gave him my idea about the best type of mares. He agreed with me. " 'It's Just the same,' he said, 'on the human side. With few exceptions, excep-tions, athletic women seldom produce pro-duce champions in sport It is a matter of being over-muscled and also the exhaustion of energy in training and competition." The Check-Up The final checkup shows that John Partridge and Dr. Mayo are right. May Sutton Bundy'i daughter was a good tennis player, but not a champion. At the moment I can't recall a woman star In sport who had either a son or a daughter In the upper brackets of competition. There must be a few. But thrlr names escape me. There was certainly no ath-letlo ath-letlo prominence attached to the mothers of Babe Ruth, Jim Thorpe, Ty Colin, Bobby Jones, Helen Wills. Patty Berg, Babe Dldriktnn, Bronko NaRurkl, Glenna Collett, Joe Louis, Gene Tunney and tnnn nth rrs known to headline fame. There have been a few exceptions on the nitilo side but rot many. Ty Cobb had no son Interested hi either bnsebaH or football. I'nicti-rally I'nicti-rally none of the top stars of tn.i.iy had mothers or fathers who were even cloe to beitiR eh anxious As a great competitor, Man o' Win still hn the record when It mine to producing winnlfi'i progeny. i To keep the argument hivir,g nlotig on the human side, I can't recall, re-call, outside of Jake Sihacfcr Sr and Jr. in billiards, where any com binntion of father and son. father and daughter, mother ant! sun oi mother and daughter were Loth champions. |