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Show ' QT. PETERSBURG happens to b j baseball's headquarters in Flor- da, with the Cardinals and Yankees lurrounded by the Red Sox, Tigers, Reds and Senators, with the Braves and Athletics not too far sway. Here at least are most of the pennant pen-nant contenders. But baseball isn't all they talk about, j The athlete, relaxing under the i loft moon, is likely to talk about . snythin after the day's work is ver. On this particular occasion He h.ad mixture of Yankees and cardinals in one group and they ,' jere talking about the boxing game. ; They were talking about the mis-i mis-i -ale8 that Joe Louis could make if he listened to Sol Strauss and Madi-lon Madi-lon Square Garden, rather than follow fol-low his own native instincts. Strauss is interested 98 per cent in the money side and 2 per .ent in the sporting side which is natural in his position. Jer-wy Jer-wy Joe Walcott, no whirlwind as a fighter, deserves a far bet-ter bet-ter break than he has been of-fered. of-fered. The ballplayers all knew this. , They were somewhat amazed at the Hand Louis had taken in regard to ;he June fight. They couldn't understand un-derstand how Louis had slipped so .ar, especially in connection with a ; ighter from his own race. Appar-sntly Appar-sntly they knew little about the in-i in-i ide motives of the fight game and :ouldnt understand why any fight nanager should get 10 per cent, much less 30 or 50 per cent. They Jlied their trade without any per :ent You had to agree with them , nere. I've never known a fight man-iger man-iger worth 15 per cent. Even 10 aer cent is a high cut. A few can , jualify beyond this mark. "At least we don't have to be ( mixed up with those punks," one star outfielder said. "We are on our own. How did fighters fight-ers ever get mixed up with managers, anyway?" There could only be one answer. Around 90 per cent of all fighters ire too dumb to know any of the nswers. They needed someone who ;ould add. One exception was Gene Tunney who happened to be consid-Jrably consid-Jrably smarter than any manager wound. Jack Dempsey got smarter little later on. Among the smart fighters today we can give you Gus Lesnevich. The odds are he is no 30 per cent sucker. The genera) opinion was that any fighter who ever paid a manager more than 10 per rent was too dumb m.-get anywhcre ,n his own sport. This seems to be a reasonable assumption. as-sumption. Baseball's Hall of Fame That smothered growling you may or may not hear is coming from a cluster of old-time ballplayers and old-time sporting writers. It is tied up with baseball's Hall of Fame. The old-timers are complain, ing that a flock of younger writers writ-ers are picking modern plavers and are packing the dust of for-getfulness for-getfulness on many famous stars or the past. The indictment indict-ment is worth looking over for it seems to be true. For example, among those missing miss-ing are Mordecai Brown and Johnny Kling, the famous Cub battery of 40 years ago that fought Mathewson and Bresnahan to a standstill. . . . Kid Nicholls, rated by Christy Mathewson as the best pitcher he ever faced. Nicholls starred in Boston. Bos-ton. . . . Eagle-eye Jake Berkley of the Reds. . . . Harry Heilmann . . . Jimmy Foxx . . . two great hitters. Brown and Kling plus Brown and Archer fed the Giants and other National Na-tional League teams enough poison to kill oft a dozen loos. As great a pitcher as Matty was, Brownie heat him in their last nine meetings. It is too late for Rrownie now so far as any personal thrill is concerned, con-cerned, but many of his fans would appreciate the delayed and deservec honor. The longer these forgotten old-timers are left off, the deeper deep-er they are shoved back into obscurity. Their chance of making mak-ing the upland country grows bleaker year after year. Baseball's Hall of Fame Is to great an institution to be overcrowd ed. A galaxy "that knows Ruth Cobb, Cy Young, Mathewson, Alex ander, Walter Johnson, Eddie ant I Jimmy Collins among so manj others should be more carefullj 1 watched. It is mistake to take In to many at one sitting. It is better ti have too few. Once they are In, the; are in forever. Certainly a grouj of stars that doesn't carry th. names of Mordecai "Three-Finger' Brown and Kid Nicholls cant tx called complete. The dungeon of oblivion Is i tough citadel to break open. Fron now on, the Hall of Fame should b more earefully watched and guard ed. It is certainly no frivolous o empty honor. At least it shouldn' be. Race Outlook Good New Jersey and other easter tracka art looklr In the genet direction of the I .t racing seaso In many campaigns This doesn' mean the largest crowds and th heaviest mutuel play. It mean th best horses and the most Interestln season. |