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Show T WAS standing with a brace of ball- players watching a number of pro golfers practicing before a recent tournament. Each one must have belted out at least 200 shots. "I wish we had that chance," one ballplayer said. "We get to the park and probably get 10 or 12 swings. We should have a chance to hit at 100 or more pitches every day." This is quite true. Early each spring Ty Cobb would practice hitting hit-ting at home for two hours a day. Ty would get more batting practice in a month than all other ballplayers got in a year. I've been heading south for some 40 years of spring practice. 1 can recall few ballplayers ball-players in that time who took the trouble to get in extra work swinging a bat. Cobb got his work at home. Ty often was a holdout, not for more money but to really get ready for a tough campaign. He was suonosed Ty Cobb t0 be a holdout M1 1911. That spring he was working overtime hitting and sliding at home. He reported at Ter-re Ter-re Haute on April 7. The season opened around April 12. Cobb was roughly criticized. Only five days of training, they said. "That's no way to treat his club." They knew nothing about his homework home-work at Royston. All Cobb did that season was to bat .420 and steal something like 83 bases. It was one of his best years. I believe a Cobb would be better off training at home in his own way than reporting re-porting at any spring training camp. He would have more time to build himself up. Cobb had the ambition that too many ballplayers lack possibly 70 per cent of them. Too many want it the softer and easier way not the hard way of training, discipline and ' hard work. v Among others, there'll be two ballplayers ball-players I'm rooting for this season. One is Ewell Blackwell the other is Ralph Kiner. Both have potential probabilities of greatness. Both know their responsibilities, which so many ballplayers don't. The Star All-Arounder Who is your nomination for the best all-around football player of all time? We happened to be at a gathering that included such well-known names as Jeff Cravath of Southern California, Mel Hein of the Giants, Joe Stydahar, Bob Snyder, Morley Drury and perhaps a dozen others oth-ers known to gridiron fame. More than a few names were entered en-tered in the argument. Jim Thorpe, Ernie Nevers, Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski, George Gipp, Don Hutson these were all among the leading candidates for this highly mythical honor. "If you were picking the greatest great-est backs, I suppose you'd have to name Thorpe and Nevers," Cravath said. "Probably Thorpe on his big days. But for the all-around all-around combination, I don't see how you dan get away from Nagurski, Na-gurski, a great tackle, a star end, a wrecking fullback and passer. I believe the Bronk would have made a good quarterback. quar-terback. While he weighed around 225 pounds, he was also fast and shifty. "One answer is that 11 Nagurskis could wreck any other one-name eleven, although 11 Nevers and 11 Thorpes wouldn't be any shove-arounds shove-arounds after a little line experience. experi-ence. Seven Bronks would be too good a line to run against." Cravath's statement drew heavy backing from most of the others. Oddly enough, it happened to be Grange who led all others at the box office. Red had an appeal beyond Thorpe or any other single star, although al-though he was only a fair passer. Grange made more out of football than any other star more than double the amount, when you consider con-sider all the cash that came his way through his football fame. oe Louis' Last Stop Joe Louis says his return engagement engage-ment with Jersey Joe Walcott in June will be his last stop. It has been a long time since the Bomber came out of Detroit and the Golden Gloves to knock out Jack Kracken in one round, in his first professional fight. No one should expect ex-pect Louis to be the same fighter, he was at that time or when he won the title. When you reach the top you usually begin to soften up in a short time, and the wonder is that Louis is still champion. The main answer has been lack of competition, competi-tion, lack of quality in the other corner. cor-ner. The public at large was badly bad-ly jolted by the Bomber's performance per-formance against Walcott. They took it for granted the Louis of 1947 was still the Louis of 1937. There is a mighty big difference. Jack Dempsey was at his peak at the age of 24. He was over the hill at the age of 31 and through at the ge of 32. Louis is now three years alder than Dempsey was. |