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Show SO FAR the United States has taken only a mild interest in the coming Olympic games to be held this summer in London. It has been taken for granted that the U. S. will mop up again as usual. Even more so this time, with our athletes well-fed well-fed and most other competitors reportedly re-portedly underfed. So if we win, well, why not? The United States team should win in a romp. It shouldn't be even close. It should be no contest That's the early setup. No credit if you win pretty awful If you lose. At the Berlin games in .1936, we had several talks with trainers and coaches and star athletes from other nations. Here was their verdict: "The United States Is a nation of acrobats not athletes. You can't win from 400 meters and on beyond this distance. You have no runners with any stamina runners who can travel a mile and longer. "You are marvelous acrobats like circus performers. You can sprint and pole vault and hurdle. These are all acrobatics. They make no demand on stamina or courage." It still takes an athlete to run and jump. The answer is that we have won too seldom at testing distances. We have no runners from the mile .to the marathon worth naming. Once again, we'll probably win the pole vault rated a feat of acrobatics acro-batics and not the work of an athlete ath-lete by foreign nations. It is certainly cer-tainly on the easier side than it is to get ready for 1,500 or 5,000 or 10,000 meters. The U. S. has never been much interested in stamina which is even more important than speed. Speed gives out quickly. Stamina carries you all the way through. When you sift all the angles, the United States hasn't done nearly as well as our ballyhoo experts have figured out the case. Without our Negro stars, this country would have been something of a joke. In place of mopping up in London, we still can be something of a joke despite the winning edge we have in food, the main basis of condition. We have every advantage this way. It will be interesting to see what we can do with it Stars Miss Big Show One world series weakness is that too many stars had no chance to show at the big show. Napoleon Lajoie, one of the greatest, great-est, never was seen in this classic And he was something to see, the most graceful ballplayer that ever lived. And one of the game's greatest great-est natural hitters. Walter Johnson came to his first world series when he was on his way over the mystic hill. The earlier Walter Johnson would have joined Mathewson with three shutouts. shut-outs. Bob Feller has never had a world series appearance, and Feller Fel-ler also is just about over the top. Feller came to Cleveland 12 years ago and he has been pouring that fast ball through for a long time. The navy also took three or four of his best years. The navy caught him at his peak and held him a long time. Also after returning to baseball, Feller has given a good part of his time to outside interests, which hasn't helped his baseball. But he still would be a shining spot in any post-season championship. Feller is one of the all-time greats. He won't have to bother about his spot at Cooperstown. Rube Waddell, a world series natural, had his lone chance In 1905 when he suffered an injured shoulder shoul-der in a train scuffle. So the Mathewson - Waddell duel never came off. That would have been up in the super class, the motion pic- ture colossal stuff. Still many stars have made the world series grade Mathewson, Alexander, Al-exander, Cobb, Ruth, Collins, Jackson, Jack-son, Hornsby, Grove, Wagner, Brown, Kling, Plank, Coombs, Bender, Ben-der, Johnson, Wood, Fox, Fritsch, Dizzy Dean, Cochrane, Dickey, too many more to mention. It would be nice to see Feller and a few more stars, who have never made the big show, slip under the tent and mingle with the elephants. Fitzsimmons Is Tops In the middleweight boxing division di-vision my nomination for the top man is Bob Fitzsimmons. Fitz was middleweight champion, light-heavyweight champion and heavyweight champion. He was a brilliant boxer. He was also a terrific puncher. Fitz broke seven bones in both hands punching Jeffries In their second fight. He almost ripped Jeff's face away from his head. But he couldn't knock out the Jeffries of that period. No one . else could. And this includes Jack Johnson who whipped a half-bald, fat, fading old-timer who was In no shape to fight anybody. I saw Jeffries training for the Johnson fight in 1910. He was pitiful. He was a long way from the Jeffries I knew in 1903. |