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Show , SPORTLIGHT Why Not Give Frenchmen Chance? I By GRANTLAND RICE ONLY A SMART YOUNG MAN with the expanding energy of Jim Norris, International Boxing Club president, would even tackle the fight game tangle as it is today. to-day. It happens to be twisted into a greater number of knots than a ft medley of pretzels. 5 Here is a game without a heavy- weight who can : fight, a snarl In 5 the stronger middleweight mid-dleweight division and two good fighters fight-ers in Pep and Saddler who want tmi minfa fnr what as 1893 in Baltimore there was a move ,on the part of the ball club to keep baseball writers out of the park. The idea was that people had to come to the park to find out who won. This suggestion was quickly thrown out. Who would go to a ball game when he could sit at home and hear every play for no cost? Larry MacPbail was one of the first to prove this theory was Incorrect. Radio Ra-dio was a big baseball boost. Now television comes under heavy fire. When you are able both to see and hear the game it is something different. I have never heard as many different dif-ferent opinions expressed on one subject. The grouping is about as follows No. 1 Television will wreck baseball, starting with the minor leagues. No. 2 Television will hurt the weaker clubs. It won't affect the stronger clubs. No. 3 Television will make little difference one way or another after good weather and better baseball arrive. No. 4 Television will help baseball base-ball in the long run. It brings the games to thousands of new homes. It will be even more help than radio was. As Larry MacPhail was the first to give radio a real trial, I asked the former Yankee owner, or one of them, how he felt about it. "I don't think it will make much difference," he said. "Baseball doesn't televise well. I'd rather Graotland Ric , , ,.; , Is now getting to to be doubtful entertainment. Here is just one example. In the middleweight set the worst two fighters are the ones elected to meet for the title LaMotta and Graziano. I doubt very much that either could handle Ray Robinson, welterweight champion, Robert Villemain or Laurent Dauthuille. Robinson and Villemain are both much above the LaMotta-Graziano LaMotta-Graziano average. LaMotta who is the middleweight champ, has slipped a long, long way downhill since he was fighting Robinson years ago and Rocky Graziano has dipped just as far. This was the division divi-sion that was supposed to feature fea-ture all boxing programs for 1950. Or at least feature most of them since the middle-weights middle-weights had more stuff to offer. Philadelphia has grabbed off the best show of the lot in Robinson and Villemain so far as actual ring skill is concerned, but there is no title involved. It is an odd angle that a fighter of the LaMotta type should be able to tie up the one good division left to a game that seems to be reeling in the dark. The two Frenchmen have been tossed around and yet either is a better fighter than LaMotta is today. The Philadelphia show is about as good as the game can offer right now but what it means in the way of dissolving Jake LaMotta is another guess. Both LaMotta and Graziano were much higher in the scale some years ago. Neither could ever be accused of being another an-other Benny Leonard or another anoth-er Greb. But in their own rough and rowdy way they knew how to be effective. Both have lost the reflexes and resiliency of younger years and appear to be waiting for the axe. The Television Angle Back around the hazy year known hear a game called over radio. The 1950 Miracle Man From the extensive domain of his broad estate in Maryland it seems that Larry MacPhail still keeps an eye on the general scene He is now raising Angus cattle and thoroughbreds and also watching the standing of the clubs in the two leagues, especially the American. Ameri-can. ' "What do you think," he asked, "of a fellow by the name of Bucky Harris? If he isn't the miracle man, so far, of 1950, who is? The raw facts In the case are that for the first five or six weeks of the new season Bucky Harris has come through with the finest job in baseball. He had a team that was expected by practically everyone to dive for the cellar on opening day and stay there until October's leaves arrived. ar-rived. But here after close to 30 games, a pretty sound test. Bucky and his bunch have spent most of the time hobnobbing with the Yankees, Tigers, Red Sox and Indians, In-dians, the aristocrats of their league. |