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Show Released by Western Newspaper Union. CMGURES released by the United States department of commerce prove conclusively that America is the most recreational-minded country coun-try in the world. The figures deal with the state of sports in the United States through three different economic eco-nomic periods boom, depression, and the prewar year. Hard to believe is the fact that sports attendance soared so high in 1941. The commerce department estimates that $73,000,000 was spent in watching sports in 1929 the boom year. The total dropped to $52,000,-000 $52,000,-000 in 1932 at the depth of the depression de-pression and zoomed to $175,000,000 last year. Baseball turnstiles clicked to the tune of $17,000,000 in 1929, $10,000,000 in 1933 and $20,000,000 in 1941. College Col-lege football showed a similar gain: $22,000,000 in '29, $20,000,000 in '33 and $48,000,000 in '41. Bowling has increased 250 per cent in the past 10 years. The 1941 total was more than $94,000,000. Professional Pro-fessional football continued to grow despite the depression. In '29 only $700,000 was spent on the game. This grew to $1,000,000 in '33 and to $3,000,000 last year. , 'No Decision' Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, former for-mer light heavyweight champion who recently lost his final bout to the Grim Reaper, was one of the most colorful of the old-time ring-men. ring-men. His death revived stories of his famous bout with Stanley Ketch-el, Ketch-el, the Michigan Assassin. The Ketchel-O'Brien tilt was a 10-round 10-round no-decision affair, fought in New York. Even though the fight ended with O'Brien on the floor, unconscious, un-conscious, he always listed it in his record as a no-decision contest, with the notation that he had been saved by the bell. His followers argued that he actually won the fight, even though unconscious at the end. They claimed (with quite a bit of logic) that O'Brien had the better of the greatest part of the fight and should have been recognized as the winner, regardless of the last few seconds. A rematch settled the argument for a while. Ketchel knocked O'Brien out in three rounds, proving his superiority su-periority and saddening the followers of O'Brien. Corporation Beau Jack, one-time Negro locker boy of the Augusta, Ga., National golf club and recent winner over Lightweight Allie Stolz, has long been a corporation. Twenty business busi-ness men had 20 shares in him, but he paid them all off. He is said to work on an allowance of $5 a week, the remainder being banked for him. When Beau defeated Stolz, the 20 sponsors of his professional ring career honored him at a party in New York. He deserved the honor Sammy Angott was supposed to be the only man who stood between Stolz and the title. About the Phils When the directors of the National Nation-al league ordered the sale of the Philadelphia Phillies, they did so for one reason the league is tired of advancing money to the club and refuses to go on doing so. Ford Frick, president of the National Na-tional league, pointed out that early stories gave the wrong impression. "The directors are not after Gerry Nu-gent's Nu-gent's head," he explained. ex-plained. "He has not received a peremptory per-emptory order to get out . . . The league is not in a position to give Nugent Nu-gent more financial assistance, and some way must be devised to go on Ford Frick without it. What will happen I honestly hon-estly do not know." Franchise Change? Incidentally, the American league is safe from a recurrence of its annual an-nual problem requests from the Browns for a handout. When the league turned down President Don Barnes last year the club proceeded to make some necessary changes, with the result that it made money. However, Barnes still believes the day will come when the Browns will represent Los Angeles rather than St. Louis. "After the war the Pacific coast is certain to have big league baseball," Barnes said. When he suggested the franchise shift last year he got a cold shoulder from fellow American league magnates. mag-nates. Sport Shorts C On the average a referee has to call 125 plays a game, fl. Colgate's starting right tackle is Bill MacMichael, an engineering student stu-dent who gets away from classes for practice only one day n week. He has been able to play from 40 to 50 minutes in each of the Red Raiders' games. C. One baseball writer on the American Amer-ican league's most valuable player committee ranked Joe Gordon fifth, Ted Williams sixth. |