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Show i sii" 1 "vr"v n Tliosc. Golden Years WHEN Whirlnwny added the hide of Miohind to his Derby and Preukness wins, when Bob Feller Fel-ler picked up his eighth win in ten starts and Joe Louis went ambling along, someone brought up this point "How many stars have we around today who can compare with the Golden Age of 1919 1 ' l many now n tp 2 I could fit Into the 3 M picture from 20 7" j years ago?" ,, V jj In the Golden Age A "351 0 sport we had i Man War reprc-' reprc-' J jj senting the turf. We ' ' t7v nad Jack DemPsey L....i t .jyJL We had Babe Ruth Grantland Rice rulin bsebalL We had Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen for golf, not overlooking over-looking Gene Sarazen. And there was Bill Tilden starting a brilliant sweep against the best In the world. Man o' War Babe Ruth Jack Dempsey Bobby Jones Walter Hagen Bill Tilden I'm afraid 1941 can't quite equal that cluster. The current year can give you Whirlaway Joe Louis Bob Feller Don Budge with no outstanding golfer among so many good ones. The Drop in Color The big drop from the Golden Age to 1941 comes In the matter of color. Those stars of the Golden Age not only had unusual ability, but they had a flare and a flame that traveled around the world. They caught and held the public eye. They drew crowds that had no Interest in the sport they featured. Thousands, who had no Interest In a horse race, came out to see Man o' War run. More thousands, who had i rs 1 only a lean Interest j V - j4 In baseball or the N V, :7 ? j fight game, came to i .riT;; , . ee Babe Roth j 1 7 swing his 52-ounce ; -v bat and Jack Demp- f' i'' sey throw his left Ciii hook. The same ! . ' thing happened to ;J Bobby Jones In golf, f ' ' f j The same was true ' ' -J of Bill Tilden In ten- Mia o' War nis. All these I've mentioned caught the imagination of millions. Of many millions. In this machine age there Is al-I al-I most no touch of colorful tinting. They knew all about Man o' War, Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth and Bobby Bob-by Jones on the other side of the world. Also Hagen and Tilden. The most colorful champion we have in sport today is Whirlaway, a horse. He wins and he loses he may be a trifle on the goofy side, but he has caught the attention of the country. He can run like the wind and he can run any distance. His main qualities are speed and stamina. What else can yon ask for? Once he started to move he was 20 lengths better than anything In the Derby field. Under the same conditions he was able to pick up and add 2o lengths on King Cole in the Preak-ness. Preak-ness. Since Man o' War quit as a three-year-old, a short career, there is a chance that Whirlaway may go on to be the top horse of all time. And few horses have carried as much human interest color, no matter mat-ter what their careers. The long, wide-spreading Whirlaway tail alone is something to look at and talk about. Some of the Others As great a pitcher as Bob Feller is, the first citizen of Van Meter, Iowa, has nothing like the color of a Babe Ruth or a Dizzy Dean. This is too much to ask. Don Budge Is a star tennis player, but in the matter of color he isn't a Bill Tilden. Joe Louis lacks the flare of Jack Dempsey when the Manassa Mauler was at his peak. There are many more fine golfers today than there were 20 years ago. They are playing better golf. But in looking through the list not even a Lick telescope could discover another an-other Bobby Jones or another Walter Wal-ter Hagen on the colorful side. AH this doesn't mean that sport, along the road of skill and high-class high-class performance, has taken any flop in the last two decades. Practically Prac-tically every performance that can be timed or measured has been broken bro-ken more than a few times in recent re-cent years. There has been a general gen-eral average Improvement. But the crowd appeal on the human side isn't the same. What Is Color? Some deep bass voice may be heard booming these words at this spot, "Just what is color?" It is a difficult word to explain. It is a combination of high-class ability, plus certain other qualities that cause talk qualities that catch and hold the attention of the crowds. The color exuded by Babe Ruth and Bobby Jones was of different brands entirely different but both had it in copious quantities. The same was true of Jack Dempsey and Bill Tilden. |