OCR Text |
Show I sportsI I By ROBERT McSHANE Relnuad by Wailerr, Newjpopar Union 8 Baseball and Conscription WHAT will happen to competitive competi-tive sports if conscription comes? Will football, baseball, boxing and all the rest be things of the past if the nation again calls upon its young men for compulsory military serv-1 ice? These questions are bothering quite a few people just now. And well they might. It is taken for granted that every form of competitive com-petitive SDort whether professional or amateur, is completely secondary second-ary to the call for national defense. It is just as certain that an athlete, trained to meet opposition and kept in fine physical condition, is the best equipped individual for military purposes. It is very unlikely that any form of conscription will have much effect ef-fect on this year's sports program. Baseball's regular season will be completed and the World series a thing of the past before the full force of any draft measure is felt. The same is likely to be true of football. The effect of conscription on baseball base-ball is a much-discussed subject-largely subject-largely because baseball, more than any other, is the great national pastime. Authorities hold that the age range of the proposed first draft class 21 to 31 will take in more than 80 per cent of baseball's hired hands. Of course, it is improbable though not impossible that all eligibles would be called at once. Different Story for '41 Present plans call for training to begin October 1. It is unlikely, however, how-ever, that the program will be so far advanced on that date. But a far different story is likely to be written in 1941. There will be many, many changes next year. The average person's blood pressure pres-sure would ascend several notches if any attempt was made to exempt ball players from the draft. No attempt at-tempt will be made. Bob Feller will be just another soldier's name to the powers behind the draft. That is as it should be. Athletes, professional or simon-pure, claim no special privileges. Baseball occupies an important place in the everyday scheme of things. More than 18,000,000 people paid to see the minor leagues play last season, and more than 15,000,-000 15,000,-000 paid to see the big league teams in action. All of which proves that the game Is important to a lot of people. Millions of people who can't afford to join a golf club, sail a boat or engage in other recreational activities, find their amusement in the country's ball parks. Regardless of one's personal feelings, feel-ings, it would be a difficult situation if conscription put an end to the amusement of so large a share of the population. And that by no means is meant to Infer that ball players should be exempted from the proposed draft Training Period Suggested Rather, it leads up to a suggestion made by a New York sports writer Joe Williams. His suggestion is that immediately after the season Is ended every baseball eligible should be placed in an army camp and kept there until spring training starts. Williams' suggestion if adopted would give the players five months of intensive military training. That, of course, would be less than the usual conscript receives, but the trained athlete has quite a few advantages ad-vantages with which to begin both In physical and mental conditioning. The public would likely look upon the plan with favor. Every ball player of military age would be ready to take his proper place In time of conflict And in the meantime mean-time the nation's ball parks would provide an outlet for John Q. Public's Pub-lic's Inhibitions. There is always the chance that the country's position will remain as it is. Then the ball player could be sent back to military camp at the end of the next season. But if any conflict occurred during that time, the next step would be obvious. ob-vious. The nation's parks would be i closed and no one would object Sport Shorts BABE PRATT, Alex Shiblcky and Al Collings of the New York Rangers hockey team have enlisted with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles . . . Paul Christman, Missouri's football star, and Bill DeCorrevont North-western's North-western's gridiron luminary, both spent part of the summer in a hospitalthe hos-pitalthe former for a tonsillectomy tonsillec-tomy and the latter for an appendectomy. appen-dectomy. Bill Mitterman, center fielder of Jonesboro. Ark., White Sox farm club, walked away with honors in the Northeast Arkansas league. He topped the circuit in batting aver- age, runs scored, extra bases, most hits and stolen bases. He tied for first in home runs and led in fielding . Don Faurot of the University of Missouri, an All-Star coach, holds a master of arts degree in agriculture agricul-ture . . . The record field fnr a steeplechase was the 66 which f:aed the barrier in the 1929 Grand National Na-tional race at Aintree. England. |