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Show , SPOR TLIGH T . I Maybe the Fans Will Balk Next I By GRANTLAND RICE ' BASEBALL was getting along well enough without any change in the balk situation. In the first place, 1948 was a record attendance attend-ance year and 1949 was almost as good. There was no complaint from the customers, ballplayers or um- pires. The balk was where it belonged be-longed out of sight. Then suddenly sud-denly it popped back In again. It is a type of rule violation that few ballplayers and practically no fans could ever I already soggy baseball outlook. out-look. All Around the Map There Is at least one extra thing you can say about any Kentucky Derby. You meet practically everyone every-one who is in any way identified with sports. We kept track of only one day and the list included Louis B Mayer; Bill Goetz; Harry Goetz; Don Hutson (all-time end); Paul Bryant; Kentucky's winning football foot-ball coach; Wally Butts, Georgia's football coach; Billy Conn; Max Hirsch; Dick Andrade, Dallas sportsman; and too many others too mention. The most interesting argument argu-ment we waded into was the coming football situation, especially es-pecially as it affected the Southeastern and the Southwestern South-western conferences. In the first place, it was interesting interest-ing to see Don Hutson and Paul Bryant together again. The last time I saw them together was against a great Stanford team in the Rose Bowl game of 1935. Hutson and Bryant starred on Alabama's winning team that sea son and figured heavily in Stan ford's defeat. Bryant was a great defensive end. Hutson was the finest offensive end football has ever known. He proved this later as a star on the Green Bay Packers. Pack-ers. Hutson, that day, gave the greatest exhibition of offensive end play I've ever seen. Don proved later against the Bears, Giants, etc., that this game was no fluke. Today he looks as if he could step into action tomorrow. Both Paul Bryant of Kentucky and Wally Butts of Georgia agreed the Southeastern conference would be one of the best of the year ahead. No Arcaro Alibis "A poor way to inspire confidence confi-dence is to start in with an excuse," ex-cuse," a sporting philosopher once wrote. Christy Mathewson once said that a ballplayer needs an alibi to bolster his confidence. "When you can throw the blame on the breaks, you help your own esteem, often needed when a slump arrives." There is something to this angle But one competitor who never uses it is Eddie Arcaro. "I've known Eddie for a long time," John Partridge, veteran trainer, said a day or two ago "I've never seen him have an ex cuse or an alibi for a defeat." Grantland Rice understand. Few umpires really do. They merely guess. The base runner who benefits bene-fits from a balk gets something he hasn't earned. It is simply a blind gift. Veteran pitchers are charged with balking four times in one game. As many as 20 or 30 balks are called in a week against various var-ious big-league teams. No one seems to know how the plaque slipped in. Ford Frick says he was out for no vital change in calling balks. President Harridge of the American league is even more outspoken along these lines. There has been no public or private demand for any change. But suddenly this past spring in exhibition contests, the rhubarb-maker was on the scene. j The pest had arrived, j Exhibition games were suddenly being rudely torn apart. Few umpires could tell you exactly how long a second was. Leo Durocher was one of the first managers to predict the upheaval up-heaval that was to follow. 1 ' believe Dizzy Dean called the turn correctly. "Brother," he said, "if one of them umpires um-pires called a balk on me, I'd just hand him the ball and my glove and say: 'After this, you are the pitcher. I'll do the umpiring.' um-piring.' " Here is the main point: Who is responsible for all this trouble? The presidents of the two leagues, baseball's commissioner or the umpires? um-pires? Certainly the players and fans are not. Baseball has had enoogh trouble this spring -with bad weather, television tele-vision and badly conditioned ballplayers ball-players to carry a new burden. The two big leagues are over $2,000,000, as we get the sour statistics, below normal years. Many teams are playing before be-fore 1,500 and 2,500 spectators. Certainly the present balk situation sit-uation isn't going to help an |