Show speaking of sports who started nations game debate rages rage S by ROBERT mcshane TRADITION has it that abner doubleday a young engineering student and later a union soldier created modern baseball years ago in cooperstown Coopers town N Y with baseball celebrating its centennial the best thing thin to do is to string right along with tradition from the small town nine to the big league club baseball is co ing in the nationwide nation wide observance the national baseball centennial commission formed to celebrate the garnes games birthday includes leaders in every field of endeavor evidence that a game called baseball was played more than half a century before the cooperstown Coopers town event has been found in the congressional gressional library there among the lib rare books V V parma curator recently inspected a y av A FRED GOLDSMITH A newspaper clipping written by henry chadwick proves that fred goldsmith pitched his torys first curved ball on august 17 1870 miniature in lature volume titled A little pretty pocketbook pocket book it was printed in massachusetts in 1787 and contained a woodcut of boys playing on a field marked by posts instead of bases with this verse the hall ball once struck off 09 away flies files the boy to the next de post and then home and joy the title of the verse and the game is baseball base ball historian frank G menke in his encyclopedia of sports declares that the present ruling powers in the sport have been misled relative to baseballs origin and development and have seized upon the wrong date the wrong place and the wrong man for bestowal of honors menkes claims menke perhaps the natio nations ns outstanding authority summons logic to prove that 1 baseball was evolved from the british game of cricket and in a crude way was played in this country before doubleday was born 2 the game was played in perhaps a score of cities long before it was known to cooperstown Coopers town 3 in 1845 or 1846 alexander cartwright of new york city drew up the baseball square which is now the diamond 4 cartwright and members of the knickerbocker ball club of new york drafted the first definite rules for baseball during the winter of 1845 1846 the commonly accepted version dates from a report made in 1907 by A G mills third president of the th national league mills headed beaded a committee named to search out the th real facts concerning the origin anc and development of the game A G spalding noted figure in the game for more than half a century disagreed with the committees games in spalding quoted from a booklet base ball written by john montgomery ward an early day player and later an attorney 1 col james lee elected an honorary 0 player of the knickerbocker club in 1846 said that he had often played the game when a boy and at that time he was a man of sixty or more years henry chadwick of many baseball rules and originator of the modern scoring system was born in 1824 1924 he was the historian of ills his generation an authority he wrote millions of words about the game when he died in 1908 he left his papers to spalding who was unable to uncover any mention of doubleday in connection with baseball though he was of Double days time let the argument rage even those authorities who question the bestowal of honors are solidly behind baseballs centennial from fans to players the nation is doing its best to make 1939 baseballs baseball ps biggest year why the they T turn pro A A SURVEY made late in april by r the national football league revealed that of the college seniors on the preferred negotiations list had already signed contracts or given definite assurance that they would play that figure is surprisingly high especially so in view of the tact fact that several national league clubs do not attempt to contact drafted players until after commencement there are several reasons why so many have already signed up chief among them being the steady improvements prove ments in general conditions pertaining to professional football desirable salaries have been made possible by increased attendance the status of the pro football player has been raised far beyond the expectations of a few years ago and clubs have contacts wh which ich enable them to place players in good positions during the off season it is obviously impossible for players of the calibre of white davey obrien ki aldrich aidrich and other big biff name players of the past couple of years to command the salary in in any other line that they will be paid in their first season of professional fess ional football white who played one season before going to school in england received exceedingly few college graduates can find good paying jobs immediately after graduation for example the average income of lawyers in america last year was physicians averaged 2000 national league teams no longer resort to rosy promises in signing college players experience has proven that candor bring the best results A statement sent by the brooklyn dodgers to all players sought tells them we do not present professional football as a major life pursuit nor do we offer it as the short bridge to fortune it does however amply provide a young graduate with the means to tide over that perilous period between graduation and the time for deciding upon what shall be his life work among those who have signed pro contracts this year are larry buhler of minnesota and charles brock of nebraska who were assigned to green bay waddy young of oklahoma brooklyn and mike parry st marys cleveland rams publicized prep BILL DILL DE most highly publicized prep football star of last year tasted his first defeat in the college game this spring when his team lost 1213 12 13 in a regulation game between two squads of northwestern university players in 1937 de led Chi cagos austin high school to city championship ever since he decided to matriculate at northwestern midwest fans have been watching him as a possible threat in western conference competition though the publicity brought bill nationwide fame it might have been better all around if it had been avoided bill ask to be glorified as the high school football marvel of 1937 he ask to be established as a great star before he has played one quarter in bil big time competition in his first varsity game he turned in a better than average performance he gained yards in 19 attempts handicapped by three fumbles he completed five of eight passes for a total of 55 yards had one intercepted and two incomplete he recovered one fumble he is a fast runner cuts sharply and can pick his spots his kicking has never been out 0 of I 1 t the he ordinary and he is only a fair passer much of his future success and fame depend on the northwestern line even though the fan gives all al the credit to the ball carrier a hard charging tough blocking line with a couple of fast backfield mates can make a fair back into a great one sport shorts MISS L PATTY BERG united states golf champion will defend four championships that she captured last year philadelphia is spending nearly on golf courses this year building two new ones and renovating renova ting three others joe di maggio will marry dorothy A arnold r n 0 1 d movie actress some time in the near future the bride will 0 r continue her film career steve of the cubs tal 0 INS modern n buck wea weaver K 1121 1 aa thinks a clean 11 hlll uniform and is unlucky manages to do joe dimaggio DiMagg ic something about it after three or four innings of play eighty seven candidates turned out for spring training at indiana this spring the largest number of entries for a golf tournament was from 1056 clubs who played in the the london posts handicap event last year western newspaper union |