OCR Text |
Show THE RICH COUNTY REAPER, RANDOLPH. UTAH Season of Upsets Speaking of Sports . Champs Are HORTON DUT the season of 1938 down in your notebook as one of upsets in the baseball world. Heroes who have made the headlines steadily for years have failed to click this year. New heroes have risen to stardom out of nowhere. New teams have challenged or bested the leaders in both leagues. Other teams regarded as sure contenders have slumped badly. An example of the changing baseball world is the failure of Lou Gehrig of the Yankees to sparkle this year and the disappointing showing of Joe Di Maggio so far. Joe hits his homers regularly and still boasts a stout batting average, but he isnt the wonder boy he was a year ago. Moreover, the Yankees have failed to be a standout up to now. The sporting world marveled a year ago at the feats of the Boston Bees Jim graybeard rookies, Turner and Lou Fette. Neither has been a world-beatin the W38 N season. Joe Medwick of the Cardinals has been hitting solidly this year, but his batting average is nowhere near the .400 clip he enjoyed most of the 1937 season. Johnny Mize, a sensation of the Cards last year, is something of a bust now. Carl Hubbel of the Giants used to be a Rock of Gibraltar in time of trouble. But hes had more shaky moments on the pitching mound thus far than probably ever before in his great career. The Chicago White Sox and the Washington Senators are bewildered over the inability of Joe Kuhel and Zeke Bonura, the first basemen they swapped, to get going this year. Frank Demaree and Bill Herman of the Chicago Cubs have developed a chronic batting slump. On the bright side, of course, is the advent of fiashy newcomers into the baseball headlines. Probably the most sensatibnal is it Johnny Vander Meer of the Cincinnati Reds among standouts this year, including Frank McCormick, the rookie first baseman, and Ernie Lombardi and Ival Goodman, who are enjoying their best years this season. 1 Youngsters, Survey Shows By GEORGE A. BARCLAY ,TF YOU want to be a champion corn husker, a star baseball player or an ace prize fighter, yon had better get around to it by or before the age of thirty. Otherwise yon are in the "old man class and yonr chances for athletic eminence are practically nil. At least that is the conclusion of Professor Harvey C. Lehman of Ohio State university, who has made a survey of age in relation to sports. Sporting championships belong to youth, says Professor Lehman and he proceeds to support his contention with impressive statistics. Old timers might contradict him by pointing out that Bob Fitzsimmons won the heavyweight championship and that at the age of thirty-fiv- e Doesn't Sound After Strange Years This Ocean Flights By JOSEPH W. LaBINE In New York a hard-boile- d prize fight announcer led his audience in prayer. Throughout America one hundred million minds were focused on some vague spot over the briny Atlantic where Charles A. Lindbergh was piloting his Spirit of St. Louis to Paris and fame. That was in 1927, only 11 years ago. A few days ago another transatlantic flight ended and only a few hundred people bothered to read about it. Of more than 50 such trips being planned this summer, only two are attracting much attention, those of .Howard Hughes and Douglas Corrigan, the mistake flier. " The ocean flight that made people hold their breath a decade ago has now become commonplace, and rightly so. This does not dim the accomplishment of Lindbergh; er it merely means that transo- ceanic aviation has grown up, that extra loads. science has begun to capitalize on thereby permitting its carefully planned program of conquering the Atlantic. The Hughes trip was but a forerunner of this summers transatlantic travel, a series of journeys that will keep the waves humming for weeks tocome. The airships of four nations are flying from Europe to New York over different routes in a series of survey flights. Great Britain started things off a few weeks ago when the Mercury, unique plane, A LREADY crowded with more soared away from the mother ship, topnotch fighters than any other Maia, over Foynes, Ireland. The pugilistic class, the middleweight Mercury landed at Montreal 22 ' division now comes up with a new hours later. punching phenom A1 Hostak, who Takeoff Load Problem. back-and-for- th Hostile Hostak pick-a-ba- Stanislaus Zbyszko was heavyweight wrestling champion at sixty. They might add that Big Bill Tilden at the age of forty could beat any. kid in tennis, that Cy Young was pitching star baseball in his forties and Babe Ruth was still cracking out home runs in his late thirties. But the professdr could answer that these were isolated exceptions. Baseball players reach stardom in the upper twenties, the Lehman survey shows. The best single year of the average baseball player, be he pitcher, infielder or outfielder, is This the baseball world a year or two ago with his pitching at the age of eighteen and Johnny Vander Meer t, nopitched two consecutive run games recently at the age of no-hi- r Prize fighters reach their peak a few years earlier, than baseball players, most of the championships in the various divisions being won regularly by boxers from twenty-foto twenty-seveaccording to Professor Lehman. The possible exception is the heavyweight division, seems to be the where twenty-nin- e magic year. Joe Louis reached the heights a good deal earlier.' The Lehman figures show that the average age of boxing champions decreases steadily from twenty-nin- e for for heavyweights to twenty-eigfor light heavyweights, twenty-seve- n n. AL HOSTAK ur n, ht won the championship from Freddie Steele recently. Hostak has never fought outside his native state of Washington. There is plenty of classy opposition for the new king of the middle-weigh- ts to meet when he gets around to it. Rigbt out on the coast he can fight Fred Apostoli, who holds a decision over Steele and has been called the uncrowned champion, and Young Corbett. Half a dozen other standouts in the middleweight division could probably give Hostak an argument. Here and There in England recently is that of Leonard G. Crawley, English exchampion and Walker ,cup player, who won two competitions in one day the St. Georges Hill trophy at Weybridge and the Gold Medal at Sunningdale. This involved him in three rounds of 18 holes each, and Tomhe averaged even fours my Loughran, former boxing champion, famous as a boxer rather than a. slugger, remarked recently in Philadelphia: "Many of these modern fighters know nothing about keeping a man off balance or feinting him into position for a blow. What a snap it A UNIQUE golf performance Sammy Gray, former American league pitcher, is managing and doing relief duty for Texarkana in the East Texas league . . There have been no shutouts in the All-Stbaseball series . . . Joe Boley, former shortstop for the Athletics, has been dropped as manager- - of the Pocomoke City team in the Eastern Shore league. ar Western Newspaper UnlOfa, is fool-pro- of ago. Outside of the weight problem mentioned above, engineers have found most of their difficulty in conquering the weather. Unlike the Pacific, which is usually calm, the Atlantic is beset with atmospheric disturbances. Especially is this true on the east-wehop, where until last year there were relatively few successful flights. Until a few weeks ago the ceiling for commercial planed was 20,000 feet. Since engineers have long known that Atlantic weather' disturbances could be overcome by high altitudes, they have been seeking some means of reaching these heights under practical conditions. Although oxygen equipment has been available to .facilitate great elevations, it weighs so much that pay loads would be cut too low. But from Sweden has come word of a new airplane motor capable of sustained performance at altitudes up to 59,000 feet. If it lives up to its claims, the motor will facilitate flights through the stratosphere where weather is always calm. U. S. Service Ready. Whatever may have happened to her supremacy on the high seas, America need take no back seat in transoceanic service. While France, England and- - Germany are busy with their survey flights, is preparing to inaugurate regularly scheduled service from st New York to London in her mammoth Boeing clipper ships. Just LEFT Douglas Corrigan, whose mistake flight from New York to Dublin recently was frowned upon with good reason by U. S. department of commerce officials. BE- ... would be now! France is experimenting this summer with the Lieut, de Vaisseau Paris, one of the largest flying boats in the world. Stunt Flying Banned. There is more to this story of aerial navigation than meets the Transoceanic flying hasnt eye. been merely a matter of building one ship larger than the last and seeing how far it would go without refueling. Since Charles Lindbergh first dreamed about it during his New York-Parhop, the best minds of aviation have been working to develop ships that will run mechanically. Until such ships could be perfected, the United States was justified in frowning on stunt Atlantic ships. Thats why Doug Corrigans request for a permit last year was denied; its why Corrigan had to depend on a wayward compass to fly his ship to Ireland a few weeks Pan-Americ- an light-heavyweig- ht JOE LOUIS for welmiddleweights, twenty-si- x terweights, lightweights and feathfor banerweights and twenty-fou- r tamweights. But if your sporting inclinations take ' different directions, the age curve may rise slightly. Suppose you have ambitions to be a champion corn husket. Then the year in which the greatest chances of success offer themselves is thirty. ck well-found- ed Some arrive earlier. For instance, Bob Feller amazed e. ck composite ship has attracted more attention than any aviation development in recent years. British engineers worked on the theory that a ship can fly easily carrying excess weight but it cant take off with much extra load. Especially is this true of seaplanes, which are held down by suction of the water on their pontoons. So the Maia and the Mercury, locked together, rise from the airport as a single unit and separate in mid-qi- r. The Maia is a land ship, the Mercury a seaplane. Flying a different route from1 the Azores to New York the Germans are working with three seaplanes, Nordwind, Nordmeer and Nord-sterThe ships belong to Deutsche Lufthansa and are making 14 round trips this year preparatory to starting regular transatlantic mail service. Germanys answer to the takeThe off problem is the catapult. three seaplanes are shot off steamships at New York and the Azores, twenty-eigh- t. twenty-thre- London newspapers, one day old, were sold by this newsie in Times Square, New York City, a couple of weeks ago. The papers were carried k across the Atlantic by Englands plane, Mercury. pick-a-bac- no-h- JOHNNY VANDER MEER V new Heres Boeing Atlantic clipper which will LOW . Pan-America- carry 40 passengers across the lantic in luxurious comfort. At- how soon the service will start, nobody knows. Its just possible that in a few weeks you may be able to slide about $450 across the counter at New York and buy an air ticket for London, arriving there less than 24 hours out of Port Washington, Long Island. Similar accommodations on the liner Queen Mary would be $316, plus tips, plus several days extra. Passengers, mail and express will be shuttled between the two contid nents in the new flying boats (P. A. A. has ordered six of them) that offer everything from a dining lounge to a bridal suite. The new clippers are twice as large as those now making regu83,000-poun- lar, uneventful trips across the Pacific, being far and away the most luxurious aircraft ever built. The first of them was launched last April and is now undergoing test flights on the Pacific coast. It is larger than the Santa Maria in which Columbus crossed the ocean, and three times the size of the average commercial air transport. It has a wingspread and hold your breath on' this one just half a city block long, or 152 feet! j Two Deck Airliner. From stem to stern, the new boat has been built to parallel an ocean vessel. It even has two decks, a top one for navigation and slower one for passengers. Up on the flight deck a large crew will be on duty. Ahead, in the cockpit the smallest part of the deck, are the pilot and whose work is largely left to robot instruments. Behind them in( the navigation room are the radio man and the navigator, the former in touch with land at all times. Back of the navigator is the engineer, possibly the busiest man on the ship. He handles throttles, checks engine performance and goes out in the wing to repair an ailing motor if it needs treatment. The pilot is the engineers eyes; the engineer is the pilots hands. And supervising all these men is the flight master, corresponding to the captain on an ocean liner. He is an administrator, pilot, engineer, navigator, radio operator and seaman rolled into one. In the entire organization there are only 11 masters. Luxury Over the Waves. Down in the passenger deck modern voyagers enjoy all the comforts of home, and more. Except for a slight vibration and the muffled hum of four powerful engines, there is no perceptible sign of flight: Eight rooms are at the publics disposal; one of them seats more than a dozen persons comfortably and the others, though somewhat small--' er, have big seats against the wall.' Thus far it looks like theyll have to omit only one gadget; nobody can figure out where to put the swimming pool! co-pil- ot Pan-Americ- an Western Newspaper Union. |