Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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THE NEWBERRY SUN, NEWBERRY, S. C. While Walter WincheU U Away, This Month, His Column Will Be Conducted by Guest Columnists. Nightlife Murders Baseball Says Babe Ruth By the Home-Run King Himself Propped up on a cot in a hospital for several weeks recently, follow ing an operation for the removal of a cartilage from my right knee, I spent a lot of time considering the future of baseball. Let’s start with that nocturnal nuisance, night baseball. It’s mur dering the sport with the help of the cradle-robbing magnates, who are killing the source and substance of the game by neglect of the kids, without whom it cannot exist. Night baseball is strictly a busi ness proposition—an offshoot of war conditions. One or two games a week to give the defense workers a break is O.K. But now both major leagues are planning four and five a week. That will spell the end of the sport. The magnates won’t give up the regular week-end gravy of Saturday and Sunday daylight games. That will mean a layoff Monday and four night contests. To the players, this will be a dras tic and unhealthy way of life. Eye trouble will develop. Right now night games are compelling some players who never had to use glasses to wear ’em. Babe Dahlgren is an example. Irregular meals and sleep is an other disadvantage. An athlete can’t get along without regular sleep and that will be impossible under a day and night schedule of games. Danger of Catching Colds In Night Games Imagine what will happen to the veterans, pitchers in particular. A pitcher perspires profusely during a game. In the daytime, usually with the sun shining, there is less danger of catching cold. I know what I am talking about. I caught one of the worst colds of my career in a night game, merely acting as a coach when I was with Brooklyn. What it is doing to those two-inning pitchers can well be im agined. As for the fans. It’s a mistake to think the men of the family are go ing to attend four night games regu larly each week. Mothers, wives and girl friends will soon stop that! Much publicity already has been given to the fact that night baseball will take the game away from young sters. Kids are the backbone of the game. Smart baseball officials have done everything possible in the past to promote the interest of these future audiences by admitting them free to week-day, daylight games. Boys, as prospective big leag uers, are not getting a square shake from organized baseball. Hie major clubs show no inter est in a boy until he’s 16 and can get working papers. Then, if he’s got the stuff, they send him out to a Class D league where they squeeze what they ean out of him as a hired hand. Softball and Baseball Just Don’t Mix There seems to be a growing apa thy toward baseball. The village, town and rormer hot neighborhood teams and rivalries are fading. This cannot be attributed to the war, be cause the boys who made up those teams were usually under draft age. I hate softball, though I approve tmy game that gets kids out in the sun, but softball has ruined many a potential big leaguer. You cannot play softball and excel at baseball. Progress is also pushing baseball aside. Bit, by bit, we see the growth of cities and towns wipe out sand- lots and semi-pro ballparks. Even in small villages you will discover cornfields that once were baseball diamonds. No efforts are made to save the diamonds. Where are the kids going to turn to for aid? The kids themselves tossed the an swer to me at one of my recent Sat urday morning radio broadcasts on the A. G. Spalding program. Devise a plan whereby the big leagues would sponsor baseball schools throughout the country, using retired star play ers as instructors. Boys start playing the game at eight years and, until they become 16, get little or bad schooling in the sport. So they acquire unbreakable habits in batting, throwing, sliding and fielding unless they are natural- bom players like the Otts, Cobbs, Collins, Speakers, etc. With pro fessional coaching, the kids would be fit for league play anytime they were needed. I played during the last war and can vouch for the fact that few of the players who saw ac tive service ever reached top form again. Some of the aces like Capt. Hank Greenberg and Bill Dickey, who are along in years, may never return to the game. Chaps like Joe DiMag- gio. Bob Feller, Ted Williams and Terry Moore, depending on the type and length of their serv ice, may take as long as three years or more to hit their former stride again, if they ever hit it again. T SAT at the recent East-West All- -*• kid game with my friend Joe Mc Carthy, manager of the Yankees. Here we watched the picked teams from the East and West, represent ing 28 cities and states, at 17 years or younger. And it was here that I saw the soft zpot of this sport. Baseball is rated our national game. There are more kids who would rather play baseball than any other sport. Baseball is our greatest game. Certainly for our kids. And yet baseball has drawn less support from all concerned than any other game. The big leagues, both presidents and all owners, includ ing my good friend Judge Landis, have almost completely Ignored the young ball players from 13 to 17. The high schools and coUeges QrantlandRice have been even worse. Our young football players have the best of coaching in high school. They move to the best coaching in college play. They are finished prod ucts when they reach the pros. Our young golfers have the finest coaching and instruction that any one could demand. All their faults are corrected on the way up. The same is true of our basketball players and our track men. The same is true of our swimmers. They have the best of the coaching—and the best of breaks. Why? They bring money into the box offices. Baseball doesn’t. Any sport that brings in money gets prompt attention. Those that don’t are ignored. Football gets first recognition, from high schools on up through col lege, on into pro ranks. Why? Many college football teams play to financial clean-ups that run from $500,000 to $1,000,000. Baseball can’t even touch these figures. So why bother with base- baU? Back to the Kids* Game Here is the pick of the country’s kids playing baseball at the Polo Grounds. They were young, strong, fast and packed with spirit. But anyone could see the instruction fhey had missed, which young football players, young golfers, young tennis players or young basketball players would have received. On more than one occasion Joe McCarthy, one of the smartest man agers baseball has ever known, one of the .game’s closest students— would point out various faults. It might be a catcher—it might be an infielder—it might be a hitter— “I’d like to have that kid around just a while,’’ Joe would say. “I’d like to tell him just a few things before his fault becomes a habit.” Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Francis Ouimet, Chick Ev ans, these and many others, were great golfers before they were 21. Golf gave them their chance. Football has been piled up with stars who were 19 or 20. Baseball has known only a few who were big leaguers at this age. The answer is that only a few con nected with baseball have made any effort to see that young ball play ers, from 14 to 16, ever get the right instruction. Wish Egan of Detroit is one of the few who has done a fine job along these lines. Egan has devel oped more than a few young stars. George Weiss of the Yankees is an other. There are just a few more. But in the main baseball doesn’t look after its own—and its own are the kids who should be the stars of the future, who never get the chance or who drift into other games. Minor league managers tell me they get these kids, full of faults, and haven’t the time to bother about It. The “naturals" can take care of themselves. So they come from the minors to the majors and are either sent back or hang around for two or three years, to be taught all over. If baseball drew the same type of instruction or coaching that football, basketball, golf and tennis get—from the best in the business—there would be a jump of at least 30 per cent in baseball efficiency between the ages of 19 and 21. But unfortunately in this country too often the dollar comes first. The answer I get is this—“Let baseball start to pay its way and you’ll see a big difference.” It will get the same “overemphasis” from coaches and others that football does now. Pitching Prodigy One of the most outstanding pos sibilities at the Kids Game was Frank Azzarello of New Orleans. He is just 17—a great prospect—a left hander who fought 12 innings with $15,000 Dick Callahan last spring and fanned 18 batters. Frank lost his game 1 to 0 in the 12th. In addition to his brilliant pitch ing Azzarello is also a star outfield er with a Legion batting average of .431. Azzarello is just one of the great kids who played ip this game. There were at least a dozen others. VISIT BY A REFORMED GOLFER John Kieran, the -veil-known Quiz Kid, dropped in on us at our wood land nook. Lassitude Marshes, the other day. He left us feeling more ignorant than usual. Events that were just about shak ing the world were occurring, but the Wizard of Infoplease tossed them aside for native flora and fauna. Considerations of sensational episodes in Germany gave way to a study of the yellow thorn apple, the Far East crisis made way for a study of the night heron (working on the day shift), and nothing that Roosevelt and Dewey might do took precedence over the operations of robin, wren and meadowlark. • Mr. Kieran carries a microscope as he walks along country lanes, and he peers at every weed in the manner of a man locating the main spring of a Swiss watch. “It begins to look as if Hitler is about through,” we observed as the hike began. “Wild onion,” was the answer. “Bet you didn’t know any grew like this. Pretty flower under the scope, too.” “Once things of this nature begin in Germany anything can happen,” we persisted. “Look! The flight is bumpy. Al ways tell it’s a goldfinch.” “I remember the last war . ..” “Tansy. Otherwise known as Bit ter Buttons,” John was saying, with a glass in his eye again, as he inspected a yellow flower which we had spent a lifetime ignoring. He asked us to examine it under the microscope. We did. Darned if it wasn’t an exquisite thing when mag nified.- * “Now yon take those Russians,” we suggested. “Sassafras!” announced Mr. Kieran. “Think so?” we replied. (He was referring to a green leaf he had picked.) “Taste It.” We tasted it. He was right again! ♦ “‘What do you think of Truman as against WaUace?” we asked a moment later. “Cowbirds!” “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Ha was pointing to a couple of birds we had always thought were overfed sparrows. “Lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. Let the other birds hatch and raise the young. And here’s a ques tion: How comes it that the young cowbirds, never having seen or known a cowbird, will at once leave the nest and join cowbirds?” “It must be political,” we ven tured, not needing the twenty-five dollars anyhow. "There’s a bunch of cranes over there by that maple.” * “Night heron. Flies with its feet out straight beheld and its neck folded like a snake. And that’s a black walnut, not a maple.” • He now picked up a small yellow flower which we had never thought worthy of passing attention. “You know the snapdragon. This Is the uncultivated type. Butter and Eggs, it’s called.” Under the glass it was quite beautiful. “What’s this?” we asked, picking a small yellow flower that seemed the only one of its type around. We thought we had him. “Moth mullein.” • We felt pretty thick about things until a rabbit ran across the road. Here was our chance. “Rabbit,” we announced brightly. “Could be,” said John. “Dogorun trackibus Miamibeach- us,” we added, to give him the Latin. He had intended leaving on the noon train, but took the 11:05. • • • Hitler at bay issues a warning that he will make Europe a welter of blood. Recalling the old story of the fellow who said: “My daughter’s eloped with a no-good, my wife has rim away from me, my little boy just fell down a well and I don’t feel very good myself. And you say you’ll make trouble for me!” * • • The prices at summer hotels and for cottages at vacation resorts have soared this summer, and an awful howl is going up. Whatcher kickin’ about? Don’t you know that cool breezes are harder to get these days on account of the war? Don’t you understand that high tides aren’t what they used to be, and that in some places they have to use substitutes? • • • Lester J. Fitzpatrick, manager of a Detroit radio station, would be our choice for President. He has banned the “middle commercial” on all ra dio broadcasts, declaring that they “do more harm than good to the station and to the advertiser.” • • • George Bernard Shaw has come out against any punishment of the Nazi war leaders. He says they must be treated gently after the war. It would be nice if Mr. Shaw did his writing in some place like Lidice. I - ■" E'RANCHOT TONE, suave man 1 about town, society’s pet sophisti cate—this is the way Hollywood first typed Franchot, so this is the way we think of him. ’Tis true, Fran chot would grace anybody’s cock tail party, make no mistake about that. He has perfect passing man ners—is also a good mixer of people plus cocktails. But graceful mariners and unculti vated poise are automatic with Fran chot. He wears them as easily as you and I wear that old outfit we’ve had many years. And, like those old clothes, Franchot is tired of being accepted solely on the ba sis of these sur face impressions. Especially when these .repressions are all the producers seem to re member when casting pictures. Franchot is no different from the rest of us, which means he’s really just a plain, real person. Franchot Tone SEWING CIRCLE PATTERNS Princess Dress—Collarless, Cool Pattern No. 8622 is In sizes 12, 14, 16, 18. 20; 40 and 42. Size 14. Jumper, requires 27i yards ol 39-inch fabric; Jacket, 1% yards. Due to an unusually large demand and current war conditions, slightly more time is required in fllling orders for a few ol the most popular pattern numbers. Send your order to: SEWING CIRCLE PATTERN DEPT. 530 South Wells St. Chicago Enclose 25 cents In coins for each pattern desired. Pattern No......... Size...... Name Address Youth and Age As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.—Cicero. A REALLY FINE " r EA^N. cfiRfnFn ORANGE PEKOE 6'- PElTOE T-€fl Franchot cast aside his bonds of aristocracy (if he ever had them) when he gave up a career as as sistant to the head of Romance lan guages at Cornell university for a starvation diet of used scripts and black coffee. During lean years that followed his turn to the theater he learned to respect and admire the so-called little man who wasn’t afraid to work and starve if neces sary for what he wanted. He be came one of them, in fact. But his struggles didn’t begin here. Born into a family of means, the son of the late Frank J. Tone, sci entist and president of the famous Carborundum company, Franchot was more serious-minded, objective, and studious than most children born with a silver spoon you know where. He sweated his way through Cornell in three years. He so im pressed the faculty that he was ap pointed to his teaching post in the Romance languages before gradu ation. Did It the Hard Way Franchot burned plenty of mid night oil before he learned to shout, “O, how I loved my alma mater!” His was no snap letters and science curriculum dealing only with study of the drama, physical education and bicep building, though that drama course at Cornell is no cinch. Franchot majored in drama. His course included French and Latin, a half dozen courses dealing with drama, ranging from its history to real, honest-to-goodness play acting, topped off with a few courses in mu sic. Franchot left Cornell’s halls after a year’s try at teaching, shook some of the ivy out of his hair, and in vaded Broadway. He can laugh at it now; he couldn’t then. His inva sion almost came a cropper. But Franchot was determined; he had what it took, and so Broadway suc cumbed when he jolted the critics from their well grooved seats with his first performance in “Age of In nocence,” with Katharine Cornell. Prelude to Success Before he won this opportunity he did several years of soliij. training with the New Playwrights’ theater in Greenwich Village, get $15 week ly. He did a stint with the Garry McGarry Players in Buffalo, kept busy doing stock work until he got his Broadway call. After the Kit Cornell show Franchot appeared with Sylvia Sydney, Irene Pnrcell, and Peggy Shannon in “Cross Roads.” He joined the Theater guild in 1929 and did a series of shows. Franchot was not only an earnest actor but an idealist in his attitude toward his work. He was an origi nator of the Group theater. With this organization, which still re mains close to his heart, he appeared in “House of Connolly,” “Night Over Taos,” and “Success Story.” Hollywood Next Stop By this time motion pictures were bidding for talented Broadway ac tors, so he signed with Paramount to play in “The Wiser Six,” with Clau dette Colbert, Lilyan Tashman and William Boyd. From then on Fran chot cast his lot with movies, and proved himself an excellent per former. A long-term contract with M.G.M. fcrought Tone to Hollywood, and what followed is a familiar story. Pro ducers called him “Smoothie.” They immediately put him in “smooth” parts, and it’s a tribute to Fran- chot’s ability, plus his patience, that he made himself outstanding despite the fact that he worked too often with mediocre materiaL * • • What Price Youth? Kenny Baker is no longer a kid, although he still looks like one. He’s married and has two children, but when he bought a ranch out here, the owner insisted on getting an affi davit from Kenny’s father that he was over 21 and would be able to pay for it. Kenny’s just about to close for a mighty good screen part . . . Sonja Henie insists she wants to do a straight dramatic part. If our little skater’s set her mind on it— -*•*’*1 dQ ttl It’s Collarless pOLLARLESS and cooler is the keynote to this summer’s play fashions! The handsome princess jumper illustrated has a most at tractive collar less jacket which turns it into a smart business and street ensemble. Garden tools free from rust are easier to work with and, if a small can of tractor il and an old shav ing brush are kept handy, it takes little time to clean and oil the tools after using.' —•— Knitted woolens and wool dresses and skirts washed by hand are less likely to shrink or be come matted than if cleaned in a washing machine. If ice eubes are held under warm water for a few seconds, they will have no sharp edges to jab or cut the precious rubber icebag. —•— If it Is necessary to carry a number of small drills in your pocket, an old spectacle case comes in handy in which to carry them. Oftentimes a pretty flower ar rangement cannot be achieved be cause the frog is not the right size or shape. In this case, make one by melting paraffin, molding it in the desired shape and punch ing holes with a heated ice pick. —e— To clean rnst from any kind of farhi implements, dissolve one can of lye in five gallons qf water and apply with an old broom or brush. Scrub well. The rust will come off quickly. Criminals Given Choice Of No Salt or Hanging None of us can live without salt. Perspiration resulting in loss of salt from the human body makes men liable to muscular cramps. Several years ago a doctor and three medical students deliberate ly deprived themselves of all salt. Strange symptoms soon resulted. Appetite was lost, food seemed tasteless, cigarettes lost their fla vor, cramps in the muscles de veloped, and all suffered from ex cessive fatigue and a general sense of exhaustion. At one time one of the legal punishments in Holland was to de prive a man of his salt. It led to depression and illness. Con demned criminals in Sweden were once allowed, if they wished, to abstain from salt for a month in stead of mounting the scaffold. The result was practically a certain death. Clf IM IRRITATIONS OP 9WIN EXTERNAL CAUSR Acne pimples, eczema, factory derma titis, ample ringworm, tetter, salt rheum, bumps, (blackheads), and ugly broken- out skin. Millions relieve itching, burn ing and soreness of these miseries with simple home treatment. Goes to work at once. Aids healing, works the andaeptia way. Use Black and White Ointment only as directed. 10c. 26c, 60c sizes. 25 years’ success. Money-back guarantee. Vital in cleansing is good soap. Enjoy fa mous Black and White Skm Soap daily. STOMACH i id. fco*- l War work and hasty lunch-box meals sometimes result in upset di gestive systems, pkpto-bismol. helps to relieve stomach distress ami discomfort — and to retard simple diarrhea. Thetee good and does good. When your stomach is upset—ask your druggist for pbpto-bismol. A NORWICH PRODUCT The above picture shows one Distributor assembled ss shipped. The inset (circled) has hopper detached to show working parts and mechanism. tare end Orchard Improvemeai All heavy steel electrically welded construction. 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