The Key West Citizen Newspaper, March 6, 1953, Page 7

STANKY IS A WORKING MANAGER. — Not igi ‘hs content with merely telling his rookies how to slide, Manager Eddie Stanky of the St. Louis Cardinals, gives a practical demonstration to a group of pitching prospects at the Red Birds’ spring training camp in St. Petersburg, Fla—(P) Wirephoto. Friday, March 6, 1953 Sports Roundup By GAYLE TALBOT PHOENIX, Ariz, —This being | the city where Mickey Mantle burst forth upon an unsuspecting base- ball world two years ago and where Willie Mays attended his first big league training camp last spring, there has come to be a feeling that a brand new “pheenom” is likely as not to pop out from behind almost.any clump of sagebrush, ness within, at the most, another season’ is a strapping 218-pounder named Bill Taylor, who has just returned from the service and is making a vigorous pitch for a job in the New York Giants outfield. His every move is being watched with the keenest interest of any player in camp. “I can’t say whether he'll make it this year, of course,” said Man- ager Leo Durocher after watching the 6-foot-4 slugger barrel two hits | into the outfield during an intra- * squad game, “but he’s going to get all the chance there is. We could use > “I know this much for sure—the boy can hit a fast ball out of * sight right now, and he’s a natural pull hitter, which is great in our park. We'll find out more about him: whenithe good pitchers start | work'ne on him with a lot of differ- ent stuff, looking for his weakness, but I think they'll find that with the kind of power he has he'll need to get only a piece of the ball to get hi- base hits. He’s a terrific .” Sam Calderone, a Giant catcher Who also is just out of uniform, declares unhesitatingly that Tay- Jor was the best hitter in service | baseball and feels aimost as cer- tain he'll wear out. big league pitching from the start. Taylor is | strictly a left-hand swinger, by the way, and Calderone says he murders left and right-hand pitch- ing with equal gusto. ; Although he is only 23, the hand- some rookie has been playing pro ball for six years. He started with the Phoenix club when he was only 17. After two seasons with Phoenix, | he spent a year with Bremerton | in the Class B Western Inter. national League, where he hit .339 and drove in 130 runs. He spent his final season before entering the service with the Giants’ Sioux City farm, hitting 30 homers and knock- ing across 109 runs, though out six weeks with a broken leg. His average was 346. “ET think maybe the most im-, pressive thing about him was his | refusal to strike out,” said Tom Sheehan, the Giants’ chief scout. | “In four seasons in rro ball he/| Bever once struck out more than | 30 times. It might be an all-time | record,” i i THE YANKEES BIG FOUR i the New York Yankees’ Big Fe ing camp at St. Petersbur a photo, THE KEY WEST CITIZEN Page 7 Satchel Paige To Have New Pitch SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. #— Leroy Paige, the timeless Satchel of the St. Louis Browns, is working on another pitch to bedevil the opposition. Satchel is developing an underhand, or submarine, pitch. Rubber-armed Satch doubtless is thinking of the future, when, for instance, he gets to be an old man--if he ever geis to be an old man--and needs this style of de- livery to fall back on. Baseball has seen many an old timer add a few more years to his career with the submarine throw. Paige, of course, would be the last to admit that he’s anywhere near the old man stage. The fact that the club roster shows him to be a mere tripling of 45, or ‘the possibility that he might even be as old as Jersey Joe Walcott, feazes Satch not a bit. “Sooner or later my fast ball will slow down a little, so I figger maybe this new underhand pitch will come in handy,” Paige ex- plained. Actually, on a given pitch, there is certainly nothing slow about} Satchel’s fast ball. Just think what old Satchel did for the Browns last year. He won i2 games. He “saved” 10 more, and he figured in 34 per cent of all, the games Marty Marion’s young team captured during the season. He struck out 91 batters to lead the pitching staff in this important department. Paige and Marlin Stuart figure to be Marion’s chief relief artists. Lt Williams On : Duty With ZX-11 Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert |L. Williams, USNR. has reported |to Airship Development Squadron |Eleven for duty. | Ltjg. Williams, son of Mr. and !Mrs. R. T. Williams of Orlando, |Fla., attended the University of | Florida prior to entering the Nav- jal Service in 1949. While at the | University of Florida he received jhonorable mention on the All | Southern Footbail Team. ! Ltjg. Williams received flight jtraining at Pensacola, Fla., and {Corpus Christi, Texas. After being commissioned Ensign in the Naval Reserve and designated Naval A- viator he was ordered to report jto the Naval Air Station, Lake- jhurst, N. J., for LTA Pilot train- ling. At the completion of this training | Williams reported to ZP-4 for duty and then was transferred to ZX-11. Sport Shorts ly took advantage of an. off-day |to win the Fair Grounds golf ; tournament. | Jockey Logan Batcheller has the smallest foot in the Hikleah jockey room. He wears a sizé<two Grover Cleveland, Al¢xander pitched, four one-hitters during the 1915 season. This is: a re- teord that has never been pres * we SF lS ORC GOOD LUCK TO STANKY—Owner Fred Saigh (right), of the St. Louis Cardinals, wishes good luck in the coming season to Eddie Stanky, the team's manager, as the two get together at St. Petersburg, Fia., where the facing a jail term on an incom ownership of the club in a few S$ COMPLETE.- r pity leh Left ere were Cards are working out. Saigh, e tax conviction, will relinquish days.—(#) Wirephoto. ed Jockey Fotrest Kaelin recent- | of GREY By BARRY .WELSH, Director of Racing at the Taunton Dog track, serving in a like capacity at Topsfield. It is intended to give all possible information abdut racing greyhounds, how the sport started, how it has flourished; and, most im- portant df all, what to consider in placing your wagers. GREYHOUND RACING is the Sport of Queens! a Great ladies, famous rulers of history, have always, through the ages had their greyhound pets at their side, and have been so pictured by such artists as Leonardo Da Vinci, Giotto, Fra Angelico and others, while the English- men, Rommney and Gainsborough, did not fail to include these mest graceful of animals with their human subjects. You find many greyhounds depicted in'the great Aubous- son tapestries of the Middle Ages, and they have ‘been mentioned by many. great writers. But the greyhound is 4 sporting dog, and, although it has no sense of smell like others of the hound family, it has always been used in the hunt. And out of the hunt came the Sport of Coursing. And out of Coursing came Greyhound Racing as it is today. How the Greyhound Came*to America. : Coursing is a major sport in most European countries, particularly in England and Ireland. An open stretch of greensward is used, At the far end is a thicket fence of briars. Live rabbits are used, and the coursing dogs are released in pairs. Strangely the object of the chase is not to catch the rabbit, but to turn it as many times as possible before it reaches he refuge of the fence The winner is the faster,: the’ more alert, the more adroit, who by running up to the rabbit or hare, forces it to change course, Hence thé name of the sport. And It was because of this sport that greyhounds were first brought #0 the United States, in a futuile effort to keep down jack rabbits which are as destructive as locusts in wheat fields and plains of the Middle West. Some drives have rounded up as many as 150,000 of the pésts at a time. It was inevitable that sporting minded ranchers would match their fleetest dogs in coursing trials. How Greyhound Racing Began. The racing of greyhounds on @ regular track was made. possible at Emeryville, Calg, Th WRN, with the in- vention by O. P. “Smith of anglectrigal dese, first installed on a coursing, field, 4 it worked apd was brought Bast by William Shaugh- 4 nessy to county fairs in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri, which, to this day, are the “blue grass states” of greyhound breeding. The Smith lure was improved upon in 1925 by George Heintz, who the first “inside” lure, which op- erates along rail, and the first important meeting of racing greyhounds was at the Erlanger County fair in Kentucky. A 58-day meeting resulted in a net profit of $750,000 to its producers, ‘That was the real beginning of greyhound racing. Today there are approximately 6,000 racing dogs, owned by approximately 500 kennels. Racing has now been legal- ized in six states—Massachusetts, Florida, Arizona, Col- orade, Oregon and N. Carolina. where there are 25 tracks in operation, There is one other at Agua Caliente, across the border frori California It is big business, with large revenues for the states involved. | How the Sport Is Fairly Conducted. ‘ ‘| The first regulation of the sport came with the forma- | tien in Chicago of the International Greyhound Racing + | Association, while the National Coursing Association is | the parent group and all racing dogs are registered at | its Abilene, Kan., headquarters. Wt is a non-profit organization, Supported by the re- turns from Coursing Meets, staged each Spring and Autumn at Abilene. The first state regulation of greyhound racing came in 1931, when the sport was legalized in Florida, and such | regulations have been improved many times since, all | for the protection of patrons of the sport. Mest important of these rules govern ‘the placement of dogs in classes where they belong. Every deg must school twice ever the distance at | REAL HUNTSMAN Track Condition Time of Race Distance which it is to race. It is classified according to its show- ing in these efforts. As soon as a dog wins in the class to which it has been assigned, it automatically is moved up, a move wel- comed by owners because purses also increase. When it loses three times in a given class, it is auto- matically lowexed a notch, so that dogs race in the class to which each belongs. Dogs which win consistently move rapidly to the top and become champions. Such a one is Real Huntsman, winner of this year’s $25,000 American Derby at the Dighton Track in Taun- ton, which, by so doing, completed a string of 13 straight victories, while Traffic Officer, greatest dog developed in America to date, won 27 out of 30 starts in 1926, an un- equalled record. @ The Importance of Weight. Traffic Officer, referred to above, was a large dog, whose racing weight was 77 pounds. But one of the de- feats he suffered in that memorable season of 1926 was by Perfect Day, a “gyp’—and that’s kennel talk for female—who weighed in at only 51. Bad Sally, another small “gyp’” won 6 derbies. Weight then is not actually a factor in the dog’s poten- tial performance, but it is important to track officials and te the patrons. of the sport because, by a dog's weight, its condition is accurately determined. For instance— The racing weight of each dog is established by its owner, who, in entering the animal for schooling races, must name the weight at which the dog performs best. That weight becomes a matter of record, and no dog is allowed to run which is more than one and one-half pounds over or below that fixed standard. Each dog is weighed in when turned over to racing officials at 5:30 in the afternoon of a racing day. 'f the weight is not right, paddock veterinarians, one for the state and one for the track, bar it from compe- tition. Some dogs, however, are “fretters,”” dogs which lose weight during the 2 hours or more they are in the custody of the-efficials. That is why each is weighed again on the way to the post, and again the weight is announced. Lists of “fretters” are prepared, and in most instances aré printed in the program. Rumors of dogs being everfed, or loaded with water before a race are, therefore, ridiculous, as is the rumor of dogs being tired out by long hikes before being turned over to the track. in the first instances, the dog would be ovérweight. In the, Jatter instance it would be underweight, and it would be:barred from competition, Getting @ Racing Dog Ready. Every year puppies come along to push older dogs out of the way. A-racing dog reaches its peek of potential perform- ance at 2.or.3, and will keep to that peak until it is about 5. Then it begins te slip off, and its racing career is generally over by the time it is 7. Each year of a dog’s life approximate 7 years In the life of a man, so a dog at 3 is of the approximate age of @ man of 21, and so on te age 49, when at 7, the racing dog is ready to quit. After retirement most dogs live on te the ripe old age of 10 or even 15, Here is what happens when a puppy comes to the _ time when training begins. This regime starts with what dog men call “hard feed’’—dog meal and hamburger stesk instead of soft stews, spinach, tomatoes, etc., enjoyed up to that point. Next begins the walking, about 4 miles day, six or eight dogs at a time. This is followed by sprints—100 yards, or so, with the dog hand-held while the trainer shakes a handkerchief while standing at the end of the required distance. The dog runs at top speed, for that is its instinct, te chase after anything that moves. As before stated, greyhounds have no sense of smeil and would be wholly uninterested in a pool of blood under their noses. But they will tear after s handkerchief sheken in a man’s hand a hundred yards away. When the dog is “muscled up” it is taken te @ train- Order of Finish and Comment the lure, ‘tnd actos Because a rac’ any other animal, science. standing greyhounds: . Futurity Distance, 495 yards—27.4's. Established at Wonderland, Revere, Mass. in 1947 by Lucky Pi + Five Sixteenths of a Mile, 550 yards—30.3's. Es- tablished at Taunton in 1950 by Duke Bagley. _ Six Hundred and Seventy-Five Yards—38,2's, Established at Taunton in 1950 by Real Huntsman. NOTE—The fractional times are in fifths of a second. ‘These are standard distances with many variations at individual race courses. ‘Your Form Chart. One of the greatest advances in the hound racing came in 1925 and was Benner, the director of racing now at the in i who was then at the West in Florida, i i i 3 f : | i i i