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Red SmithSpahnie and HowieNow that Warren SpaJtn has been stuffed and mounted for display in the baseball .pantheon in Cooperstown, the world of belles lettres, poesy division, is entitled to know the.authorship and original version of a rondeau that has been compared by some authorities with Gray's “Elegy Writien in a Country Churchyard” and by others with Shakespeare’s 24th Sonnet. It has been misquoted as often as .the ‘injunction against painting the lily and mistakenly attributed to a variey of bards from Laolsze to Edgar A. Guest.It was composed Sept. 14, 1548, with the Boston Braves (later the Milwaukee Braves and still later the Atlanta Braves) on a winning streak that would clinch the National League pennant. Spaim was a 15-game winner that year, and Johnny-Sain finished 24-15.From now on,” Billy Southworth, the manager, remarked .to (Jerry Mem of the Boston Post, “I will rotate my staff— Spahn one day, sain the nest.Deeply moved, Hem repaired to his office and wrote as follows:First ice'll u.se Spofcn, then tee’ll use Sain.Then an off day, followed by rain. Bach mil come Spahn, followed bySainAnd followed, ice hope, by two days of rain.The strategy worked. The Cleveland Indians defeated the Ked Sox in a one-game playoff for the American League pennant and heat the Braves in the World Series. It was not'only the last time a National League pennant flew in Boston, but also the only time that Time magazine ran a World Series cover picture of a player who was not in the Series.“I had done research for a cover story on Sain,” Hem reports, and a photographer named Kelly had made a superb portrait of Johnny. The day the Yankees were knocked out of the race (to finish Uiivd) 1 got a call to sit In on a conference at Time, There the top circulation guy screamed that nobody knew Johnny Sain, and his picture wouldn’t sell magazines in the subway. He won, and the picture they used was a black*and-while of the Yankees' Joe DiMaggio. I have never been able to understand the magazine world.”I don't try, having trouble enough on my own turf. At the moment, some thought is being given to -the possibiliy that the Delafield Commission, which has been studying New York horse racing for Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, will recommend creation of a State Racing Authority,thing about the sport,” Frank said, have been harassed and frustrated by politicians who don’t know racing, contribute nothing and are interested only in milking it for more and more dollars. Now the racing people, who have been going around hat in .hand apologizing for running a gambling joint, are saying to the state, ‘Okay. From now on you -take all the .money.’ They’re going to give up and let -the politicians bleed them white.” Graham’s qualifications as -a -prophet are attested to by the fact that the NYRA may no be .able ito open -for business -March 1 unless some financial relief is provided. When the nonprofit idea was conceived, its authors didn't dream it would be as non as all that. .___Though the reasons are obscure, many Americans stand in awe of government and regard governmental control, especially on the federal level, as the solution of any problem. Somebody is alwavs plumping for a national czar of boxing or calling for federal supervision of the Olympic movement or offering a bill to create a national sports commission that would make rules ©bout ticket prices, television blackouts, franchise transfers and humane treatment of the Philadelphia ?6ers.It is hard to observe our bureaucracy in action at municipal, state and national levels and see governmental -control as a panacea, Presumbaly, a State Racing Authority would supercede the existing commissions supervising 'thoroughbred, harness and quarterhorse racing, and replace the Offtrack Betting Commission. This seems *to suggest that an agency with greater and more varied responsibilities and a broader spectrum of problems could do a better job than individual commissions specializing in their own separate-areas;As Steve Cady reported in yesterday's Times, the Delafield Commission’s recommendations were dictated at least in part by political expedience. New York City’s Offtrack Betting Corp. is a case in point. In many respects OTB is a disaster. It has created ruinous competition for the tracks. It has slashed millions off the slate’s revenue from racing. Because it imperils the very existence of the sport, it would be difficult to justify its own existence even if the financial good to the city were far greater than the damage at has done. But it has not produced anything remotely approaching the municipal windfall that its sponsors blindly promised.What is has done is give Howard Samuels, a defeated political candidate, command of .a payroll and real eslate leases running to millions of doWars a month.
Newspaper Details
The Berkshire Eagle
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, US
Mon, Jan 29, 1973
Page 25
Full Page
Clipped by
Michael H.
USA 05 Jan 2024
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