Evening star., 1908-12-23
L0NGb0AT MATCHED
WITH Al. SHRUbb
To Clash in New York January
26 at the Marathon
Distance.

VI" 1onNs DCCcluUcI o.-T dlIlNh
Pierpont Powers, impresario of Madison
Square Garden. wires from Toronto that
he has signed the feet-footed Indian,
Longboat. to run Marathon race with
Alfred Shrubb, the wonderful English
distance runner, in Madison Square Gar
den January 26 next. Certainly Powers
has not lost anything that he gained
when he kissed the Blarney stone on his
visit to Ireland two years ago. This is
proved by his success in inducing Tom
Flanagan to let the Indian go against the
world-beatins Englishman so soon after
his ward had become a champion and a
money-getter. The Indian is a vogue just
now while the Marathon craze is on, and
the fact that Flanagan is willing to take
a chance with him is assurance that
Shrubb will have to run every inch Of the
route Of 26 miles and 2S5 yards.
That, of course, is one way of looking
at 1t. There is another view. Shrubb
holds every professional distance record
from 2,OOO yards up to eleven miles. He
has never been beaten in competition. He
Is now coach for Harvard and is showing
the aspiring young university men down
In Cambridge how to eat up the ground
before breakfast. He is thirty-six years
old and has been a runner for more than
a decade. He is five feet seven inches
tall and weighs 1876 pounds. Notwith-
standing his comparatively short stature,
he has stride. Of more than five feet.
He has beaten relays Of the best profess
sional runners in this country and Can
ada. January 16 last he outran a relay
OF five men in ten-mile race at the Coli
scum in Boston. finishing in the good
time of 81 minutes 33 % seconds, nearly
five laps ahead Of his last competitor.
Here Is an Effort.
In November Of last year Shrubb beat
a relay composed of Tom Meyers, sam
Williams and Frank Kanaly in ten
mile race, his time being 50 minutes HAT.
He finished 600 yards ahead of kanaly.
the last of his three opponents in that
race. He has never attempted a race
of more than fifteen miles. On two oc-
casions his ankle gave out in races Of
that distance.
But. then. there is this about Shrubb-
he runs ten miles a day year in and
out. Weather never bottlers or deters
him. He just runs because he likes to
keep himself in shape. One of the sights
of London. where Shrubb used to keep
was the daily spin Of the dusky-visaged
little English flyer dashing along the
'Yde Park corner. His ten miles never
worried him a little bit.
Longboat has never, as far as rec
ords show been pushed to his limit of
speed. AS Martin Sheridan says. "he is
q crazy Indian. and that covers every
thing If he should take to training by
modern methods he would be beaten as
sure as his name Is Longboat."
The Indian has done some remarkable
work aside from his spectacular defeat
of Dorando in Madison Square Garden
He has run horses off their feet at
county fairs In Canada and in upper New
York. He was accustomed TO this game.
and had a manager to look out for his in
terests when he didn't know how to speak
word Of English. That was why the
A. A. T.. got busy and protested him at
the Olympic games in London last July,
because. really. it wasn't easily explained
why an slntutored OnOndaga savage
could afford to travel round the county
fairs running against horses with a man.
ager just for the fun of the thing. But
let sleeping dogs lie.' as John Nc
Carthy says The British Olympic COM
mittee allowed him to compete-had cess
to thcm-and Lonsboat was hornswog-
gled in the Marathon at the nineteenth
mile, but he rode home in an automobile
to his London chambers and was happy
forever after.
In Changed Hands Now.
That was before Tom Flanagan got
him. Now the Indian is In the hands
OF a man who knows how to make him
work. And whisper-eome closer-Long-
boat is to be married next week. Yes,
tits the truth, and he goes on his honey
moon for three days. and then meets
Dorando in a Marathon at Buffalo on
January 2, one day later than the original
date fixed. Now, don't shake your heads
about this revelation. l have noticed
| that with runners they seem to improve
! after marriage. Take the case of Mel
Sheppard. the peerless middie-distance
man. He has steadily improved since
he joined the benedicts. There is Tom
Collins, who was welded three months
| ago, and has since won the five-mile
championship and scored two-mile
win night before last, and Lawson
| Robertson, who does 100 yards at 10 fat
| every time he goes out since he said Il