The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-13
AMERICAN BRAWN
 ON FOREIGN SO|L Baseball Teams to Go to Japan
 In November FIGHTERS CROSS THE SEAS Negro Plugs Draw Attention In Other Hemisphere-AII Eyes Are Bent
 Upon America's Entrants
 In Olympic Games.
FIGHTERS CROSS THE SEAS
By MANHATTAN.

New York, July 12.-The eyes of all the sporting world are now turned to Eng land and the Olympic games to decide the champions of brawn of the wide, wide world
 It would seem that there is common desire for sportsmen of our nation to in- wade new fields. This popular notice of international contests has been grow ing and growing until now it is about to bloom forth in a successful climax. Perhaps it was started by the Olympic games. At any rate. it has now spread to racing and puglism
 Mike Fisher of Frisco cheerfully an- nounces that he is going to take a team of baseball players to Japan in Novem- Der to show the Orlentals just how far they are behind in the march of progress and civilization. They will also go to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Manila, after which they will come back home.
 But so far as pugilism and racing goes the move is a serious one. Alfred G. Vanderbilt and James R. Keene are really the sponsors of the movement and both have established stables on foreign soil The blow delivered to race track betting in New York and other states has had much to do with the move- ment.
 Ed W. Smith of Chicago, a well known sporting writer, makes the assertion that i in three months America will be denudod of famous and scientific fighters. Whether Mir Smith really foresees such calamity xxrlaa Ia hoc bounds of truth must be seen later. How ever. 1t is hardly likely. Smith says the craze to go abroad and garner laurels IS rampant. Tommy Burns, Willie Lewis, Jack Johnson and Jimmy Britt have set the ball rolling. Joe Cans seems to have been bitten by the same germ and already Dick Green a Chicago scrapper of some local reputation. has started Cans would likely do well abroad.
 Some of the aristocracy of the old soil still cling to the old notion made so famous in Rhodney Stone. They like muscle and like to see 1t in action, and they are level-headed sports willing to wager their esoteric garments on the lads of their choice if such a thing should be i necessary.
 Black fighters, it would seem, have al- ways done well abroad. Just why this IS is a matter for speculation. but neverthe- less it is the truth. They seem to be picked up as heroes for the simple reason that foreign countries do not foster the prejudices against the race that America does Peter Jackson, the Australian, was lionized in a manner that must have made him dizzy. However, he was an exceptional man, one of superior inteili- genee and really deserved especial atten- tion at the hands of the English. Jack Johnson was not so classy, but notwth- standing this he received full mead of honors and was tapped on the head by the nobility, which is quite an honor. Another thing. there is not the bar to i fighting in England and Ireland that one finds in this country. The old game still holds forth almost as many induce ments as it did in the good old days when the ring was stretched in the open and the aristocrats drove up in their tally-hoes wearing bottle green coats to see the near-naked giants wallop each other with bare knuckles.
 But as was said in the first place, the eyes of the entire sporting Kingdom IS now on England. With the shooting con- tests the games are fairly under way. The American revolver and rife team ] was one of the first foreign teams upon 1 the ground, and they lost no time in get ting down to practice, which had a whole ;, lot to do with their showing in the con- i tests. Other contestants were England, j Switzerland, Greece. Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden Finland, Hol- land and Hungary The Americans com peted in the individual matches and their i work spoke well for a new country where l not many years ago one had to know how 1 to shoot if he wanted to wear full head l of hair. The appointment by the state de- partment of James Sullivan as United l States commissioner has made that worthy buster than ever.