Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-07-03
MANY WEILDERS OF
 RAQUE7 COMPETING
Numerous Candidates for Places on Cup p-Defend-
 ing Team.
(By Frank G. Menke.)


 New York, July 2.-It seems that nearly everybody that ever swunng tennis raquet wants to be on the team that is to defend the Davis Ten his cup which our gang won last year from a collection of English fellows. As a result, the committee that is to select the four men who are to constitute the defending Amer ican team, seem to have huge job on their hands.
 The committee sent Out invitations to about thirty of the greatest tennis players in the country to join in the business of competing. Of this crowd, twenty are among the greatest present-day players, while the others are old internatiOnalists and famous players of other days who have not been given a real rating in the tennis world this year.
 The general opinion is that Maur- ice Mclaughlin. the red-headed Cali fornian, who was the greatest factor in Americas victories last year. sure ly will be one of the four men chosen, and, as was the case last year, carry the brunt of Americas fight. R. Nor- ris Williams, 2nd., who teamed with Mclaughlin in the International matches, also seems pretty sure of landing a job.
 R. Lindley Murray, the 17-year-old California schoolboy, who jumped to the fore in the tennis world just a few weeks ago, is likely looking candidate. Murray, despite the fact that he 'had a lame shoulder, scored a brilliant victory over Frederick B. Alexander, hero of hundred tennis duels, a short time back, and his i playing was of the kind that stamped him at once as a tennis marvel. An other factor in Murray's favor is that he is left-handed, and it is figured by some that his left-handed service would be baffling to the team that met America in the finals.
 1 Among the tennis stars who have been invited to try for places on the defending team are:
 Maurice B. Mclaughlin, R. N Will Hams, 2nd., w. J. Clothier, w. M Johnson, T. R. Pell, N. M. Niles, w. F. Johnson, G. F. Touchard, G. P. Gardner, J. R. Strachan, G. M. Church, A. s. Dabney, C. J. Griffin, w. M. Hall, s. H. Vohell, w. M. Washburn, E. H. Whitney, F. B. Alexander. Kari Behr, T. c. Rundy, c. F. Inman, R. LeRoy, Dean Mathey, Ella Fottrell, H. H. Hackett, R. D. Little, x. D.. Whitman, Beals Wright and William A. Larned.
 It is too bad that the Browns and Cardinals couldn't have hit winning stride before this year. As it is, the fact that both these teams have played a great article of baseball, and that both are occupying higher positions than in many years, is discounted by ugly rumors that the races in both the American and National leagues are fixed so that the Feds in St. Louis will be crushed out.
 Such charges are groundless. Base ball never has been a crooked game and there is not one chance in a million that crookedness had entered into it this year to the extent of the other teams sacrificing their own chances for winning the pennant by giving the Browns and Cardinals enough games so that they will stay up in the race and draw the crowds to their parks.
 Baseball leaders know that base ball has become the great national game that it is, not merely because it is an exciting game from the spec tator's viewpoint, but that it is honest The public knows that games and pennants are decided upon skill and luck alone-and that nothing dishon- est figures in the result. Certain ii is that the wise baseball magnate would not for an instant countenance a dishonest deal in baseball for they , know that murder will out" and that when the news of the crooked ness reached the fans, it would sound baseball's death knell.