Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-24
NOVELTIES, FREAKS
ONLY ARE DRAWING
Shires Example of Modern
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. Also
Gate Attraction.
BY WALTER TRUMBULL.

TANS want something new;
r. action; thrills. BY reason
of the moving picture and
the radio they have seen
and heard all the ordinary things.
Even the resident of the one
pony village knows just how all
famous personageS look, walk ana
talk. He has seen elephants IN
the Jungle and polar bears IN the
Arctic. He has heard presidents
talk, as well as queens.
Story tellers are hampered IN their
tales of adventure. It has become too
easy to check up on them. Any Gull
liver recounting yarn OF LnliputlanS
is likely to be embarrassed by some
neWsreel showing him to have been
with the Singer fnidgets.
So, to draw customers in paying
| quantities today, a performer not only
must be the best in his line, but he
must have a world Of color. Or else
| he must be a performer out OF the
ordinary, in a certain sense freak.
Must Be Good to Draw.
Jack Dempsey has been beaten, but
| If he returned to the ring he still could
draw the biggest gate OF them all.
Pitchers who strike out Babe Rutn
1 COIl6 ana kO, OuL OAAC ooSC ANAAASsAAAS NAN~
greatest attraction in base ball. BOBBY
Jones has been put out OF important
golf tournaments. Does the crowd fol-
low the man who beat Jones? No.
From the standpoint of a big gallery,
the tournament is over. The average
spectator is not so much interested In
| the game as in one great player.
| The unusual player draws the crowd
| in the same manner, but not for the
same reason. The colorful champion
! furnishes thrills. The colorful freak
| furnishes amusement-a new sensation.
A crowd might gather to watch Man
| o. War eat oats, but the average horse
would have to do something more to
| draw the throng. A horse which could
race on a motor cycle would be
great attraction.
So, when a ball player takes to
pugilism he doesn't have to be very
good to pack the arena. That Is why
/ Art ShireS is smart enough to give up
| the ring when Judge Lands tells him
| he will have to choose between boxing
| and base ball. While ShireS remains
| a base ball player he Is an attraction,
| but If he dropped the national game
and took up fighting as q profession
he soon would be classed merely as
third-rate palooka, and there are too
many of those now.
1t is a little tough on Shires that he
should be forced to retire before the
| base ball season opens. In the next
| couple Of months he probably could
have cleaned UP $4,000. At the end
| of that time, either the novelty would
| have worn of, or else ShtreS would
have been forced to meet some real
boxer. 1t may be just as well that he
Is retiring.
one thing which must be said for
Shires is that he has kept base ball
prominent during the Of months. The
/ advertising he has given it may not
have been dignified, but 1t certainly
was advertising. The same crowds
| which watched Shires as boxer will
now watch him as q ball player. He
has made himself news.
| And as crowds turned out to watch
Shires, so they will turn out to see
Primo Camera in his first appearance
on this side OF the ocean; Camera Will
| draw, not because he has shown so
much as pugilist as because he is q
giant with big feet.
Primo Just might be a surprise. He
| Is one Of the best built big men ever
have seen and, for his size and weight,
he is astonishingly active. He is faster
than some men half his weight.
Camera No Joke.
Stribling, Grif1ths and other well
known heavyweights do not take Car
nera in any spirit of levity They say
that, properly trained, he is more than
likely to be lot more than Joke He
Is intelligent and picks up, the idea of
boxing sooner than might be supposed.
Being willing and able to learn is q
big help in any game
In Big Boy Peterson Camera doesn't
meet too formidable an opponent, but
Peterson is plenty big himself and has
had vastly more experience than his
opponent. Camera Is so huge that the
ordinary fighter is under q great physi-
cal disadvantage in boxing him, which
probably is why they picked another
tall man for his first tryout The wise
plan would be to keep on matching
Camera with fairly easy opponents until
ne really learns something about scien-
tific smuggling. Meanwhile, he will draw
Just on account of his size.
| tCopyright' 1880, by North American News
| paper Alliance)