The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-11-03

efficient left guard and 9
decent sandlot pitcher.
He's a Dodger fan.
Much solemn and flippant flap
doodle has been Iadled out about
the Dodger fan, based on just the
sort of mystic, obscure, rowdy and
passionate devotion that's Johnny's.
He talks Brooklyn and dreams
Brooklyn. For instance ever since
he wss out Of public school, Johnny
Madigan had clamored for VIII
bert Robinson's release. Horowitx's
candy store and the cellar club
house of the Tigers rang with his
jeremiads. When Robbie got the
boot, Johnny Madigan spent al
most a weeks salary from the
vegetable store on celebration. 1t
was the first time he had ever got
drunk and he liked it. The new
manager, MAX Carey, has been
bitter disappointment but Johnny
hasn't lost faith. You know. The
breaks.
I DIDN'T know he followed the foot
i ball Dodgers as well. When he got
the Annie Oakleys TO the Giant
Dodger game from his father who
drives milkwagon and got it off the
cop on the beat, he called me UP the
first thing. He was rewarding me
for the use of my season pass to
Ebbets Field. know how much 1t
meant for him to resist the tempta-
ton of shining before his girl with
the Oakleys but made the mistake
of saying so. He was going to tear
up the other pass If didn't go.
On the subway he unveiled a re-
spectacle fund of information about
plays, formations, backgrounds of the
more obscure Dodgers.
IT didn't know you followed foot
ball." 1 said, "Why the Dodgers in
PARTICULAR"
Sure, / follow football"
'But why the Dodgers?"
He couldn't explain it. No, he had
never lived in Brooklyn. No, he
never had an enemy who was a Giant
fan. No relative of his ever played on
the team. So why? He didn't know.
IT'S difficult TO figure out. Of
l course it's irrational to espouse
any one tesm that devotedly, but
irrational things have their ex-
plantations. johnny Madigan who
works unearthly, monotonous hours
in a vegetable store has TO have
something to absorb his interest
from day to day.
No doubt the development of the
war situation is a larger, more vital
and dramatic thing. But there are
baseball and football, 50 tangible,
SO simple and mechanical, so easily
lending themselves to emotions of
loyalty, suspense and fascination,
so sweet throwback TO irrespon-
sible childhood days. That's what
to a large extent explains such
devotion TO sports, this effort to
recapture the past and the athletic
associations which played so i'm
portant = part in it. You don't
generally sec men take their wives
to ball games.
would hesitate to degrade either
football or baseball by classifying
them as form of religious expert
encc. They are not the opium but
the blinkers of the masses.
As people are supposed to be
at one time Bound to Fall in Love
with the First Pretty Tor Hand
some) Face, Johnny Madigan was
bound to adopt some team or other.
1t turned ont to be Brooklyn.
THIS past season I tried to figure
i out why I was Yankee fan.
I'm not a good exeI .ple because I
have no real convictions on the sub
ject and switch my favorites BIZ
monthly. The time really sat down
to figure It out the Yanlss were max
ing q home stand against Detroit.
I wanted the Yenks to win so badly
I had to kick myself and ask why
For one, Johnny Allen was pitching
his first game Of the season and ]
like him because he has stuff and
he's tough and beefs plenty and starts
fights. His arm had been lame and
he was making comeback. And
the boys had New York le5tered on
their uniforms. That had an emo
tional value.
And yet Gehrig was the one native
New Yorker on the team This led
me to the crucial point. Detroit, too,
had a native New Yorker, Hank
Greenberg, the recruit who burned
I'm the league last season and
chnched his first base job. This
Greepberg is a Bronx boy who
played soccer for James Monroe High
the time I played for Townsend Har-
ris. Even then he was tremendous
hulk OF a guy, heavy and way over
six feet. We averaged about 1876
Monroe was not the class
of the city as it is now, although