Evening star., 1936-09-01


I n ! racket over. what about the
NV Olympic games? Do they
help international friendli-
ness or lead to further international
trouble?
You can't doubt the fact that at
Berlin track and field was big boom
for international sport. This section
Of the games was not only loaded up
with new world records, but also with
an unusual amount of fellowship and
craftsmanship. Losers lost no time
congratulating winners and there
wasn't even a flare of bad feeling.
Pictures of Americas Negro win
ners, especially Jesse Owens, filled up
extra amounts of space in Berln's
newspapers.
1t was entirely different when 1t
came to those games hanging on some
officials decision, such as boxing and
foot ball.
Here were the two games that
caused most of the trouble. In the
first place. most nations have different
rules. Most of the interpretations
are different. In the second place,
there is no way of getting judges or
officials who are both competent and
unbiased. They are too often the
other way-incompetent and biased.
Contestants Fear Getting Works"
"A S ONE leading athlete explained
the case: mo good sport minds
being beaten by better man. You
may mind it, but in another way. You
are merely sorry you were not as good
as the other man. But when you feel
pretty sure you have won, maybe py
wide margin, and then have the de-
cision taken away, you can't keep from
getting sore. 1t makes you even sorer
when the ruling is made by some for
eigner, for you feel certain then you
are getting the works. For this rea-
son, there will always be trouble in
such sports as boxing, wrestling, foot
ball and basket ball."
The modern Olympics have grown
TOO unwieldy. There are too many
sports that don't belong-sports that
many countries never heard of. The
original Greek Olympic games were
largely track and field. They had
boxing and wrestling. but they were
under Greek rules with Greek off,
Gals.
When an American boxer steps into
the ring against Hungarian or a
German or an Austrian, with referee
and judges from Middle Europe, he
makes up his mind in advance that the
well-known razzle-dazzle is about to
be applied.
One British boxer was on the point
Of starting mutiny. Il hit the
blighter just under the throat" he
said, "and knocked him out. Yet I
was disqualified for low punching"
Boxers Anything But.
ONE of the queer angles Of the
~ games was the low quality of the
amateur boxing. 1t was the same way
at Los Angeles. At Berlin there were
more than 200 of the picked amateur
fighters from 40 nations. Yet almost
none of them could either box or
punch. To make it even worse, most
of them became cagy, taking no
chance of getting knocked out.
In looking at fight after fight, most
OF the spectators trouble came in sup
pressing series of yawns. You rarely
got any action. When you did, 1t was
all crude, consisting largely Of wild
rushing and wilder swinging.
Some of the boys were earnest
enough, but they were like some rookie
pitcher with fast one pegging the
ball into the dirt or into the grand
stand.
The track and field section of the
games make up the greatest spectacle
in sport. These are sports that be-
long to all nations. There is rarely
any i'll feeling or any form of trouble
The same is true of swimming But
why try to cover every field of sport?
Some Games Not International.
I TOOK several Americans out to
see field hand ball contest. This
Is mixture of rugby, soccer, basket
ball and American foot ball. Accord
ing to the American visitors, it had
all the worst features of each.
In the same way, thousands Of
Germans walked out on our exhibi-
tion base ball game To them, it was
the dullest and most complicated
sport ever seen. They were still wait
ing at the ninth inning for the game
to start, thinking the two teams were
still warming up.
I am convinced that the Olympic
games should be pruned heavily and
that some uniform system of scoring
should be adopted far in advance.
This may never happen, as it prob
ably will be impossible to get so ma
tions to agree on anything except
free board.
If they keep on extending the
Olympic scope as they have in the
past the games may lead to interna-
tional riots, in place of international
craftsmanship. Europe isn't going
to take up base ball any more than
America is going to take up cricket,
and there is no sense in trying to
force your game down another ma
tion's throat.
Japan happened to like base ball
enough to make it one of their ma
tional games. That's entirely diff
ferent. Japan has found that stands
seating 10000 spectators for base ball
are entirely too small. So Japan is
enlarging her stands to accommodate
90 900 or more.
Let Japan and the United States
some time later have a real world
series, but base ball never will be an
Olympic possibility.
20 YEARS. AGO