Evening star., 1938-08-29
NATIONAL LEAGUE
NOW FULL GROWN
Colleges No Longer FIout
Paid Clubs, Players Are
Heroes to Public.
BY DREW MIDDLETON.
Associated Press Sports Writer.

Associated PreSS sports writer.
NEW YORK, Aug 2s.-Pull your
noses out of the baseball standings,
chums. That's the pro football
season snorting heatedly on your necks
even though the World Series is more
than a month away.
Time was when football sidled into
the picture around the middle OF
october with a few ripsnorters like
Yale VS.. Worcester Tech. Nowadays
the pros play tough early-season
schedule plus a mess of all-star games.
The professionals are throwing their
weight about this year. Ned Irish,
the National Leagues publicist, thinks
it will be the biggest and best Of
seasons with stronger league more
firmly entrenched in public favor than
ever before.
THE league has grown up" said
Ned. This is the first time re-
member it starting season with the
same teams and the same coaches 1t
had the previous year"
Last year the league dSew million
customers with the New York Giants
pulling in 100000 for seven home
games With a crowd of new stars
including the redoubtable Whizzer
White-and stronger teams all around.
the attendance should jump about
100000 this year.
Colleges No Longer Snoot.
Time was when the colleges snooted
the pros left and right. Now they
boast of graduates in the league just
as they brag of their big league base
ball players. Every year the best
college grads play in half a dozen all
star games against the pros. These
do as much as anything else to needle
up the publics fervor
White, turning the neatest trick of
the century by combining Rhodes
scholarship with contract with Art
Rooney's Pittsburgh Pirates, will play
in the Chicago all-star game.
The Whizzer probably will be used
Sparingly. He is very valuable piece
of property and it would cause the
owners in the circuit great mental
anguish if he were injured.
Surprisingly the pros are pulling for
the Whizzer. 1t may be wishful
thinking but they believe he will be
the bell ram Of the league as gate
attraction and as player-a rather
startling about face for the profess
sionals.
After a few disheartening attempts
with fellows who couldn't do anything
but run with the ball the league
stopped building up big college stars.
The owners went back to the COW COL
leges and whistling station universities
for brawny young men who could do
everything in the game and do it we'll
But they are all out on White.
Thinks Whizzer Can't Miss.
Il don't see how he can miss" said
Irish, who is not given to rash state
ments. He is a great back. The
only thing that can get him down is
the schedule. The Pirates play four
games in II days in September. This
will tire fellow used to playing only
once a week"
White is the big noise of a banner
group of rockies picked from the top
ranking college stars of the 1887 sea-
son. They are from all over. The
leagues scouts follow the trail of a
good blocking back or q mammoth
tackle with houndlike persistency.
Irish is bearish on Feets Barnum, a
new Giant back. Barnum, he says, is
the best back to play hereabout since
Ken Strong was the top man. Wash
ington has lost the great Cliff Battles,
but Anvil Andy Farkas of Detroit and
"Automatic" George Karamatic are up
to fill the gap And the Redskins still
have Sammy Baugh and Riley Smith,
the latter one of the games great
players.
Dwight Sloane and Jack Robbins,
two fine passers from Arkansas, come
up with the Chicago Cardinals. Rob-
bins is dry field passer and Sloane
operates in the mud This is an age of
specialization, comrades.
But the biggest thing in the league
this year is the interest.
The kids in the street know the
players names and ape their actions.
Men who never went to college have
adopted the game as theirs. White and
Baugh and Detroit's great Dutch Clark
are talked of much as Hank Green
berg and Carl Hubbell.
In fact, like the left-handed either
and Lou Gehrig, professional football
is here to stay.