Evening star., 1939-08-20


large inroads on their economic ability to
put their spare time to good use. If fabbi-
ness were on the way, this, obviously
would be the time for it to arrive. But it
has not arrived What is arriving is
something quite different -.
A friend of mine, returning one night
from the Ice Carnival in New York City's
Madison Square Garden. remarked: Its
too bad that a crowd like that couldn't
do its own skating" That conclusion -
that the young men of America prefer to
watch games rather than play them - is
widespread and erroneous. Where, for
example, does my friend believe that the
large company of experts at the Ice Carni
val are recruited? Most of them got their
start as "sand-lot" skaters. And since
more people skate today than ever before,
the sand lots are multiplying. In 1887, for
example, $50 American. communities
maintained 2,535 free skating areas.
Nearly II 900, 900 people used them. And
a good many more millions skated on
good many more thousand unofficial
lakes and ponds.
The same conclusion is sometimes drawn
from the attendance at baseball games. 1t
is even more erroneous. Nobody knows
the number of our sand-lot diamonds or
the millions who use them. But it is on the
record that in 1887 some 700 American
communities officially maintained 1900
baseball fields and they were played on by
100000 Americans. In fact, professional J
baseball is only high-priced ripple on the
baseball surface. Many hundreds of our
greatest industrial concerns have their
own interplant baseball leagues. San
Francisco. under the Industrial Division
of the City Recreation Department, has
a city-wide Industrial Mems Baseball
League In Decatur, Illinois, the city has
lighted its Fairgrounds in order to make
night baseball possible for workingmen.
Near-k kin to baseball is softball, which,
incidentally, is the fastest-growing sport
in the country. In 1887, there were more
than 5000 community maintained soft
ball diamonds. Thirteen million people
used them. That total puts softball next
to swimming among American sports.
Swimming. with an estimated 100000 600
devotees, outranks all others numerically
California has a state softball commits
sioner - and needs him. One California
city in 1898 had 240 softball teams with
more than 1900 players; and one county,
having organized itself in neighborhood
leagues, had more than 500 teams. Here,
too, the various industries have helped to
set the pace. In fact the worlds softbal!
championship in 1887 was won by the
team from an auto-body plant in Detroit
and the women's championship by the
team from a manufacturing company il
Cleveland.
But this generation of young American
has not only discovered great man
games, old and new. 1t has rediscovere
the great outdoors. Young people, i
vaster numbers than ever before, ar
taking to the woods. In this they hav
been encouraged by both the federal AM
the state governments. In the nationa
parks and the national forests there ar
nearly 2OO,OOO,OOO acres of reserved areas
The various states have set aside addi
tional areas, equal in aggregate size to th|
state of Connecticut Aided by the Work
Progress Administration, the Nationa
Youth Administration and the Civilian
Conservation Corps, this vast territory
has been made increasingly attractive I'd
the country's young trail breakers.
The same urge for the trail accounts