The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-02-10
TODAY'S SPORT PARADE
By HENRY McLEMORE

By HENRY McLEMORE
 United Press Staff Correspondent
 Los Angeles, Feb. 10-(UP)-The man has kept his secret long enough.
 A committee of citizens should go to William Tatum Tilden the Twice and demand that he reveal the location of the fountain of youth.
 If he wants price for the where abouts of the spring whose waters guarantee a perpetual bloom to the cheeks and an unceasing bounce in the legs, then the insurance com panies should pool their resources and meet his demands.
 You must agree with me that William Tatum Tilden has succeeded where Ponce de Leon failed. Else, how in the world are you going to explain the supernatural endurance of the long-legged, lantern -jawed tennis player from Philadelphia? By all normal athletic standards he should be wearing congress gaiters, peering with rheumy eyes over spec tacles, and indulging in no more violent exercise than thum5ing his clippings.
 In Action
 But where is the man? In some quiet retreat, spinning tales of how he felt when he won the No. rank ing in 1920? No, he is out banging and transforming around the coun- try with a group of youngsters who were playing drop the handkerchief. London Bridge is falling down, and making mud pies when he was the worlds greatest tennis player.
 It was an announcement in the papers that he would play Eere with Alice Marble in few weeks that turned my thoughts to Big Bill. The blurb said, among other things, that Bill was celebrating his 48th birth day today, which. if you care to re- member, is the third time in three years he has celebrated his 48th birthday. He seems to like the number AS. Having reached it, he apparently has decided to make it his very own. This gives him three legs on it.
 Miss Marble was featured in the publicity, and think the company's press agent is missing a good bet in not playing up Tilden as the star of the troupe. Not in the time of those now living will tennis lovers See the equal of Big Bill. The Perrys, the Vines, the Budges, and all the rest are marvellous players, but Tilden stands alone.
 Remember?
 All you have to do to prove how he stands alone is to ask where his contemporaries in the golden twen- ties are today. Bobby Jones is a comfortably plump lawyer in At lanta. Babe Ruth is an uncomfort- ably fat watcher from the sidelines Jack Dempsey is a heavy -jowled restauratuer in New York. Tommy Hitchcock has laid down the mallet to become a Wall Streeter. Jim Lon- dos is wrestling punks On the kero- sene circuit. Charlie Paddock's in- terests in spikes are limited to those on his newspaper desk. These and, others, were the men who made of the l920's what Paul Calico so aptly called the golden decade in sports.
 Of them all, only Tilden carries on. And he doesn't carry on in @ doddering. pathetic fashion, either, How many tennis players are there in the world who could beat him in a one-set match today? Budge might, and the redhead is about the only one. And in five-set, regula- ton match, there aren't more than half a dozen players you'd care to bet on to lick the Philadelphian, Ills legs are still spry enough to make him e fine court-coverer, and what his legs lack Is more than made up by what he carries around in that head Of his. Az long ago as 1918 Tilden was No. In national ranklng-23 years--but still he con- tinues Co play and play well, Indoor courts, clay eolii6, en tout eas courts: grass courts, cement courts, good lights, bad lights, they are all the same to him.
 When he reaches here l wnat to sec him. it may Do my last chance before the Smithsonian insiltn.e scouts pick him up and put him Co