Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-08-03

henry heL<mefs. what Is happen
Ing In the athletic world back home.
I wouldn't have believed this had I
not seen 1t with my own eyes and
heard It with my own ears. But It's
true. Girls, and the talk Of girls, run
q close second, and beer q bad third.
The sports page Of the Army news
paper, 1.-THE Stars and Stripes" Is
the biggest single morale builder In
the European theater Of operations.
The boys would rather have 1t than
Is tap dancers, Il torch singers, and
carload Of general entertainers.
Britons Learn U. s. Sports.
And. second only to The stars
and Stripes" sport page In interest
is the nightly American sports
roundup over the BIC. This round
UP comes on at 8 o'clock In the eve
ming and runs for five minutes. The
Americans always switch to this
program, no matter whose radio they
are listening to. All of this has had q
strange effect on the British people.
without wanting to. they have be-
come stepped in knowledge Of the
Brooklyn Buns, the Yankees, Beau
Jack the fighter, the Fighting Irish
Of Notre Dame and Count Fleet.
AS have written before, I made
so or more trips to camps and bases
for the Red Cross, the idea being
that I was to try to entertain the
Boys by giving talks. was prepared
to talk on quite few subjects but
never got around to anything but
one-sports.
At isolated little bases where the
audience was fewer than so, to the
big spots where there would be As
many as 5000, the soldiers wanted
me to talk about sports and nothing
else. As dull q speaker as I am. I
have talked for as long as four hours.
Baseball. golf, polo. tennis, boxing,
lacrosse, automobile racing, any
sport you can name. They wanted to
hear about 1t.
Baseball, OF course, is their chief
love. During my visits to bases, I
asked any number Of soldiers how
they would have felt If the Govern
ment had decided to keep the big
leagues intact throughout the war.
They all said they would have liked
1t: that 1t would have been all right
by them If the Di Maggios and the
Williamses and all the big names
had been deferred and allowed to
keep playing. This, they explained,
would have made for better baseball
reading every day and provided
them with a red-hot world series.
Favors Change in Ruling.
Football also Is very important to
the soldiers. The Army viii make a
serious mistake If 1t does not change
its ruling forbidding its soldier
students to participate in intercol-
legiate athletics. Being able to
argue and make bets on college foot
ball games this fall and winter will
relieve the tedium for many soldier
abroad. Even In q global war, q
soldier has lot of leisure time.
What better way for him to spend 1t
than In discussing healthy sports?
The British have realized this.
They went haywire at the start of
the war and dropped sports, but
they soon realized their mistake.
Man cannot live on bayonets and
gunpowder alone. Now sports are
booming In England. Gasoline Ii
even more scarce there than here,
but scores of airplanes patrolled the
sky over Newmarket to protect the
crowd at the running of the English
Derby. Cricket is played ut Lords
nearly every day. The football
leagues are playing to capacity
crowds. The British soldier wants
and gets his sports.
1t seems to me the American sol.
der should have his wants fulfilled,
too. And, as I said before, II you
don't believe the American soldier
wants sports, just ask him.
distributed By McNauxht Syndicate. Incl