The Wilmington morning star., 1946-12-13
As Pegler Sees 1t
Bv WESTBROOK PEGLER

United States Attorney IeIieidA' ~ AisA.eo
sports writer's from all sections Of the country
to meet in Washington and form a national Or
eanization to encourage millions OF american
YOUNGSTERS to take more interest In clean
sports and other recreational activities.
NV colleague, Bill Corum, announces his in
t%ention to be there and his personal convic-
ton that "the world Of sports has a golden
opportunity here, not to say a challenge"
Mr.. Clark's invitation relates that this idea
emerged from a recent national conference on
the prevention and control OF juvenile delln-
ouency and Bill Corum writes that "any i'm
petus that sports is able to give the move
ment would be the most lmportsnt crown that
it could mould for ITSELF"
am a little s%keptical as to the possibilities,
believing that the strange, hard little chlpples
that 1 see hanging around the Waldorf when
certain crooners and moaners are performing
in the wedgwood room, and certain notorious
HOLLYWOOD characters are in residence IN the
tower, would be Indifferent to any appeal from
the most eloquent sports writer that ever
lived, and that the fault lies rot with these
ominous young guttersnipes but with the pa
rents who let them run wild. They are a cult,
and a national cult at that. Some OF the dem
onstrations of mass hysteria which they have
presented here on high-pressure Hollywood &C.
casions deliberately engineered by moving pic
ture promoters have had about them a psy-
Geological reminder of the children's crusade.
I have been watching children's fads for
so years, including the affection OF silly hats,
droopy socks and idiotic mottos painted
on flivvers, but this country, in my time,
never saw anything quite like this bobby-sox
and swing-music mania. They seem to go alb
solutely crazy over a voice or the squeals that
some outwardly ingratiating but secretly mo.
tivated musician evokes from a clarinet or a
horn. They run in packs like those strange,
mad rats in Norway 20 years ago which were
described as racing wildly across country and
p~lunging off a cliff into the sea. They are in
sensate. God only knows what they are after,
and a bell-man at the Waldorf, looking at a
bunch of them lettering in the dark the other
evening, said Look at them! Every time
some Hollywood bum moves in they seem to
smell it and they hang around all night TOR
what? Autographs, yes, but still they hang
around. Well, mine isn't there. She is home
Now / don't know what the sports writer's
could do about that, but one thing they could
do is to draw a line between sportsmen and
the trash called sports, and between the world
Of sports and the underworld. That line has
been obliterated by writers who should have
maintained it.
On two occasions recently I have observed
a strange reaction on the sports pages. Once,
after reading several rather hurt references
to the presence Of Hollywood Jerks" around
Leo Durocher's dressingroom and the cavalier
treatment of baseball reporters at the Brook
lyn ball-yard, I made a careful investigation
OF the crap game at Durocher's New York
apartment in which a sucker was clipped for a
fortune by George Rat, the synthetic tough
guy Of the moving pictures, who not only plays
gangster roles in the films but, by choice and
commitment Of long social habit, has made
himself an underworld character. He was a
cheap Broadway punk and a speakeasy hoofe-
in prohibition days. He ran with Owen Madden
and other notorious gangsters and criminals
Of the most defiant criminal cycle in our his
III AnaefA5 khnk L. 49, a-.~-y
OF Buggy Siegal, who, in Hollywood and Neva-
da. at least, is now a new AL Capone, and he is
what he is and no discount. Because he is
what he is, Branch Hickey, the general man
ager Of the Brooklyn baseball firm, announces
that Rat will not even be allowed to enter
the park henceforths Durocher made a state
ment during the investigation of the crap-game
in his apartment, at which incidentally he was
not present, having merely loaned the place to
Raft for Rats purposes. In that statement. he
said Raft was his close friend, that he had
often visited Raft at his home in Hollywood
and that in that home he had met Siegal and
had seen Raft and others gambling for the
highest stakes he had ever seen.
Now, baseball writer's normally are preoc-
cupied with runs, hits and errors and percent
ages and trades. But it is their business as
reporters to learn and tell the public what
goes on otherwise in baseball. They kicked
this one. The original story Of the suckers
hard luck at Durocher'S apartment broke as a
bit Of city-side routine and the sport side
showed no enterprise or initiative, beyond a
Jew gossipy illusions, in a matter that GER
tsinly consists with Tom Clark's proposal to
keep sport clean and an inspiration to young
boys and girls, young men and women. The
complete story never has been told because
as long as the district attorneys office kept
the case open, Durocher's intimate friend,
Raft, remained inaccessible to the Investigate
ors. AS far as they knew, and they kept a
watch, he stayed out Of New York. However,
enough was told to identity Raft with some of
the most notorious underworld characters OF
Broadway, Hollywood and the Miamis, and
Durocher with Raft and Siegal.
Yet, the strongest reaction to this first COM
prehensive presentation of the facts was a
flippant and friendly justification of Rats
great luck in throwing tens and tours the
hard way 10 times in the crap game and
an attempt to justify Durocher's association
with Raft as an accidental thing, like the
time that Tom Dewey was photographed with
a couple OF men who, long afterward, turned
out to be communists. Dewey didn't visit their
homes or run with communists habitlally.
More recently, Judge William G. Bramnam,
the retiring commissioner o. the minor
leagues of professional baseball, announced
that he had discovered moral laxity among
certain officials, players and fans" instances
of intimidation o. players BY thugs with an
interest in gambling, and collision between
players and bookmakers. These were matters
that baseball reporters themselves should
h,ro found MT ana exposed ond. in view of