TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1946 THE M J ICHA N .LJ. d f.J.A. iY PAGE NINE ECOND GuTI~%1~ING , 0 y tAR A ER cca y Sports Editor BASEBALL'S MAGNATES will undoubtedly herald the 1946 big league season as the best in history. They should. Didn't the cash registers jingle a merry tune of dollars! And didn't every Major League park set new attendance records! Yes, 1946 was a smashingly successful year - finan- cially. But oldtime greats and present-day baseball lovers must have been bitterly disillusioned. Somewhere around 20,000,000 fans turned out to welcome their war heroes home and what did they get for their bucks? Beauty shows, fashion exhibitions, rodeos, hired clowns, everything short of "The Greatest Show on Earth," and it, too, would probably have been utilized had there been room enough for three rings and a diamond. Baseball? Oh yes, there was baseball, or at least a skeleton of it, a vague semblance to the pre-war variety of the nation's favorite pasttime. Prob- ably the return of the "stars" made some fans think they were seeing base- ball as it has been played in the peacetime world. Few must have realized that they were being exploited by Billy Roses of the diamond. Even baseball's home of conservatism yielded to the dollar sign. Larry "Super-salesman" MacPhail dolled his mammoth Yankee Stadium up in lights and presented some 2,200,000 spectators with everything from soup to nuts in the way of entertainment - everything, that is, but a baseball team. The Yankees of 1946 were probably the dullest, most pepless team ever to come out of New York. But they made money. 'TEARY FROM a financially successful spring junket, the Yankees never had a chance. Perhaps that's why Joe McCarthy and Bill Dickey couldn't take it. They were baseball players, not showmen. And, of course, it didn't help to have the publicity-wise MacPhail predicting a "new Yankee team for 1947" way back in the middle of the summer. Down in Cleveland the Indians got a new owner, showman Bill Veeck. The colorful Veeck couldn't put together a winning team, so he hired clowns to pack the aisles. And Manager Lou Boudreau contributed his bit to the show by devising a ridiculous scheme to stop Ted Williams. With everyone playing in right field it apparently never occurred to the powers-that-be that Williams, even if he couldn't hit to left, could al- ways bunt safely to left. Fittingly enough, the Red Sox clinched the pennant because of the so- called infallible method of getting Williams out. On Sept. 13 the Sax slugger hit one to left. There wasn't anyone there and what should have been an easy fly out went for a pennant-clinching 'home run inside the Cleveland bail park. Just why Williams was accorded such an honor, we never could un- derstand. The "Splendid Splinter" all season long hit well below his own lifetime batting mark. And all the players in the world massed in right field can't keep a home run ball from going into the stands. But the fans got a great kick out of it, and that apparently was all that counted. And what happened to the days when ace pitchers used to face each other on the hill??? Only once this season did Detroit's Hal Newhouser pitch against Bobby Feller or Spud Chandler. And after'it became apparent that Boo Ferris was the Red Sox ace, Newhourse, Feller and Chandler were "saved" to pitch against lesser lights. Again the fans took a beating. Over in Brooklyn where anything is possible, Leo "Lippy" Durocher came up with a team of nobodies and got into the thick of the National League pennant race. Durocher did a grand job with his cast but re- duced Brooklyn baseball to a nev low in masterminding from the bench. E EBETS FIELD was a graveyard for scorekeepers. There is nothing new about managers giving the hit sign to batters, calling for hit-and-run plays, ordering bunts, etc. But Durocher went one better by directing his hurlers on every pitch. Yes, the Dodgers did well, but rare was the Brooklyn game that didn't drag into its third hour of play. And, meanwhile, what happened to baseball? Just like the wartime (Continued on page 10) Grid Official E xplains 1946 Rule Changes Masker Cites More Important Changes CHICAGO, Ill., Sept. 23-The thir- ty-odd changes in collegiate football rules for 1946, being mostly clarifi- cations and interpretations of pre- vious rules, will hardly be noticed by spectators, according to James C. Masker, Western Conference Super- visor of Officials, although one sig- nificant change will serve to speeden the game. That change is a provision that when a time out is taken for a sub- stitution play will be resumed im- mediately upon completion of the substitution instead of waiting to "run out" the full two minutes al- lowed for a time out. To compensate for that change an additional time out is permitted a team each half. More than four time outs a half, whether for substitutions or at the request of a captain, are charged as delay of the game and penalized five yards. Another rules change for 1946, ac- cording to Masker, serves to relieve an unduly severe penalty situation that had previously existed. Under new rules the penalty for an illegal forward pass, such as a second for- ward pass in the same play, is penol- ized five yards from the spot of the illegal pass. Previously the penalty had been 15 yards from the spot the ball had first been put in play. The widespread use of the T-for- mation dictated another provision, according to Masker, as the rules now provide that a back may stand with his hands less than a yard from the line of scrimmage,nalthough in such a position he will not be eligible as a pass receiver. Spectators also got a break in an- other revision that requires larger block numerals on players' jerseys, and of a distinctly contrasting color. All those students who are inter- ested in becoming candidates for the varsity track and cross-coun- try teams are requested to report to Coach Ken Doherty any after- noon this week at Ferry Field. No previous experience is neces- sary. o;> o o; Diamonds a Wedding % RINGS ( 717 North University Ave. Y-toc-- c--y°e-:-y o >coma<;;;;;;;>cz a 13 'Dine in the Charming Early American Atmosphere O of a THE COLONIAL 1OOM Featuring Rupert Otto e at the New Organ Give your Student Parties in our Private Dining Room s for Reservations Half block west of State Street ON EAST HURON C OPIL. i'4tA.6.SPA LPJNG &BROS4lNC. RL&VUSPAT.cf7Z 1 . . T -i DNS andT10l of TEXTBOOS 45 v 4 I : . ,,, : .v: 5 i { y 5( l}tf \t 1 4 1( S i # t { G }( 4 tg i : . .r 1 r" and For Lit., Math., SUPP tI All-American -every year Here's the team that continues to give America the finest telephone service iin the world: A group of Associated Companies pro- vides telephone service in their respective territories. The Long Lines Department of A.T. & T. handles Long l)istance and Overseas service. Ec., Hist., Pol. Science, Engineering, Arch., all languages In Fact- For every course on camnpus Trhe Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric Company are responsible for scientific research acid the manufacture of ecuipment. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, through advice and assistance, co-ordinates the activities of all. This is the Bell Telephone System: Thousands of college graduates have found their Mdaces on this team of communication ULR 'S F)) t I