flees ge

‘SPORTLIGHT

By BERT WHYTE

MUCH AS I'd like to call the Dodgers ‘to win the current World
Series, the fact remains that!on the basis of ‘the 1952 performances
of the pennant winners in ‘both leagues, the Yanks appear to be
the superior team. Gamblers, who are notoriously unsentimental
characters, took these considerations in mind when they installed
the Yankees as 8 to 5 favorites before the Series opened Wednesday.

All through the regular season the Brooklyn Bums played like
real champions against second division ‘teams, but were somewhat
less than impressive against St. Louis, New York and Philadelphia.
The Yankees, on the other hand, looked their best when the chips
were down. ,

Convincing proof of the Yankees’ ability to come through in
the clutch was the Bombers’ 71 victory in Cleveland September 14.
Ed Lopat was relieved in the sixth with two on and one gone,
but up ‘to ‘that point he had hheld the Tribe to one run and had a
four-run lead. When Casey Stengel waddled out to the mound
Lopat told ‘him, “I’m getting tired, but T can ‘finish this inning.”

“No need to,” answered Casey, “we don’t need to take any
chances with ‘Allie Reynolds all warmed up.” So Lopat headed
for the showers with his ninth victory tucked under his belt.

All over the United States and Canada baseball fans will be
cheering for the popular Dodgers, who first opened the door to
Negroes in big league baseball, to take the “lily-white’ Yankees.

Y’ll be rooting for the Brooklyn gang, too, but a comparison of- the

records of both teams forces me to predict a Yankee tirumph.
* * *

QUITE A crowd of Vancouver sports fans journ-
eyed to Seattle to watch a movie theatre TV screening
of the Marciano-Walcott bout. Which rermnds me that
the first boxing match ever televised was Tommy Fart
versus Max Baer on March11, 1938. And the first
championship bout to have a radio broadcast was the
Jack Dempsey-Georges Carpentier fight on July 2,
1921. That memorable battle also drew the first mil-
lion-dollar gate. It took place at Boyle’s Thirty Acres,

Jersey City, and was promoted by the late Tex Rickard.
* * : *

MUCH TALK and little action so far in connection with 'Van-
couver’s handling of the 1954 British Empire Games. Local ‘pessi-
mists are saying we'd better hurry up and get cracking, or the
big event may be transferred elsewhere, to Toronto or Hamilton.

The 1949 Games were held in Auckland, New Zealand, and up
until a few weeks before they were scheduled ‘to ‘begin, interest
was almost nil. Then when the teams of athletes from various
countries began to arrive, the city woke up and fans began Swarm-
ing to the ticket agencies for ducats.” Pretty soon scalpers were
in business. :

Among B.C. athletes who participated at Auckland were Bill
Parnell, Jack Hutchins, Eleanor McKenzie, Irene Strong, Kay Me-
Namee, Shirley Gordon and Gerry Bemister, Altogether 34 Can-
adians took part.

Maybe Vancouver will catch the fever one of these days, but
there’s little indication of any Games’ spirit yet.

*

THE DEVELOPMENT of Little League baseball in Van-
ecouver almost certainly guarantees a crop of diamond stars
in years to come. This coming winter couldn’t something be
done to help out youngsters who want to play hockey?

We'll never produce our own professional hockey players
unless we start with the kids. Record books fail to disclose
the name of even one National Hockey League star who was
born, raised and trained in Vancouver.

If the coming hockey season is a repeat of last year, young-
sters will be getting up at five o’clock in the morning for
twice-a-week practises in the cold dawn at the Forum or Kerris-
dale arenas. The more ambitious lads will become “rink rats”
and clean the ice between games, just for the chance to bat a
puck around for an extra few minutes.

At present there’s only about 24 hours of free ice time a
week available for our youngsters. What’s the solution? A
program worked out by city and provincial authorities, the
setting up of a Little League in hockey, and the providing of
adequate ice time and good coaching for the kids who have the
NHL gleam in their eyes.

* * *

CANADA ITS 85 years old, but our sports history ‘goes back
beyond ‘Confederation. One of the most popular sports was horse
racing (the famous Queen’s Plate, oldest continually-run, horse race
‘on the continent, was first, run in 1865). The Quebec Queen’s
Plate was founded even before that, jn 1836, but some years it
hasn’t been held.

The first rink was built some 15 years before Confederation at
Quebec City, and skating was a favorite winter sport.

Other sports that flourished 85 years ago included harness
racing, lacrosse, golf and boxing. Before Confederation two world
heavyweight championship boxing matches were held in Canada.
We haven’t had any since.

Monopolies

laud S.C.

statement

British Columbia’s Social Cre-
dit government showed its hand
last week as representing the
menopolies when it publicly an.
nounced through Minister of
Lands and Forests R. E. Sommers
that ‘‘the government is pledged
to continue forest management.’’

Sommers made his announce-
ment when he spoke at a banquet
of lumber barons attending] the
Sixth Commonwealth Forestry
‘Conference,

His announcement means that
the Bennett government will car-
ry on the Coalition policy of giv-
ing away our forestry resources
in perpetuity to large B.C. and
U.S. monopolies for one cent an
acre, ’

Sommers was cheered by the

timber tycoons for his statement.
Immediately after he finished
speaking, Harry Foley, president
of Powell River Company, took
the floor, patted Sommers on the
back and told. delegates: ‘You
can see we have a young, fine
minister. I can assure you our
industry will cooperate with the
government in every way pos-
sible.”
. H. R. McMillan spoke later to
the banquet guests and said that
the forest management license
scheme ‘leaves a wide field for
private enterprise to operate.’’ He
admitted-that lumbering was the
“most profitable form of enter-
prise in British Columbia” and
added that ‘in our own interests
we must support the forest policy
of our government.’’

This latest Socred betrayal
of election promises and the in-
terests of. B.C. came only two
weeks after a delegation from
the B.C, Federaticn of Labor
appeared before the cabinet “to
protect the present methods of
granting forest Management
licenses and to strongly sug-
gest that the government keep
direct control of the forest re-
sources of this province.,”’

The BCFL protest reflected a
general feeling in the province
that the forest management
license scheme should be abolish-
ed.

Fifty thousand tons a month

British Columbia iron ore, mined at Quinsam Lake, is bei®&
shipped to Japan at the rate of 50,000 tons a month, it is dis-
closed. Proposals to double these shipments have evoked wide-
Spread opposition throughout this province, Here the ore is
shown heing loaded aboard a Japanese freighter at Campbell

’

River after being trucked 26 miles to the dock.

B.C. has highest ratio

of unemployed in country

There were 28,699 registered
job, seekers in British Columbia
on September 4, the federal labor
department reported this week.
Unemployed across Canada totall-
ed 147.800, as compared to 129,-
000 registered at the same period
ioe

Regional unemployed, as listed
by the government, were: Atlan-
tic, 17,900; Quebec, 42,800; On-
tario, 43,100; Prairies, 15,400;
British Columbia, 28,600. Official]

figures fall far short of the actual

jobless total, as many unemploy”
ed are not registered,

Since September 4 the fishe!
men’s strike has added new tho®
sands to the B.C. unemploy®
list. At the present time abov
one in every 10 B.C. workers *
without a job. The September
official figure showed 7.5 perce!
of the provincial labor force U2
employed, the highest percent@e?
of jobless in any region in canada

———

Stalin, Malenkov, delegates to CPSU Congress

Two of the delegates to the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union wh!
it opens in Moscow this Sunday, October 5. will be Premier Joseph Stalin and Georgi Malenkov:
both elected by the Moscow party organization. Also elected by the Moscow organization was N.
Khruschev, first regional secretary, who will give the important report on proposed changes 1

Communist party statutes,

.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 3, 1952 — PAGE