Slants on Sports

A sport editor’s job becomes a cinch when the calendar offers such a splendid card as the fans have slated for them this week.

Jewish athletes play an important part in four of the major programs in as many divisions of the sport roster. Basketball, track, boxing and hockey will provide the thrills and spills.

The rejuvenated Rangers will attempt to rake the Toronto Maple Leafs in an effort to make a clean sweep of the hockey division. In nine games played since the first of the year, the Levinsky-lacking Patrickmen have won six and tied three. The game tonight should be sizzling with fireworks. The Leafs are sore at the Rangers for selling Alex Levinsky down the river to the Chicago Black Hawks.

Tomorrow night, the double-header basketball session is renewed again when the Redmen from St. John’s clash with the Blackbirds from L. I. U. Manhattan and Duquense complete the twin bill. Although there are no Jewish basketeers on the Duke or Kelly Green outfits, Dave Gotkin and Ray Kaplinsky, of the Redmen, and Kramer, Schwartz, Bender, and Rabinowitz of the Blackbirds, should suffice for the kosher basketball rooters.

MILROSE GAMES ARRIVE

Art Lasky, the orthodox Jewish mauler from California, faces Jimmy Braddock in a ten-rounder Friday night at the Garden.

Saturday offers the fans a dual dish that should prove very luscious. City College resumes its basketball activities in a game against the Temple Owls. Although the five Jewish courtmen led by Sam Winograd have not been able to get the Beaver quintet moving along at its usual pace, the fans are eager to see the Owls perform again. The play of the Temple five, minus Reds Rosan, who was out because of the grippe, in the game against N. Y. U. some weeks ago, has whetted the appetite of the New York City basket followers.

This game, however, is overshadowed by the first indoor track and field meet of the season. The Milrose games have rolled around again and have attracted the greatest galaxy of board and sawdust stars ever seen in the East apart from an Olympic tryout. A host of Jewish track men are slated to perform, chief among whom are Milton Sandler, holder of the national title for the 600 meter run.

CHAMPIONS DO COME BACK

Kitty Klein, of Buffalo, the speed skating demon of the ice pack who hung up her skates in 1934, is back again as a top notcher in the women’s division of champions. Kit lost several of the titles she held in 1933 to Dorothy Franey. The Franey lass took the Middle Atlantic championships and the National speed belt from Kit in 1933. Last year the Buffalo Jewish girl did not compete.

On January 1, Kit came back and defeated Miss Franey to regain the Middle Atlantic title at Newburgh. Over the weekend she beat her rival again and in doing so clipped the American record for the mile event. Her triumph proved that champions do come back. Kit was second in the 440 and 880 yard dashes, but breezed in an easy winner in the mile grind.

BUCKET PLAY ON TRIAL

No other play in basketball this year has caused so much ill feeling among contending teams, or stirred up so much antipathy and trouble between visiting teams and officials, as has the “bucket” or pivot.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, the bucket play is a simple style of attack, which calls for the tallest man on the team to station himself directly behind the foul line and in front of the basket, and is in an admirable position to receive passes from his team-mates and either return the ball or spin around and shoot for the basket.

This play is one of the most difficult to guard against under any circumstances, and since the center man (the chap who usually has the bucket assignment) is tall and broad, his opponent must either foul him or stand by helplessly and watch him score. Visiting teams who played in New York this year, especially at the Garden, were amazed at the manner in which their pivot player was bumped around, hooked and jostled.

In tomorrow night’s game between the Redmen and the Blackbirds the play will be on trial. There will be a time limitation during which the man in the bucket will be allowed to function. This should go a long way in eliminating the objectionable pushing and shoving which have marked so many games this year. The pivot man will be forced out into the open court and thus the jam which invariably occurs under the basket will be eliminated.

NRA CODE AFFECTS LASKY SPAR MATES

Sparring partners assisting Art Lasky in training for his fifteen-round bout next Friday at the Garden are all working on the NRA schedule, and this doesn’t mean “no righthanders allowed.” In Lasky’s case, the formula is applied as follows: Instead of working with two or three sparring mates, at the most, no less than four will be on hand for each day’s workout. The former potato picker is spreading work—if not scattering his punches in an overtime body bombardment.

Several prospective sparring partners have cottoned to the NRA plan for boxers in a big way and have even suggested improvements on Lasky’s idea. They are for a limited number of punches to be absorbed. That is, they will be paid per sock. And they maintain that if they are over-worked in any three-minute round they should be allowed time off in the next round or time and a half with pay.

Of course they do not encourage any ten-second sleep punches while at work with Art. If an agreement is reached on payment at so much per wallop, the gym will have to provide inspectors with clocking machines. However, sparring partners will not be permitted to do their punching on time clocks.

With the boxing commission in a very “reversing” frame of mind, Maurice Lasky says he will appeal to have the Hamas decision over Art changed.

“After what happened in the Garden the last time we were here,” says Maurice, “I would at least like the assurance that in case the officials don’t do right by my Art, the commissioners at least will do as much for us as they did for Dundee last Friday night.