Slants on Sports

Top-notch speed skater for almost a decade, Miss Kit Klein, twenty-two year old Buffalo girl, gave one of the greatest exhibitions of her colorful career on Tuesday at Newburgh, when she once again won the Middle Atlantic outdoor championship. It was Kit’s second championship in the fifteenth renewal of the title event.

Miss Klein was the Middle Atlantic titleholder in 1933 but did not defend her crown last year. On Tuesday she whizzed over the ice to capture a first place in the 220-yard final in the fast time of twenty-four and one-fifth seconds.

A second place in the 440-yard event and a third in the 880 netted her a score of sixty points—twenty more than that of her nearest competitor.

Kit began skating when she was a mere twelve years old. She learned how to keep her footing on the ice by using a pair of those contraptions known as double runners. It wasn’t long after her first flop that she skated off with honors at a Buffalo amateur meet. Since then she has been annexing the speed skating laurels of America and Canada. Besides holding the senior women’s championship for 1933, she was North American indoor and outdoor titleholder for 1934.

IN CAULIFLOWER ALLEY

Barney Ross, lightweight champion, will meet Frankie Klick at Miami on January 24, with Barney’s synthetic junior lightweight title at stake. Ross will have to weigh in at 140 while Klick must be “in excess of 135 pounds.”

Mike Jacobs, promoting the match for the Miami American Legion, told your reporter that the fight will be a ten-rounder. He also said that Maxie Baer, heavyweight king who last week knocked King Levinsky colder than one of his own mackerels, would be on the same card in a four-round exhibition against Frankie Simms, Ohio behemoth.

Buddy Baer, the set-’em-up-push-’em over younger brother of the champ, is slated for a six-round catch as catch can with an opponent yet to be selected. In all probability the guy Buddy fights will have to be wheeled to the ring. If preceding fights are an omen, the opponent will be carried out at the end of thirty-five seconds in the second round.

Buddy’s managers pay his opponents by time. A fighter gets $15 to last two rounds with Buddy. For every minute of the third round he gets five dollars more and proportionately until the fight is over. In other words—it’s time and a half for overtime. In each of the nine fights Buddy has had since he began emulating the washed-up Primo Carnera, he has strictly observed all union rules and hours.

BAER EXHIBITIONS BARRED BY NEW YORK

Maxie Baer will not be allowed to engage in four-round exhibitions in New York State, General Phelan, of the State Boxing Commission, said last night. “We want no setups in this State,” further amplified Bill Brown. The latter became famous overnight with his cry, “‘Baer is a bum. Camera will flatten him in the first.”

Steve Hamas, Art Lasky, Max Schmeling and Primo Camera are the quartet designated by the commission as the outstanding contenders for the title, and if Baer fights in New York he will have to meet one of them over the fifteen-round route with the championship at stake.

FOOTBALL MEMORIES

Dave Smukler’s fine play stood out in the Temple-Tulane Sugar Bowl clash on Tuesday. Although Pop Warner’s eleven suffered their first defeat, they put up a grand fight.

Barney Mintz, Hebrew star of the Southern university, played a fine game of defensive ball. His superb tackling and backing up stopped the Owls time and again within the shadow of his own goal posts.

“For the East” says a California dispatch, “Weinstock, of Pittsburgh was the outstanding back. His play in the second half was brilliant, shadowed only by the dazzling performance of Cotton Warburton, of Southern California.

Abraham Goldberg, third string quarterback on the Crimson Tide eleven that swept a formidable Stanford grid aggregation to a 29-13 defeat, broke into action in the thrilling second period. His signalling accounted for Alabama’s third score of the afternoon.

A total of 170,000 spectators witnessed the three football games.

BASKETBALL AT ANNAPOLIS

Bob Mandelkorn, regular end on the 1934 Navy dreadnought that sank such formidable aggregations as Columbia and Army, losing only to the Pittsburgh juggernaut, is making good on the basketball court this season.

Mandelkorn, one of the few Jewish athletes at the Naval Academy, was a regular guard last year. Bob probably will have the call again for this defensive post, but is being pressed hard by Tommy King and Snead Schmidt, both football backs.

Navy opens its season against Baltimore University Saturday night. The entire first quintet is composed of football stars. Buzz Borries, Mandelkorn, Badger, Fellows and Decker, all saw action on the gridiron.

Mandelkorn, in practice, has been remedying the one weakness of the team. He has become a long-range basket shooter. The Navy five is out for another good season. Last year the team won eleven out of thirteen games.

Lieut. Comm J. H. Brown, Jr., graduate manager of athletics at the Naval Academy, in speaking of this Jewish star, said: Midshipman Robert S. Mandelkorn, end on Navy varsity, found himself late this season and has been advancing since. He was in the starting line-up against the Army at Franklin Field, Phila. He depends upon footwork rather than strength. Heady player. Also a member of Navy basketball team.

“In our years of contact with sports we know that the Jewish race has contributed many good athletes to the game. Their greatest characteristic is thoroughness and invariably they set an excellent example in training.”