Slants on Sports

If you think Phil Weintraub of the Giants can play good ball or had an important-looking batting average down with the Vols, you should hear the young fellow talk. He’ll talk you eighteen to the dozen and you won’t be able to slip a word in edgewise.

Notwithstanding, Phil made his New York debut last Tuesday. In three trips to the plate he collected two hits and sent in one run. He had a grand chance to make good when late in the game three men were on with one down and Phil up near the rubber. He missed his chance when he went down swinging viciously on the third strike. However, it didn’t matter—very much. Travis Jackson hit a triple and the ball game was over.

However, this is not the point we’d like to make. What we’re trying to get at is this. While the Chicago butcher boy was donning his purple suit, blue shirt, and yellow tie in the locker room we were trying to get him to answer a question or two.

“Listen, Bulletin!” he said to us, “They’re easy for me in this league. I’m sure I’ll be the old maestro himself in a few years. And, do you know, I won seven suits in Nashville because of my batting average. Not because it is so good but because of it I was allowed to pinch hit more than anybody else. You see, there were four advertising signs painted on the outfield fences and if you hit a sign in a certain spot you’d get a suit of clothes. On my last day with the Vols I hit a sign a foot below the bull’s eye and missed up on fifty bucks. It spoiled my whole trip north.”

“Tell me,” we tried to interrupt.—

“Say, feller! Are there any good places in this burgh where I can get a good kippered herring?”

“Landsman,” said we, “We’re also Litvacks.”

“You don’t tell me?” queried the Terry pet. “Come to the hotel and I’ll show you the other suits.”

FIRST CALL FROM CITY COLLEGE

The coaching staff at C. C. N. Y., headed by the Michigan all-American grid star, Benny Friedman, has issued the first call for conditioning to some seventy-five prospective footballers. The letter began as follows: “The coaches are eating, drinking, talking and sleeping football, are you?”

The rest of the letter was devoted to telling the boys to get into shape for the hectic autumn grind and that the first conclave of the “Beavers” (which is the new name for the Lavendar stalwarts) will be held on the day following Labor Day.

From what this corner has heard several of the lads on whom Benny Friedman was counting to make the first team grade have either dropped out or have been declared ineligible.

Paul Sidrer, a crackerjack backfield ace, is rumored to have left for another school where they offer more conducive playing conditions and a chance to make Phi Beta Kappa. Johnny Uhr, giant tackle, has been lost, (so it is claimed) due to a terrific tussle with his exams in which the latter knocked Johnny for a loop.

But despite the ravages that a summer or a couple of exams might make in a coach’s dreams for an A-1 team, Benny Friedman can still count on Yudy Cooper, Tolces, Berkowitz, Juliber, and Captain Hy Rosner—football material who know their stuff.

The editor of the London Jewish Chronicle received the following letter from the Viscountess Erleigh on the Maccabi Movement. It has been forwarded to this department and we are running it now.

“Sir:

“It cannot be denied that a great deal of goodwill and mutual respect is gained by representative teams at International sports meetings. It is, therefore, a very welcome sign of the growing solidarity of the Jewish nation that Palestine is being represented at the Fourth Women’s World Games in London next month by a team of girl athletes from the Maccabi.

“It is the first time in the history of these meetings that Palestine will be represented. The country which can boast ambassadors to represent its traditions and its people in other countries is a nation that will more readily gain the understanding and sympathy of the world at large. The outstanding performances of individual Jews representing the country of their birth and pointed to with pride by Jewry all over the world are not sufficient proof of the fitness and virility of the present generation of Jews. Rather are these individuals pointed out by anti-Semites as the exceptions which prove the rule. If, however, other nations find themselves constantly in rivalry under equal terms with teams of young Jews and Jewesses competing under “their own national banner,” it will do much to give lasting proof to the world that here is a nation reborn.

“The Maccabi movement is efficiently looking at this aspect of the new Jewish people. It is endeavoring to ensure that future generations will be healthy, virile, and imbued with team spirit. It has provided Jewry with their first representative teams at international sports meetings for both men and women. The Palestine team at the West Asiatic Olympic Games in New Delhi in March this year was composed entirely of Maccabi athletes, who although six in number, carried off no fewer than fifteen medals.

“The team which will arrive in London for the Fourth Women’s World Games will be a young one. Its youngest members are but fourteen years of age, while the veteran member of the party is only twenty two. The prestige of Jewry can be enhanced by the youth of Eretz Israel and it is for us in England to realize the part that these young pioneers are playing and to give them the reception they deserve.

“I am, etc.,

“Eva Erleigh.

“65, Rutland Gate, S.W.#.“

We have been writing much of the Maccabi movement in the United States. However, we don’t believe a finer tribute than that paid to the Maccabi World Union by Viscountess Eva Erleigh can be paid. What the Maccabians are doing in Palestine and in England the Jewish youth of America are doing now.

As we have said so many times before — “Eventually — why not now! Join the Maccabi movement!”