When it comes to writing a Day Book your sports commentator steps up to the plate with three strikes on him from the start. However, despite the fact that we’re a rookie at this game we hope we come through as a pinch hitter and smack a fourbagger.
The first ball pitched was a low inside curve, the kind that we relish. “Write on anything you please.” Well, we closed our eyes and swung.
But, even as we swung, we thought all one needs when it comes to writing a Day Book is to imagine you’re the Sphinx, Voltaire, or Hitler and run around the bases until you’re tagged out.
With this in mind, let us “close our eyes,” in the words of A. J. B., and imagine we’re on the ninth hole of the Merion golf links watching the women’s national championship matches.
Mrs. Leo G. Federman, ace of Jewish women golfers, is a bit late. She hasn’t come out of the club house. Suddenly the crowd starts cheering as Mrs. Federman, dressed in white shorts, steps up to the first tee and prepares for a hole-in-one.
The greens committee is aghast. This is the first time a woman golfer has appeared in shorts on the sacred Merion golf course and they have no precedent to go by.
Pipes up a wag, “Wire Hitler and see what he would do in a case of this sort.”
The greens committee does so and the cable is immediately dispatched to the offices of Der Fuehrer. (Mind you, we’ve still got our eyes closed and we’re as silent as H. W.—that is the Sphinx).
The scene is now the office of our pal Adolf.
“Take a letter,” he says to his charming secretary, Herr Goebbels.
“Hello, mein dear friend Avery Brundage. You will notice that we have nothing that can be called discrimination against Jews in sports. In fact, we have gone so far out of our way to be careful of the physical upbuilding and training of these Jewish men and women athletes that we have placed them in special training camps.
“We have placed high wire fences around these camps and it is a well-known fact that any Jewish lad or lassie who is able to clear this fence will immediately be placed on the German High Jumping and Pole Vaulting Squad of the Olympic team.
“Then again, as you no doubt know, the diet of an athlete must be watched carefully. And we excel at this. There is nothing that a man or woman in these training camps eat that we do not know.
“We are all one happy family, here. Come up and see me some time.”
At this stage of the letter the cable from the Merion greens committee arrives.
“Hitler in Himmel,” says the President, the Chancellor, the Reichstag and the Supreme Council of Germany together as one. “This is outrageous. Take another letter.”
However, folks, at this point of the story we could no longer keep our eyes closed. We haven’t as much experience at it as our friends H. W. and A. J. B. have. Once we lifted our lids, the spell was broken and we were left stranded in the sanctum sanctorum of Der Fuehrer.
“Ach du — Das ist der sports-writer from der Bulletin. Shoot him,” shouted the Hitler cheering section.
Always nonchalant in a pinch, we remembered our old pro wrestling tactics. We led with a belch that won us the fight from the start. Knowing that we were outnumbered by countless odds, we remembered what A. J. B. had written some time ago. We rubbed our magic crystal and at once Max Baer appeared in person.
“Maxie,” we cried, “remember what you said about the Hitler situation being cleared up with a body punch and a left ja# to the jaw. Get busy, this guy is the grand canary himself.”
“Just a minute,” said Maxie. “What percentage of the gate do I get? Will there be a flat guarantee? Do you want this fight fixed? My manager isn’t here. I haven’t got a fight scheduled for a year.”
“Honest, Baer, he’s the egg who stopped your picture from being shown in Germany on the grounds that you are a Jew, a ‘non-Aryan’ and a Negroid type.”
“Oh, he did, did he? Well, I’ll show him I’m no snob. Negroid type, eh? I’ll go out with what ever kind of a girl I like.”
It was here that Max Baer, the Livermore Larruper, who had sunk the Italian Navy under Primo Carnera—set out to destroy the German Army. However, Maxi missed and our eyes were closed again.
Once more the scene is the Merion golf links. Mrs. Leo G. Federman is on the eighteenth hole and is two up. She is still wearing her shorts and the greens committee, wrapped in cellophane, is caddying for the champ.
At this point the umpire cried, “Yer out.”
M. W.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
