Sport Returns to the Cave Age

A Parade of Champions at the Season's End Shows the Big Part that Sheer Power has Played

GRANTLAND RICE

THE evening lamp has just been lit, and there is a warming glow from the wooden logs that flame up from the hearth. The shaken panes again respond to the whip of roistering winds, and there is the old melancholy drip at the eaves. These are all signs that, outside of the closing events of football, sport is over for the time, and the moment has come to consider the champions the passing year has crowned.

There are many new faces in the crown-wearing parade this season, more new faces than one usually sees. Why is this? Possibly because there are being developed each year more and more new stars, for, with the army of competitors growing in numbers and in skill, it is becoming harder and harder for a champion to repeat. Here and there some stalwart remains with his sceptre held in a firm grip. But these are few and far between.

The Main Qualities

AS a rule, in past years, champions have - shown widely varying qualities of success. Some have mounted to the peak by skill, others by speed, others by versatility, and still others by brawn or stamina. But this has been an unusual season. There has been no falling off in skill and craft, no lessening of nerve and genius. But there has never been a year when the title holders have depended so much upon power, or have proved to a greater extent the worth of brawn.

In viewing the parade in retrospect, through the pipe smoke of a late autumn or early winter evening, it is remarkable how few of the smaller men one can see in the long line of champions. The fight game has its share, of course, because here titles are graded by weights. But the undefeated champion is still a wonderful exhibit in the way of sheer power. There is no Willie Keeler, no Bill Johnston, no Chick Evans, no Freddie McLeod wearing the toga on this side of the water. Great Britain can show one light, slender crownwearer in Willie Hunter, amateur golf champion, who succeeds the massive Cyril Tolley, and proves to be one of the rare exceptions to the general rule, good only for the year 1921, that weight will tell.

Golf Winners

POWER, stamina and physical strength have come to be vital factors even in golf. Who are the American champions? Jesse Guilford, who won the amateur crown at St. Louis, is six feet in height, with a displacement around two hundred pounds. He is physically far beyond such ex-champions as Walter J. Travis, Jerry Travers or Chick Evans, who together have accounted for no less than nine amateur titles.

Guilford is big and broad with thick wrists and powerful hands, a mighty hitter when the occasion arises, a man who can play 36 holes under the championship strain every day for a week, without even beginning to tire. Much of his success was due to his ability to keep on going through sun and rain, without ever wearing down, without ever faltering from weariness or fatigue. And he had strength enough to get all .the distance he needed without any extra pressure or added effort in his shots.

Then there is Miss Marion Hollins, the new queen of women's golf in the United States. Miss Hollins is one of the long distance slashing hitters of the game. She is well above the feminine average in weight and height, with unusual power in her hands and wrists, possessing untiring stamina for the daily grind around the course, no matter what unkempt weather may beat upon the field. It is significant that both Mr. Guilford and Miss Hollins were called upon to face sun and wind and rain, the triple test, not only of skill, but also of physical fortitude.

Jim Barnes, the Open Champion of the United States, is no heavyweight, but he is six feet three inches in height, one of the tallest men that ever won out in a national test. There is unusual leverage in his long arms, and he has wonderful control over a long body, and a length of leg that can meet any shift he decides to make, when playing from a hanging or an uphill lie. You might think this super-length of body and legs would often get in the way. But Barnes has mastered their intricate tangles and has turned their greater leverage to his aid.

The champion of professional golfers, Walter Hagen, isn't as tall as Barnes, but he happens to be a broad-shouldered, deep-chested athlete around six feet in height, weighing 180 pounds. Hi$ strong hands and wrists, his powerful shoulders, all come to his aid in tearing through the ball, especially when there is turf to be taken with a slashing iron shot from a heavy lie.

Strength doesn't count for much? Look back over the season's results in golf and take another guess. Never before has the race belonged so utterly to the strong; never before has the giant so triumphed over the average sportsman.

Tennis Stars of the Year

WHO are the tennis premiers of the year? Small, frail creatures depending mainly upon speed and agility? Not exactly, when one considers Bill Tilden and Mrs. Molla Mallory. Tilden, like Barnes, is no massive giant, but he is around six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and a terrific punch. He is one of the masters of the big smack when he needs an ace or a vital point. His hands are big and strong and his extra reach is a big help in time of trouble. His physical predominance over Bill Johnston and Vincent Richards was quite enough to turn the tide his way, even though the next ranking pair might be rated as his equals in the way of science and skill.

Tilden is one of the largest of all tennis champions. No man with less stamina could ever have met the long sixteen-month test which he so successfully endured and still have fought his way through again at Wimbledon and over here.

In the same way Mrs. Mallory won her fifth title, not only through her unusual allotment of skill, but also through her unusual physical power and her endurance. In addition to being an extremely skilled player, and a most courageous one, she is also well beyond the average woman in the way of strength and brawn. When she hits a tennis ball there is very little doubt that it has been struck by some one who can whip a racket through the air at remarkable speed.

In Baseball

IN baseball, we mark Babe Ruth, Harry Heilman and Rogers Hornsby.

Ruth has achieved a record in home runs never dreamed of before. He has proved to be the greatest star that baseball has ever had in all its extended history so far as drawing crowds goes. Six feet two in height, weighing 220 pounds, he has more sheer brawn and untrammeled physical strength, greater physical bulk, than any baseball star the world has ever seen.

Ruth's amazing ability to time his hits and his resilient leverage were no small factors in his success. But make no mistake about it— his mighty physical mould was always a great aid to his batting beyond the outfield wall. For his vast bulk and strength enabled him to handle a bat at least twelve ounces heavier than any one else in the game, and this heavier bludgeon, whipped through at great speed, gave him his chance to make a home run record that will probably never be approached again, unless by Ruth himself. No smaller man, whatever the precision of his timing or the certainty of his control, could hope to get such astounding power back of the blow.

In the same way Heilman of Detroit and Hornsby of St. Louis, batting leaders, are both big and strong, well above the average in bulk alone.

As the titled parade goes by with Babe Ruth, Jesse Guilford, Miss Hollins, Miss Leitch, Jim Barnes, Walter Hagen, Bill Tilden, Jack Dempsey, Mrs. Mallory and many others, it makes one turn back to the time when the Cave Man ruled by a sheer physical power.