By WILL CONNOLLY.
Continued from Page 1H
any other field of sports they

would be tied up like a pretzel.

Elevating the basket to 12 feet
would not work a hardship on the
short or medium sized cager be-
cause he must shoot upward any-
how, and would reduce the unfair
advantage that a string bean en-
joys not by ability but by a quirk
of nature.

We confess we are prejudiced
against longfellows. They always
seem to take their station directly
in front of us at parades, fires and
auto accidents.

No other sport puts such an out-
landish premium on height as bas-
ketball, and we think it is high
‘time for us short, paunchy citi-
zens to organize against mezzanine
floor Peeping Toms.

Already tall men have a na-
tional organization called the
“Longfellows’ Association, Ltd.,”
whose object is to lobby for longer
beds and sheets in hotel rooms and
more lengthy accommodations in
Pullman berths so they may
stretch their legs.

Even left-handed golfers have
their private annual tournament
designed to take care of their mis-
fortune, so we don’t see why short
men and men of regulation U. S.
Army height should not form a
social club to bring basketball
down to their size, or at least be-
yond reach of lanky galoots.

We cannot understand why John
Bunn, basketball coach emeritus of
Stanford, won't join our club.
John is dead set against lifting the
basket two feet, a puzzling atti-
tude inasmuch as John is one of
us and couldn’t reach the upper
four vest buttons on California’s
Biggerstaff, Ogilvie and Chal-
mers without standing on a chair.

Selected shorts:
“Black Jack Jerome’s El Cer-

rito dog track has the distinction
of running the longest and short-

est race meetings in greyhound
history . . . About five years ago
it ran 350 days ... the recent
meeting lasted 12 days, courtesy of
Earl Warren . , . Most spectacular
event at Santa Anita was not the
Hundred Grander but the com-
munity flower pick in the infield
on getaway day ... Doc Strub,
himself an amateur gardener, in-
vited Los Angeles citizens to pluck
the blooms but spare the plants
... women came with gunny sacks
and there were more people har-

_ yesting the petunias than watch-

ing the horses . . . New York
doesn’t know what to make of the
“no-name” boxing show at the
Garden last Friday night, which
drew 13,435 customers, $31,802
cash ... palookas of local reputa-
tion made up the card, there being
not one national figure .. . Easy
to explain—it was St. Patrick’s
night . .. Slip Madigan is excited
about an obscure new rule, not
known to many, which requires
broader bases on cone football
cleats ... it was put in to prevent
the sly Eastern practice of un-
screwing cleats and exposing steel
spikes for muddy fields . . . broad
cone cleats will slow down sharp
cutting halfbacks on spongy ber-
muda turf common on Coast, Slip
fears... He’s thinking of return-
ing to old fashioned square
leather cleats . .“. any conceit the
visiting international polo players
might have had that they were
the whole show at Golden Gate
Park was dissipated when An-
nouncer Mannoccir invited cus-
tomers to inspect the ponies at
half time ... The crush around
the trim animals was _ terrific,
which . supports our point the
ponies ought to be rated handicap
goals as well as their riders.

 

Lagann.