Scorecard

A WORLD CHAMP AT LAST
Bruce Baumgartner, the wrestler from Edinboro, Pa. (SI, Oct. 20), has won the world championship that long eluded him. Last week in Budapest the 6'2", 270-pound Baumgartner outpointed the reigning world champ, David Gobedjichvili of the U.S.S.R., 6-2. Thus Baumgartner ended Soviet domination of the superheavyweight world championship that extended back to 1974. "He is a very unusual person," said Bill Martell, the U.S. team leader. "He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't chase around. He's a hard worker and never misses practice. All those things your mother said you are supposed to do—Bruce does them."

MIXED REVIEWS FOR THIS FILM

The NFL isn't the only football league running into controversy over the official use of instant replays. At a recent game between the St. Francis ( Kans.) High Indians and the Scott City High Beavers, referees went to the videotape when a dispute arose with less than four minutes to play.

The Indians were leading 20-12 and were trying to stop a Beavers' drive. On a fourth-and-two play at the St. Francis 22, there was a fumble, apparently recovered by the Indians. As two officials moved the first-down stakes, Scott City coaches argued that the fumble occurred after play was stopped. Whose ball should it be? And just where, on the muddy and torn-up field, should the ball be spotted?

As St. Francis's homecoming crowd waited in a driving rain, referee Dick Evans repaired to the press box with the opposing head coaches to view game tapes of the action. "It was a pretty wild and hectic scene up there," says Steve Jenkins, St. Francis's defensive coordinator. "It went on for 20 minutes." Finally Evans ruled that the fumble recovery would stand. St. Francis held on to win. And the Beavers went back to Scott City unsatisfied and unconvinced. Just like in the big leagues.

PROMOTERS AND PROS

At the 20th congress of the General Association of International Sports Federations in Monte Carlo last week, there was a lot of talk about commercializing sports. Not how to avoid commercialization; rather, how even small sports can cash in on a commercialized world. Coca-Cola's sports liaison addressed the gathering and so did the man from Gillette. Representatives from television spoke, too. They gave the delegates gloomy news about big U.S. network contracts ("We have a full-fledged depression") but offered rosy predictions about TV sports in Europe ("In a few years we are going to have five hours of sports a day"). Jan Steler, head of the International Luge Federation, said, "The conclusion is always the same for any sport, big or small: Without TV, you don't have anything."

The discussion turned to athletic eligibility. Willi Daume, president of the International Olympic Committee's eligibility committee, reported that disputes within the IOC had been largely resolved. Professionals would be allowed to compete in future Olympics—some in '88, more by '92—in equestrian events, soccer, ice hockey and tennis (SCORECARD, Oct. 6). In concluding his remarks, Daume recalled the late head of the IOC, Avery Brundage, who always decried commercialism and boosted amateurism. "If he could see this session," said Daume, "he would whirl in his grave like an electric fan."

BALLS HOUNDED, THEN HOARDED
Wally Edwards enjoyed a strange recreation: He would train his dogs to sniff out golf balls on the fringes of a course near his home in Limpsfield, 22 miles south of London. Wally, who lived to be 82, kept this up for a good long time. When he died recently, his descendants were astonished at their bizarre inheritance. Six thousand golf balls were found littered about the Edwards estate. "They were in cupboards, they were in the shed—we couldn't believe how many there were," says Edwards's daughter-in-law, Frankie. "He hoarded them and loved them dearly." Wally's wife, Alice, loved them less. "Every day he'd come back with his pockets full of golf balls," she remembers. "I got sick of them." Alice is getting relief. Frankie and her husband, John Edwards, have been busily evacuating the balls to their home in southwestern England.

FOR A RINK AS BIG AS THE RITZ