Scorecard

Now the invitations have been withdrawn. The Horse Association had second thoughts and gave the whole parade back to the horse. Someone remembered that Hupmobiles, Willys-Overlands, Stutzes and Mercers had an unsettling effect on horses back in grandfather's time. No one wanted to risk an epidemic of trauma in a generation of horses accustomed to Volkswagens and Corvairs.

THE MILKING SEASON

If there is one green dearer to a Vermonter than his own Green Mountains, it is the green of his own money. That was established anew the other day when Vermont's first pari-mutuel track opened with a whimper instead of a bang. On what was meant to be the gala beginning of a 56-day Thoroughbred racing season, a scattered crowd of 4,701 bet only $220,651 on a nine-race card. As the cash trickled in, worried track officials, who need a $300,000 daily handle to stay alive, ran out to the parking area to count cars. There were, all told, 17 Vermont license plates in the lot. The rest belonged to flashier types from New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

It could be that the natives stayed in their dairy barns. High on a hillside and aimed straight at the grandstand was a big, imposing sign that exhorted "BET ON MILK."

STOLEN BASE

Some weeks ago (SI, April 8) we reported on the difficulties of Rogelio Alvarez, Cuban first baseman who, because of Fidel Castro, could not get out of Cuba to join the Washington Senators, to whom he had been traded by the Cincinnati Reds for Harry Bright. With the Reds unable to deliver him, the Senators finally gave up and, in one of those complicated baseball transactions, Washington returned Alvarez' contract to Cincinnati, the Reds sold Bright to the New York Yankees and half the sale price was turned over to the Senators.

The Reds were skeptical when Alvarez got word through that he had found a method of escape. Shortly afterward, he telephoned from Mexico. He wouldn't say how he escaped, and no one pressed him to tell.

On his first trip to the plate this season for San Diego in the Pacific Coast League—a Reds' farm—Alvarez pinch-hit a grand-slam home run.