Scorecard

NEVER ON SUNDAY?

Ford ("It's news to me") Frick, the non-commissioner of baseball, has decided something, and that's news right there. The substance of it is that the World Series shall unquestionably and unconditionally begin in a National League park on Wednesday, October 7—weather, anyhow, permitting. Furthermore, decrees Frick, there will be no travel day after the first two games (when the Series moves to an American League park) if neighboring teams are involved. The commissioner may have meant, for instance, the Orioles and the Phillies, but he did not spell it out.

In the event of a four-game Series, therefore, it will all be over on Saturday, and the NBC network will have no ball game to show on Sunday. Last year the fourth and final game of the Series—because of an intervening travel day—was telecast on a Sunday, and it drew the largest sports TV audience since the world was young. Naturally, dreadful rumors that the CBS Yankees have taken over the commissioner's office are beginning to take form. "Oh, stuff and nonsense," laughs NBC Vice-president Carl Lindemann with undetectable mirth. "We sell the Series as a package, not game by game. The only losers would be the sponsors and the guys who have to work on Saturday."

Still, the guy who works on Saturday need not be entirely crestfallen. With no distracting World Series on Sunday, he can watch NFL football—on CBS.

SMOKE IN SUN VALLEY

For several years it has been a smoldering secret that the Union Pacific Railroad wanted to unload its posh—and impoverished—ski resort in Sun Valley, Idaho. Somewhat out of the way, the country's oldest and most lavishly operated ski area has never paid U.P. an avalanche of profits since it was built in 1936. Now the hot tip is that U.P. has found an itchy buyer for the 46,000-acre property. And when the railroad directors meet in Omaha next week, they probably will approve an offer made by Janss Corp., a California real-estate development firm.

The Sun Valley rumor mongers also say that Janss will lease the valley inns to a hotel-motel company (perhaps Western International) and will subdivide the lands bordering the ski lifts. One observer has noted new survey stakes around Averell Harriman's lodge. Harriman, who planned the picturesque resort as a publicity stunt for his railroad in the first place, may be going to stay on to see if change means progress and profit.

EN GARDE

How the French love to shoot! Whether they shoot at rabbits, at deer or at one another does not seem to matter. Last year, for example, French hunters sent 1,172 of their number to first-aid stations or hospitals and 165 to their graves. This year, say insurance experts dolefully adjusting their rates, 200 more will die.

With more leisure and more money to spend on it, the French hunter is indomitable if not indestructible. Almost 2 million licenses were sold last year for $5 and, despite a $3 rise, 6% more will be sold this year. And when open season was declared last week in 57 of the country's northern departments—including the woodland boulevards and courtyards of Paris itself—sporting-goods stores were jammed with gadget-minded shoppers, ordinary farmlands became hunting preserves and the newspapers stopped denouncing the slaughter on the highways only to attack the slaughter of the fields.