Scorecard

THIS WAY EVERYONE GETS HURT

Hardly had Dennis Ralston, No. 1 U.S. amateur, been reinstated to the Davis Cup team than Captain George MacCall announced the loss of another member, Cliff Richey, who had been expected to play the No. 2 singles position against the Mexicans two weeks hence. On orders from his father-teacher, George Richey, Cliff quit just as he was about to be fired by MacCall.

The real antagonists in this unpleasant situation are Father Richey and Captain MacCall. MacCall feels that the elder Richey was encroaching on the team captain's responsibilities. The Richeys retort that MacCall made Cliff take an experimental and unproved drug when he injured his thumb in Europe. They were also put out when MacCall objected to young Richey's frequent transatlantic telephone calls to his father. Nor have Cliff's uncourtly court manners helped the situation. In one of his volatile seizures he cursed a Greek opponent who, understanding English perfectly, demanded that MacCall order Cliff to apologize. MacCall did, and this further incensed the 18-year-old.

It would seem that it is the Richeys who must give in. Cliff's talent, nurtured by his father, who is undoubtedly one of the finest teaching professionals in this country, has grown too big just to stay in the family. U.S. tennis needs him this year and beyond. And Cliff will need Davis Cup competition to reach the top as quickly as he desires. He has no right to say, as he does, "I could never play for MacCall." George MacCall is the U.S. captain, and the U.S. is the only team Richey can play for.

SLAUGHTER ON THE HIGH SEAS

The world's supply of billfish—striped marlin, blue marlin, black marlin and sailfish—as well as various tunas is being subjected to a heavy drain by commercial fishing operations of the Japanese, the Chinese and, perhaps, the Russians, according to the July Bulletin of the Sport Fishing Institute. It quotes Dr. James E. Morrow of the University of Alaska as reporting that the Japanese process more than one million pounds of black marlin each year, converting the fish into sausage. And, he says, Chinese and Japanese commercial landings of striped marlin "run into millions of pounds annually."

The effect of this slaughter has been noted in the once renowned sport fishing waters off New Zealand's Mayor Island, where no big fish were taken on rod and reel in 1964, as against 900 in 1949. In the early 1950s Japanese fishing boats appeared in these waters and took great quantities of black marlin and broadbill swordfish. The Bulletin rightly notes that the Japanese require tremendous quantities of fish to feed their people, but it adds that "if the stocks are being depressed as severely as these reports suggest, there is need for quick action at the international level to devise and apply adequate conservation programs." To which we add our own voice.

DRINKERS IN THE DRINK
As part of Mexico's ambitious border improvement program, the government has built a plush new tourist hotel in Ju�rez near the Museo de Arte e Historia and the city's elegant horse and dog track. The Camino Real Motor Hotel opened this month, landscaped in a tropical theme with waterfalls, flowers, shrubbery and one special item that is causing talk in every dusty bunkhouse and missile site in the Southwest. Its swimming pool has a wade-in bar.

IF THE SHOE FITS

Americans nervous about the speed with which Russia is catching up to us in basketball are warned that the U.S.S.R. will have two new giants ready for the 1968 Olympics. An order received by the Converse Rubber Company from a Russian sports commissar requested 42 pairs of sneakers in the normal (for basketball players) range of sizes 11 through 13. But there also were requests for two pairs each of sizes 18 and 19. ( Wilt Chamberlain wears a 17 and Bill Russell a 14.)