19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

TRUST ANYONE OVER 30
Sirs:
For many years now I have read and enjoyed your fine publication, but now I must protest. Pete Axthelm states that the Toronto defense consists of "three old men and a rookie" (Crashing into a New Ice Age, Nov. 6). I wish to say that it would be hard to find three better defensemen in all of hockey than Tim Horton, Allan Stanley and Marcel Pronovost. As for Johnny Bower, is it really so important that he is getting old? He has proved himself to be a great goalie and a great athlete. Bower has more ability and skill than many goaltenders now in the NHL.

I also find it shocking that you could criticize Gordie Howe simply because he is getting on in years. Gordie Howe is a hockey master, and when he leaves, the sport will suffer a great loss.

Although I am a young man I scorn those who tend to count a player out simply because he is over 30. Punch Imlach has won several Stanley Cups with many players over 30. For that matter, on November 1, the Maple Leafs defeated the mighty Montreal Canadiens 5-0 with your aging cripple, Bower, in goal.
DOUG GARBIG
Toronto

Sirs:
Pete Axthelm's predictions for the NHL are really a spoof. Where did Mr. Axthelm find out that the Toronto Maple Leafs are "rated the most likely to drop out of the playoffs"? The Leafs not only won the exhibition season, they won it without several key players who were involved in contract talks. True, preseason games mean little to the outcome of actual season play, but to win without stars like Jim Pappin, Bob Pulford and Larry Hillman is a minor miracle. All three players figured prominently in the Leafs' Stanley Cup victory.

It seems Mr. Axthelm got his tips from Frank Deford, who picked the Knickerbockers to finish third—and look where they are now!
GORO FORSYTHE
Windsor, Ont.

POETIC INJUSTICE?
Sirs:
Marianne Moore is a marvelous poet, but I think she has things backward when she says: "Ballplayers' uniforms seem to me not so trim as formerly. They should not look like babies' sleepers or snowsuits" (SCORECARD, Nov. 13). Baseball uniforms used to be big and billowy, with the trousers in particular flapping like loose spinnakers. But in the last two decades things have tightened up. Here are a couple of photographs to illustrate my argument.

The day before the 1963 World Series began, Roy Campanella, the old Dodger catcher, was wheeled down to the edge of the field to watch the Yankees and Dodgers in batting practice. Several of the older players on both teams—men who had played with and against Campy before his crippling accident in 1958—came over to talk with him. Campy made a comment about the tight fit of the uniforms. "That's the way they make them now, Roy," one of the players said. "They don't make those old baggy things we used to wear." Campanella laughed and said, "Now I know why I used to run so slow. It was wind resistance from those old uniforms."
GEORGE SLOCUM
New York City

SEX AND IVY
Sirs:
Concerning your article on the Dartmouth-Harvard football game (If at First You Don't Succeed, Nov. 6), the fact that the Harvard captain was worried (and rightly so) that he couldn't tell the difference between a sex symbol and a mother image does not justify running down Ivy League football and Dartmouth College. We here in Hanover can easily recognize a sex symbol when we see one. We can also recognize a good football game.

Could it be that your reporter is prejudiced against the Ivies?
DOUG JONES
Hanover, N.H.

Sirs:
It is regrettable that Pete Axthelm was unable to capture the true spirit of a Dartmouth-Harvard football game. Although social relations, sex symbols and napalm used in Vietnam are the concern of all Ivy students, our autumn Saturday afternoons are primarily reserved for action on the football field.