19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

VALUES
Sirs:
Your March 22 SCORECARD remarks about the poor being priced out of viewing the Frazier-Clay fight were callous, to say the least. It was not only the poor who were barred. I don't consider myself poor, but millions of the elderly as well as the nonunion workers are priced out of many sports events unless they are on network television. I have been a rabid sports fan all of my life, but today, due to the get-rich-quick greed of the stars in the entertainment and professional sports world, I can no longer a afford the prices.

So far as the fight was concerned, all that millions of us hoped to do was to read about it. Even with today's complete disregard for values, can you honestly maintain that those two men were worth $5 million? What will the rematch bring, twice that amount?

This era is unique. We are sports fans and never before have we been barred quite so ruthlessly.
WILLIAM A. FAIRTY
Margate, Fla.

Sirs:
Right on (as they say) with your March 22 editorial. You've got into the mainstream of American thought. "Familiar and boring" are the right terms for the Times' arguments and you might also add "shrill," like a petulant old woman.

Stay in there. You are well aware that sport seems to be the only place where excellence is rewarded and where exceptional doesn't mean retarded.
JAMES E. GATES, PH.D.
College of Business Administration
University of Georgia
Athens, Ga.

NO HOME ON THE RANGE (CONT.)
Sirs:
In regard to Part 2 of your series The Poisoning of the West (March 8 et seq.), I doubt very much if the author has ever had the experiences of caring for a flock of sheep during lambing when it is 30� below, nursing every lamb to health and tending each one until it is big enough to be turned out onto green grass only to have some mangy coyote come through and kill 20 at one time just for the fun of it. Personally, I would rather have a few grouse, chickens and pheasants running around instead of coyotes, foxes and raccoons.

It might not be a bad idea for you to get the sheepman's view; after all, most are not as terrible as your article suggests.
MRS. JOE MORSE
Twodot, Mont.

Sirs:
Jack Olsen wrote some real fine articles, but I feel he should have cut out a few extraneous comments. For instance, in Part 3 Olsen quoted some conservationists who exaggerated the number of coyotes being killed by poison by about as much as some of the sheepmen exaggerated the number of their flocks being killed by coyotes. The statement by trapper John W. Crook that the coyotes in southern Colorado had been whipped by poison in the 1940s was about as farfetched as it could be.

I live in southern Colorado and the days are few and far between that we can't step out the door at some time during the night or early morning and hear coyotes howling. We can always find fresh tracks and signs in the brush and foothills. On the contrary, coyotes obviously are gaining in numbers here.

In general I agree with Olsen. We make the main part of our living from sheep, and as long as the rabbits are left alone the coyotes bother us very little! When they do, it is usually only a certain one that will keep coming back. Coyotes did not infest the country before Government trapping began. Why should they suddenly overrun it now? It would be to the nation's shame if coyotes were brought to extinction!
NORMAN HUFMAN
Blanca, Colo.