19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

About the only improvement one could offer is Bill Klem's stock rejoinder to any and all complaints—I've never made a wrong call. The utter simplicity of Mr. Klem's logic is often overlooked by persons who assume hastily that it is merely an arrogant statement of a rather pugnacious man. Only a real baseball aficionado can appreciate the Tightness of his statement; I think Mr. Stratton's piece amply demonstrates it....
C. EVERETT CHILTON
Omaha

?And then there was the time when John McGraw, having just been thrown out of the game by Klem, yelled: "I'll have your job for this!" Klem answered: "If it's possible for you to take my job, then I don't want it."—ED.

DETROIT PAPERS PLEASE COPY
Sirs:
Paul Richards' engrossing narration to Roy Terrell on the fortunes of the Baltimore Orioles and his principles regarding trading and the handling of personnel (SI, Aug. 6) is as logical an explanation of winning baseball as I have encountered. I only wish that you would forward a carefully delineated copy of the aforementioned to the officers of the Detroit Baseball Company. Better yet, send the Wizard of Waxahachie himself.

Umpire Stratton's unique story is just another in a long line of controversial articles that your magazine has published. This courageous gesture should endear you to many professional arbiters. It should also help the average fan who longs to know more of the inside of the game of baseball, and, if digested intelligently, make a better fan of him.

More articles of this nature and published views of officials and players of the game would tend to put your magazine on an even higher plane of profound sports reporting. Your reporters' various styles are fine, but their material is usually something less than new, like a review. But material like this, plus others such as the Bratton and Roe stories laced into the entire pattern, produces a magazine embracing the entire field of athletics, competitive and otherwise. I am sure this is the ultimate you are striving to attain, and I assure you that you are succeeding.
R. JOSEPH HEAGANY
Saginaw, Mich.