Little Olympics

At Lincoln, Neb. last week, the 350 foremost U. S. track and field athletes gathered to compete in the 5 6th annual American Amateur Athletic Union championships, a meet called the "Little Olympics" because the 350 included almost all the runners, jumpers and weight throwers who will foregather again in the final Olympic trials at Los Angeles next year. Among them were: Frank Wykoff, Los Angeles sprinter, who was recovering from a horse-kick during last year's championships, who has unofficially surpassed the world's record for 100 yd. (9.5 sec.), who has not been beaten in four major meets this year; Patrick J. McDonald. 52-year-old, 350-lb. Manhattan policeman who handles a 35-lb. weight as though it were a toy balloon; Percy Beard, a 23-year-old instructor in engineering at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, whose long skinny legs are well suited to the high hurdles; Leo Lermond, New York Athletic Club miler, who got off to practice on the way to Lincoln every time the train stopped; Wilson Charles, Oneida Indian decathlon champion, whose foremost rival was large and angular Jess Mortensen, onetime Southern California javelin-throwing champion; George Spitz, N. Y. U. freshman who high-jumped well over six feet when he was a school boy and now holds the world's unofficial indoor record; Barney Berlinger, Pennsylvania's all-around man; Herman Brix, blond Los Angeles giant who had won the shot-put championship three years in a row and won it again last week; Eddie Tolan, Michigan's stubby Negro, and many another runner who has not yet been outrun by renown. The red track in Lincoln's municipal stadium was fast and hard the first breezy day, when the junior champion-ships--for athletes who have never won a championship--were contested. The next afternoon rain made dark spots on the cinders. There were 10,000 spectators in the stands by the time the 120-yd. high hurdles were run. Beard was expected to win but no one had expected him to win the way he did, leaving Lee Sentman of Illinois behind him at the fourth bar, winning by two full yards. His time, 14.2 sec., was | sec. better than the world's record made by Dartmouth's Earl Thomson in 1920. In the clear evening, when huge arc-lights made the grass sparkle, another world's record was broken. Policeman McDonald tossed his 35-lb. weight 21 ft. 6 in., six inches farther than the 18-year-old record set by his onetime teammate, Patrick Ryan. Leo Lermond won the mile race by a yard over his New York Athletic Club teammate Gene Venzke; behind them both came another New York A. C. runner, Frank Crowley. All three were far ahead of the defending champion, Ray Conger. Frank Wykoff ran the loo-yd. dash in 9.5 sec., a yard and a half ahead of Emmett Toppino of Loyola, three yards ahead of Eddie Tolan. But Tolan won the 220-yd. race in the fastest time ever made around a curved track, in a great finish against Ralph Metcalfe of Chicago. The new decathlon champion was Jess Mortensen. Against the most imposing field in U. S. track-meet history he scored 8,177.463 points, passing the recognized world's record of 8.053.290, made by Paavo Yrjola in the 1928 Olympics. Berlinger was fifth, Indian Charles second. Los Angeles A. C. won the team championship with 43 points. New York A. C. was second.

Baseball, July 4

Baseball legend says that the team which leads the league on July 4 will win the pennant. Last week the World's Champion Philadelphia Athletics were still leading the American league, five and a half games ahead of Washington. In the National league, the St. Louis Cardinals were three and a half games ahead of the New York Giants, five games ahead of Brooklyn which had just won 16 out of 20 home games.

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