The Truth about Beizbol

The Russians, who claim to have invented everything from the steam engine to radar, also originated baseball--according to the Soviet magazine Smena, a publication of the Young Communist League. Beizbol, said Smena last week, is an "imitation" of lapta* which "was played in Russian villages before the United States was on the map."

But in appropriating lapta, the capitalist U.S. perverted it into "a bestial battle, a bloody fight with murder and mayhem." Teams are called by such aggressive names as Tigrov and Piratov. A big-league player, if he is not killed in action, lasts only six or seven seasons; by that time he is "ruined in health and often also crippled." The capitalists squeeze huge profits out of beizbol, but the proletarian players are "in a condition of slavery . . . bought and sold and thrown out the door when they are no longer needed." Perhaps because the editors feared that readers might not swallow the whole story, Smena failed to mention that 1) players sometimes steal bases during a game, 2) fans have been known to call for an umpire's death, 3) sport-writers often report that a team was trounced, drubbed, thrashed, lambasted, walloped, pummeled, mauled, clubbed, axed, flayed, skinned, ripped, torn, smashed, crushed, murdered, massacred or slaughtered.

Another Young Communist publication, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, belabored the Soviet Olympic squad for its performance at Helsinki though it racked up an unofficial point score second only to the U.S. score. But that was not good enough, said Komsomolskaya Pravda. As a matter of fact, both trainers and athletes fell down on the job. Because of their trainer's incompetence, the sprinters were sadly out of condition. The tactical preparation of the distance runners was "primitive." Item: two marathoners "overestimated their strength and did not show the necessary will to victory."

* Described in the official Soviet encyclopedia as a bat-and-ball game played on a broad field with "cities" marked off at either end. "The players in turn . . . knock a ball up and ahead and, during its flight, run around to the 'city' of the opposing team and back. The opponents try to catch the ball and strike the runner with it."

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