Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1911 — SPORTING FACTS AND FANCIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

S PORTING FACTS A ND FANCIES

Friends of Battling Nelson are happy to know a benefit In his behalf would be a huge joke. Ottumwa should not complaip. That little Cub episode has put the town on the 1911 baseball map. Both Referee Selig and Moran want the credit for saving Battling Nelson’s life. Bat would like to take a tap at both for their impertinence. Competition is free in one thing; anyway, and that is athletics. Maybe that is the reason both the A. A. U. and the A. A. F. are thriving. “American baseball players lose their batting eyes in Cuba,” says Umpire Bill Evans. Maybe the Cuban twlrlers have a little to do with it. . The National Trotting association is trying to fumigate that sport and it Is hoped the move will travel along at a dizzy pace. The question arises: Are barnstorming trips of championship ball teams more detrimental than the constant glare of the footlights In vaudeville? All the major league magnates are willing to trade players except Connie Mack. Connie wouldn’t break up his winning combination for loVe or money. Philadelphia is a slow town, admits s newspsper of the Quaker city, hut is not so slow thst it would fall for a bicycle meet like another burg they call the metropolis. There Is no disposition apparent among wrestling officials anywhere to “nag” Frank Qotch. It Is much easier to nab s world's title If the big lowan stays In retirement. Aviators are becoming almost as adept as fancy skaters in cuttttng up their little capers, but none has been so audacious as to cut his mme in the aqueous vapor of the clouds. A prise fight at Schenectady was stopped because It was too tame. Other cities are suppressing ring bouts because they are too brutal. What la the game up against, anyway? The way the old-timers of the ring hang on is a caution. Jem Mace, who fought WO battles, lived to he seventynine years old. and his sparring partner. Bill Clark, Is still kicking around at eighty.