Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 May 1943 — Page 15

WED SSDAY, MAY 5,

Burnt Cork Nearly Tripped o on]

is Tongue Trying to Finish, Says Joe of Rochester’s Nag

By JOE WILLIAMS Times Special Writer NEW YORK, May 5.—This big black car drew up in front of our hotel in Kentucky, a formidable and official looking thing and obviously armored. Ry this time of course everybody, or practically everybody in town knew the president was there. Certainly every member of the town's official family knew it, the police particularily and the newspapers.

And in due course the sports writers’ who had come into town from other parts to cover the Derby knew it. And only a newspaper reporter can tell you what it means and how it feels to have a story right in the middle of your hand and there is nothing you can do Joe Williams about it. . A very strange feeling it is too, an oppressive helpless feeling. There has got to be something disturbing about the thought that news, big news, must be concealed. You instinctively get to thinking about Goebbels, regimentation and . . . well, about a lot of things that

are not exactly what we have i! been brought up to know as the forthright American way. There's a war on? Sure. The danger of assassination? True, too. Very true. But if you are an old fashioned newspaper reporter and you come across a big story your first instinct has got to be to run for the phone. To find that circumstances, due to 8 world war, have changed all this makes it easy to understand but ndt too easy to take, But we were talking about the black ear and how everybody in Louisville knew the president was in town on one of his tours. = = =»

NATURALLY, THE presence of the car suggested the president was stopping at the Kentucky . . . and the Kentucky is the spot of the Derby crowd. Right away of course a crowd gathered. “That's his car,” everybody said. They stood there gazing and waiting and anticipating. The crowd grew by hundreds. Presently two very dark tinted bell boys attached to the hotel appeared on the fringe. One said to the other: “Know who's car that is?” “Sure,” said the other, “Rochesters.” Rochester, of course, is the Negro radio comic who had the colt, Burnt Cork, in the Derby. The colt didn't do very well. He finished last some 37 lengths off. Not only that but he started in the Derby trial some four days before and finished even a more miserable last. It was plain he was not a Derby horse. You will keep in mind that Kentucky is Kentucky, the Derby “ i the Derby and Rochester is a radio comic and radio comics or radio anythings, for that matter, are not supposed to be adverse to publicity.

» td = : i TAKING ALL these items into | consideration, Col. Buck Weaver ef the Louisville Times took quill | in hand and did himself a steam- | ing piece. “We are generous enough to admit,” said Col. Weaver, “that Rochester is good for laughs on the air, but we must insist that in the future he and other comedians reserve their form of crude humor for such an audience as would never appreciate the sacredness of the Kentucky Derby.” We quite agree with the colonel. We agree, too, that it turned out to be strictly a cheap publicity stunt . . . especially after the Derby trial which showed poor old Burnt Cork stepping on his tongue just trying to finish. But how you are going to stop this sort of thing we don’t know. After all, Burnt Cork’s record as a8 2-year-old qualified him for a start in the Derby. As it furned out he can’t go more than six furlongs without stretcherbearers or publicity agents, On the same day the big black \- ear drew up in front of the Ken\fucky hotel a wild rumor swept over the race track. Kate Smith and her manager and announcer, Ted Collins, were killed in an airplane accident. They were being ferried to some army field in a bomber and the bomber had exploded in midair. “+ Everybody was shocked. Par-

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Kate and Ted, unquestionably the two most sports-minded stars in radio. » » x KATE USED to give us a laugh by seriously trying, or trying seriously, whichever way you put it, to pick an all-American football team every year. But it wasn’t so much of a laugh at that because Kate was a football fiend and at least she knew something from nothing. Ted was a basketball fiend and for several years he had his own professional team and the team went around the country playing the best. There was always a suspicion in our mind that both Kate and Ted—like Rochester—were using sports to focus attention on their radio activities but we weakened in the end on that when we were

most part nobody knew they were there. That's usually the tip off. But here they were on this day . the day of the big black car . .» and they had been killed in a bomber and most of the writers and the broadcasters who knew them so well were feeling good and desolate about the tragie whims of fate and Mr. Joe Stevens of the famous catering family came up. “I just called the United Press in New York about it” he said, “and they laughed. ‘Nothing to it,’ they said, ‘and what’s more, they added, all those stories about Louisville running out of bourbon must be wrong’.” That was the day we had written about the dearth of Kentucky's elixir of life.

Orlando Trial Set For June 30

DETROIT, May $5 (U. P)— Jimmy Orlando, defenseman on the Detroit Red Wings hockey team, will go on trial June 30 on charges of perjury and violating the selective service act, Assistant U. S. Attorney Kenneth Wilkins disclosed today. Orlando is charged with concealing from draft authorities the fact

he had quit his job as a war plant worker to play hockey. He was indicted by a federal grand jury last April 18 and stood mute at arrangement two weeks ago.

Major League Leaders

By UNITED PRESS LEADING HITTERS (American League)

AB R RH Stephens, St. Louis.. 8 35 14 Higgins, Detroit 9 33 3 Partee, Boston S oy 5 Stirnweiss, New York 9 41 § Clary, Washington... 13 51 11

(National League)

G AB Frey, Cincinnati .... 12 49 McCarthy, Boston... 8 30 Kluttz, Boston s§ 20 PF. McCormick, Cincinnati 12 & Tipton, Cincinnati... 12 4a

HOME RUNES

Litwhiler, Phillies 3] Naylor, Phillies... 2 i? playérs tied with one each.

RUNS BATTED IN

Spence, Senators. 12/Gordon, Yankees. 10 Stephens, Browns 1 Johnson, Senators 10 Vaughan, Dodgers 10

RUNS

11 Camill, Dodgers. .

Clary, Senators.. 8 Etten, Yankees... 8 8 8

Frey, Reds Herman, Dodgers. 9! Vernon, Senators. Fletcher, Pirates. 9 White, Athletics . Elliott, Pirates... 8|

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