Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1909 — THE SPORTING WORLD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE SPORTING WORLD

Jim Rector May Retire. Despairing of ever meeting the South African sprinter. Walker, in a hundred yard dash or meter race, James A. Rector, the University of Virginia sprinter, has announced his retirement from track athletics for good and ail. Rector will enter a law office in St. Louis this fall and will not run in competition again unless Walker should

decide to come to America. In such an event the Virginian will use every endeavor to arrange a race with him. That bis defeat in tbe Anal beat in the hundred meter dash at tbe London Olympics was a bitter disappointment to Rector is well known and is rendered more bitter by the fact that be believes be is the better man of tbe two. When Walker announced last winter that he would visit America. Rector determined to race him and prove conclusively which was the speedier runner. Tbe change in the plans of the South African was con sequently another disappointment to the Virginia runner. Monument to Jack Dempsey. John S. Barnes, globe trotter, one time holder of the world’s championship at 100 yards, ex-professional boxer and wrestler, and all round athlete at fifty-five years, has launched a plan in Spokane. Wash., to start a national fund among the followers of fistiana to erect a tombstone in memory of Jack Dempsey, the Nonpariel. whose remains are in an unmarked grave, hidden by a patch of dark weeds in a cemetery at Portland, Ore. He said in discussing tbe project: “Dempsey was more to Americans than a pugilist He was a man among men, square as a die, game to the core, clean in mind and body, a credit to American athletics. He deserves a stone, if any of our great dead deserve it. In starting this fund I wish it to be placed in the name of an established trust company or responsible business men.” Barnes, whtxls a remarkably well preserved man at his age. will be re membered by many as surprising the sporting world a few years ago by offering to meet any man in the world more than fifty years of age in running, jumping, wrestling and boxing contests. He became a professional sprinter at eighteen and at twenty-one won the world’s championship 100 yard dash at the Philadelphia Centennial. He has in his possession a certificate showing he ran 100 yards in nine and three fourth seconds in 1883 at Bellevue, Ontario. He became a professional boxer and beat some of the best men of his day. Baseball In England. Baseball appears to be taking a hold in England. Thousands of clubs have been organized all over the kingdom and in Scotland. Ireland is also taking up the American game. The cheapness of the baseball outfit as compared with that of cricket Is one reason why the small boy in England takes the American game in preference. He can get a ball for sevenpence halfpenny and a bat for the same amount. American Team to Go Abroad. Eighteen football players, the best that can be procured in this country, will leave Providence, R. 1., the Ist of September for a tour of England, where they will engage the crack teams of that country. This is the first time in nearly twenty years that an American socker football team has invaded England, and the trip, jt is believed, will be of great benefit to the future of tbe game In this country. ■ ' New World’s Walking Record. At the Canadian athletic championship meet in Winnipeg, Canada, George H. Gouldlng of Toronto In the aille walk broke the world’s record by covering tbe distance In 6 minutes 25 1-S seconds. This lowered not only the American record of 6 minutes 292-5 seconds, but also clipped four-fifths of a second off tbe world’s mark made by G. BL Larner at Brighton, England, In 1904.

JIM RECTOR.