19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

SECOND STRING
Sirs:
The 1966 All-Star Game ends in yet another frustrating defeat for the American League and thousands of loyal American League fans must wonder why.

As I watched this game on television, I couldn't help thinking that the National League 's starting lineup was presenting, position for position, the top nine men in their league but that the American League was not.

Where, for instance, was John (Boog) Powell , the man who, in my opinion, will be chosen the American League 's most valuable player at season's end? He wasn't even in St. Louis , though he is most certainly the league's outstanding first baseman.

And why was Dick McAuliffe at short and leading off against the game's best left-handed pitcher? Dick's own American League manager sometimes benches him against average left-handers. He has trouble hitting left-handed pitching.

Then again why was the light-hitting Bobby Knoop at second base? Great fielder that he is, he isn't in the same class as Bobby Richardson as an all-round second baseman.

Second guessing, as I am well aware, is frowned up n, but I still feel that an early-inning base hit by a John Powell could have changed the entire complexion of this so-called dream game and led to an American League victory.

So why, oh why, doesn't the American League make some effort to field its best team at All-Star time?
WILLIAM T. WELCH
Detroit

THE LIMIT
Sirs:
Recently I sent you an ill-tempered letter in criticism of your apparent indifference to four deaths in unlimited hydroplane racing. I am now sorry that I wrote that letter, and I apologize for it, because I find the subject very properly covered in your SCORLCARD department of July 18.

Supplementing your editorial remarks I can only comment that in recent years the unlimiteds have reached their absolute speed limit. They skim the water with no frictional wetted surface except the tips of the stabilizing fins and lower half of the propeller. In the air man has been able to fly faster than the speed of sound and so pass the compression barrier. But, unlike air, water is not compressible so the unlimited hydros find themselves quite literally with no place to go.

Unlimited hydroplane racing has in recent years tended to become less and less an amateur sport, as so many of the entries now have commercial sponsors and professional drivers. The same thing happened to automobile racing.