14-Foot Ball Gives Swimmers Thrill
A FOURTEEN foot ball with over 100 handholes is providing much sport for bathers at southern California beaches.
The ball is made of sheet iron laid over a network framing of angle iron. It is, of course, hollow and very buoyant. The object is for one group of players to submerge the colors of their opponents. For this reason, the two halves of the ball are painted brilliantly in contrasting colors.
Coaster Sled Rides Like Bike
WHAT amounts to a cross between a bicycle and a coaster sled was recently introduced for the delectation of winter sports enthusiasts. Designed for rapid travel down an incline or on either ice or snow, the device has a single runner with handle bars and foot-brake, as shown in the photo at right. The sturdy frame will easily support a 200-lb. man.
Portable?
Electric Eyes Gauge Speed of Baseball
How fast can a baseball player throw a ball? A portable machine that answers this question was tried out recently at Cleveland, Ohio. Hurled into a tunnel, the ball cuts across two light beams aimed at photo-electric cells, and a mechanism registers the speed by a light flashed onto a vertical scale. Bob Feller, Cleveland pitcher, threw a ball at the rate of about seventy-five miles an hour in a test with the machine.
Swimmer Eats While Floating
In training for a projected long-distance swim from Atlantic City, N. J., to the water-front site of the World’s Fair in New York City, Norris Kellam, 381-pound endurance swimmer, is shown at the right practicing the technique of eating while floating on his back. During his swim, Kellam plans to lunch once every two hours.
Bicycle Tobogganing Is New Winter Sport
BICYCLE toboggans are adding new thrills to winter sports in Europe, where a strap-iron frame resembling a bicycle in shape, but equipped with broad iron runners instead of wheels, has made its appearance on the hills.
The SPIN SHOTS of TABLE TENNIS
By Coleman ClarkFormer National Champion OF ALL the games in which a ball is used, table tennis by all odds is the “spinniest.”
Willie Hoppe, the billiard wizard, puts plenty of “English” on the cue ball and Dizzy Dean flicks his wrist and manipulates his ringers as he whizzes the revolving ball through the air to get his “up-shoots,” “outs,” “ins” and “drops.” Every golfer knows one sort of spin makes his ball slice and a different one brings about a hook. Smart lawn tennis players consciously impart certain spins or twists to the ball to force their opponents into errors. Even top-notch bowlers get more strikes if they roll “hooks” by a simple twist of the wrist as the ball leaves their fingers.
Golfer Sights Green in Thirty-Foot Periscope
When hazards are mountain-high, a golfer really needs a periscope. There is one hole on the Aberdovey course in North Wales where the green, only 165 yards away, is quite out of sight and it’s not safe to drive until you have peeked in the periscope to learn whether the foursome ahead has putted down and moved out of the way. The periscope is thirty feet high. Sand hills form the natural hazard that obscures the view from the tee.
SNOWSHOE-SHAPED RACKET MAKES TENNIS EASIER
Designed to distribute strain evenly, a curious new tennis racket has made its appearance in England. The shape of its frame suggests that of a snowshoe. Branching arms form a “V” with a short handle at their bottom and a webbed oval for striking the ball is enclosed between them at the top. The inventor of the new racket is F. W. Donisthorpe, professional tennis champion of Great Britain in 1924-1925 and an internationally famous player of the game.
Rubber Clubs Add Zest to Golf
A NEW type of rubber driver holds the interest of Harvey Firestone, Sr., rubber magnate, shown here with James Thomson, of New York, at Ormond Beach, Fla. This is the type of club which Mr. Firestone is using in his play against the elder John D. Rockefeller. The head of the driver is faced with wood over lead filling.
Belgian General Learns to Bat
GENERAL JACQUES, of the Belgian army, received a lesson in batting from an expert during his stay in America, when Babe Ruth showed the famous soldier how to “line ‘em out.” The Babe demonstrated where to meet the ball, how to stand at the plate, and how to swing.
The general proved to be an apt pupil for a man who had never had his hands on a baseball, and is said to have knocked out a couple of creditable hits. His lessons in batting, however, were not extensive enough to put him in the home run class.
100,000 See Soap Box Derby
President M. J. Coyle presents the Soap Box Derby Trophy to Herbert Muench while the American runner up, Harold Hansen, and the International runner-up, Norman Neumann, of South Africa, look on.
Mrs. Herbert E. Muench happily embraces her son, Herbert, winner of the 1936 Soap Box Derby. Representing a St. Louis newspaper, young Muench set a pace of 39 miles per hour over a 1,100 foot course. His time was 28.2 seconds for the run, just two seconds faster than the runner-up, Harold Hansen, of White Plains, New York. The Derby was sponsored by the Chevrolet Motor Co. and 116 newspapers.
Breaking Balloon With Stick at 50 M.P.H. Is New Sport
STEADY nerves and a keen eye are required to accomplish this trick shown at left. This young woman is poking a four-foot stick at a toy balloon while driving her car 50 m.p.h. past the pole on which the balloon is mounted. The stick is pointed at one end with a sharp piece of metal so that when a “strike” is made score can be kept by counting the number of balloons broken.
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