view additional pages

PLAYGROUNDS IN THE SKY

Here is MI’s hold plan to fight juvenile delinquency and get kids off the street.

THE scene is your city on a sticky, sweltering twilight in midsummer. Lights are beginning to wink on and kids are starting to gather in the streets after the evening meal.

A few years ago this was the danger hour in your city. You remember it well—the nightly muggings would begin about now and young girls would be afraid to venture out alone. Beatings were commonplace and gang wars, fiercely fought with knives and zip-guns, were a frequent occurrence. But things are different now. Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

The Mechanics of Baseball

By Babe Ruth

The Sultan of Swat! The Bustin’ Babe! The most colorful player the game has ever seen! In these terms we habitually think of Babe Ruth. In this article he reveals many of the secrets that have made him the game’s most valuable player.

IT SEEMS strange to talk or write of baseball mechanics. Yet the term is a good one, for we who play baseball are as much mechanicians as the engineers who develop airplanes, the men who operate engines or the mechanic who tinkers with an automobile in a garage. The only difference is in the engine. Read the rest of this entry »

For some reason when I first saw this I thought that the guy skiing in the robe was the pope.

SKIING ROBE—INDOOR SKI TRAILS

ONE of the latest innovations for skiing, exhibited at the Winter Resorts during the past season, is the robe shown here. This serves a dual purpose. With the wind behind the sports enthusiast, his progress across the snow is speeded up greatly. When it becomes necessary to negotiate jumps, the robe serves partially as a parachute. The reader should not think that this robe decreases, to any appreciable extent, the speed of “flight” through the air. The robe merely serves as a means for maintaining balance.

In Paris, indoor ski tracks have coconut matting sprinkled with hypo making an effective snow substitute.

NEWEST GAME-”SMASH”
SMASH! Into the sturdy, collapsible plywood backstop goes the tough little polyethylene ball. How it returns is anybody’s guess until you’ve learned how to play the angles against an opponent’s weaknesses. Big thing about this new paddle game is that it’s fun from the beginning, can develop great skill and condition in the player and uses a space only 9 by 12 feet in your garage, cellar, porch or driveway. Schools, Y’s and youth clubs are using it and Aussie tennis stars showed it off at Olympic Village, Melbourne.

Los Angeles Kids Build Their Own Tom Thumb Course

ADDICTION to miniature golf is not being confined to grown ups; the infection has spread to the younger generation, who, following in the footsteps of the older generation, are building miniature courses of their own.

One of the most distinctive is the “Dinky” course, as they call it, which was built by several enterprising youngsters in Los Angeles. In preparing the course, they first got permission to use a vacant lot, then cut weeds, dug, and graded, laid out hazards, and constructed traps, and when the work was finished, held a grand opening, charging ten cents per round. The course, shown at right, is a model of neatness, and attracts kids from the entire neighborhood.

view additional pages

All Ready, Lift! Brains only Need for STRENGTH Feats

“FEATS of strong men all remind us—”

no, that’s wrong as far as quoting poetry is concerned! What we do want to say is that brains — not strength — is the prime need for all these stunts we see performed almost every day.

Take the case of a small 100-pound girl. She can resist the efforts of the strongest man who strives to lift her from the floor by getting him to place both his hands on her waist. Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

Get Some NEW THRILLS from WINTER SPORTS

You’ll never know the last word in winter sport thrills till you’ve tried out the ingenious stunts set forth here. Apply them to the nearest hill or lake and winter will have a new meaning to you and your gang.

by DALE R. VAN HORN

WHAT’S more fun on a nippy night than a hearty skating party, or a sojourn to the neighborhood coasting track? Speak up; what is?

There’s glamour about a winter night and there’s plenty of fun awaiting you. Steep, snow-surfaced hills call for sleds and toboggans; smooth ice on lake and pond coax and beg for skates to line their smooth expanses with hair lines and ice shavings.

Here are enough stunts for snow and ice activities to keep you entertained for quite some time. They’ve all been tried and found quite thrilling. Most of them you will revamp to your own inclinations and local limitations.
Read the rest of this entry »

Water Golf Is Played From Rafts
THERE are no water hazards on a certain golf course in Pasadena, California—the entire course is laid out on the water. Caddies paddle the golfers about the course on tiny rafts. The holes are floating cups, anchored in position.

Here’s the premiere of the dreaded Shea Stadium.

view additional pages

A NEW HOME FOR THE METS

By Herbert Shuldiner

CASEY STENGEL’S hapless New York Mets, holders of the worst baseball record in history, now have the newest park in the nation. The ancient manager hopes this will finally put his team in the winning column. But even if it doesn’t, towering new Shea Stadium, an $18,000,000 convertible ball park opening this month, will be one of the most convenient sports arenas in the world.
Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

Build this Basketball Scoreboard for your Gym

Spectators at your school or club basketball games will get a bigger kick out of the battle if they can keep an eye on this electric scoreboard, which tells at a glance how the game stands and how much time is left to play. Take the idea to your coach— he’ll welcome it.

by E. A. RERUCHA

THERE is a distinct advantage, from the spectators’ interest standpoint, In having a scoreboard controlled directly from the officials’ table, so that the official score and time left to play can instantly be flashed before the spectators as the game progresses.

The electric scoreboard described in this article is operated by means of a control box from the officials’ table and the score, and other information, is flashed on the board by means of sections of lamps, certain sections of lights in various combinations making up the required number to indicate the score, whatever it may be. Read the rest of this entry »

Huge Vacuum Cleaner Sweeps Golf Links to Find Balls

SEARCH for golf balls lost in dried cut grass may no longer be a bugbear to golfers, thanks to a giant vacuum sweeper, recently invented, that picks up leaves, grass, paper, etc., from fairways.

Utilizing the principles of the ordinary household cleaner the unique machine, shown above, is capable of clearing debris from nine golf fairways in one day.

A “planer blower,” mounted on a trailer, furnishes the suction, drawing the debris with such force that it is blown through a long pipe into a cage built on a motor truck. An old automobile motor mounted on the trailer furnishes power for the blower.

Robot Twirler – ‘Iron Man’ Pitcher
“OVERHAND JOE,” batting practice hurler for the Pittsburgh Pirates and other clubs, is shorter than Bobby Shantz, three times as heavy as Bobo New-som and can pitch a ball faster than the Yankees’ Allie Reynolds. He pitches every nine seconds—has a 90-day warranty.