> Dennis Ralston: the national indoor tennis championship, by beating Britain’s Mike Sanfjster, 22, in four hard-fought sets with his smoking ground shots and slicing service at Manhattan’s Seventh Regiment Armory. Though Ralston, 20, is considered one of the best U.S. tennis prospects in years, his incendiary temper has often been his undoing; his racket slamming and blue language in a 1961 Davis Cup match against Mexico earned him a four-month suspension. This time, he slipped only twice, bellowing out “Concentrate!” and “You idiot!” at himself when he fluffed a couple of easy shots.
> Willie Mays: a $100,000 contract with the San Francisco Giants, putting him in the select company of such baseball tycoons as Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, and Ted Williams. In the 1962 season, Mays, 31, led both leagues in home runs with 49, batted in 141 runs. He hit .304 for the year, and it was his home run clout in the last regular-season game against the Houston Colts that sent the Giants into a playoff with the Los Angeles Dodgers and then into the World Series. Al ready the highest-paid active player in baseball (the aging Musial now gets an estimated $70,000), Centerfielder Mays’s raise was a $10,000 boost over last year’s salary.
> Howie Young: the dubious title of the Baddest Bad Boy in National Hockey League history, after picking up an unprecedented 27 min. in penalties in a game with the Detroit Red Wings against the Montreal Canadiens. The 25-year-old defense man, with 210 min. in the penalty box so far this season, easily surpassed the record of Montreal’s Lou Fontinato (202 min.) by clobbering two Canadien players with his stick, lunging at the referee and finally bouncing his glove off the ref’s head. Total fine for misconduct: $100, plus a three-game suspension without pay.
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