Sport: Scientifically Dirty

More than ever before, this season professional football needs its rookies to fill up its ranks. Injuries are ripping through rosters so steadily that sports pages read like medical reports. Even sanguine Coach Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers admits: “These days, we’re happy to get out of games with our lives.”

By week’s end the hospital squad included some of the game’s best box-office draws. New York Giant Runner Tucker Frederickson was out with torn ligaments in his right knee. Having just recovered from a similar injury to his left knee, he was so gloomy that he was threatening to quit football. A wrecked knee cartilage has also sidelined New York Jets Emerson Boozer and Matt Snell; a dislocated shoulder stopped Baltimore Colt End Raymond Berry; broken bones have benched Giant Tackle Jim Moran and Clem Daniels, top rusher of the A.F.L.-leading Oakland Raiders. Kansas City Linebacker E. J. Holub, a veteran of seven previous knee operations faces surgery again—this time for a torn hamstring muscle.

The list lengthens with every game, and a rising chorus is beginning to suggest that the rash of injuries is more than just the breaks of the game. “Dirty players are gone,” answers Tackle Henry Jordan, but his disingenuous comment suggests that the writers and fans may be right. Today’s players, he says, are “so well trained they know how to hurt you scientifically.” Packer Linebacker Lee Roy Caffey, himself an ankle patient, explains that money adds to their skill. When you put enough cash on the line, says Caffey, “it tends to bring out the best in people.” It also brings out the elbows, knees and helmets that can be almost lethal when propelled by the beef of today’s pros.