Sport: Sport: Kudos Nov. 14, 1938

Baseball’s best. The Baseball Writers Association of America is a brotherhood of crotchety misogynists (at least during working hours) who refuse to allow women sportswriters to sit in its press boxes. The fraternity enjoys such perquisites as free sojourns in the South during spring training and deluxe road trips during the season (usually as guests of the major-league clubs). In return, the Association’s members keep baseball alive by reporting its games at great length and they also perform the annual post-season chore of selecting the “most valuable player” in each major league.

Last week the baseball writers made their selections: Jimmy Foxx of the Boston Red Sox (in the American League), and Ernie Lombardi of the Cincinnati Reds (in the National). For big-nosed, slow-footed, 220-lb. Catcher Lombardi, who guided Rookie Pitcher Johnny Vander Meer through his two famed no-hit games last summer and outbatted (.342) every other player in the league this season, it was his first taste of fame in eight years of banging around the National League.

First Baseman Foxx, who turned in the outstanding feat of the year—50 home-runs, 174 runs driven in and a batting average of .349—nonchalantly added this year’s trophy to two others he has at home. Most valuable in 1932 and 1933 (when he was with the Athletics), Slugger Foxx, who was last year considered a has-been, last week became the first three-time No. 1 man since the poll was started in 1922.

Polo’s best. The U. S. Polo Association is a clique of moneyed, polo-playing aristocrats who not only govern the game but keep tabs on every poloist who plays well enough to compete in any of its sanctioned tournaments. Once a year these august gentlemen re-rank U. S. poloists, upping the handicaps of some, lowering those of others.

Last week, when the U. S. Polo Association announced 284 changes in its 1938 handicap list, most noteworthy news was the upping of 27-year-old Michael Phipps of Old Westbury, Long Island, from nine goals to ten (top notch). With Tommy Hitchcock, Stewart Iglehart and Cecil Smith already ranked at ten goals, the U. S. can (and probably will—barring accidents) name a 40-goal team, theoretically the best in the world, to defend the Westchester Cup in the international matches with England next summer. Not since 1925 has the U. S. had such a top-notch four.