Sport: Scoreboard, Oct. 10, 1960

¶ “I don’t care what you guys write about me,” he once told sportswriters. “All I want is for folks to turn and say, ‘There goes the greatest hitter that ever lived.’ ” By last week, at the ancient baseball age of 42, Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox had very nearly had his wish. Williams led the American League in hitting six times, twice was voted its most valuable player by the sportswriters and might well have won the honor at least twice more if he had deigned to give the most casual smile to newsmen. But Williams never cared about pleasing anyone, including the fans: “They can all go to hell. I’ll never tip my cap to any of them.” In his final time at bat in Boston’s Fenway Park last week, Williams dramatically drove a 420-ft. home run into the Red Sox bullpen. The fans’ ovation followed him around the bases. After the game Williams announced he was quitting then and there instead of finishing out the season on the road. His lifetime average of .344 already was the fifth-best in modern baseball, and his home-run total of 521 (compiled despite spending nearly five seasons in the Marine Air Corps) was third only to Jimmy Foxx’s 534 and Babe Ruth’s 714.

¶ Moments after the opening kickoff, Kansas turned a recovered fumble into a 7-0 lead and for three quarters seemed headed for the upset of the year over the nation’s top-ranked team, Syracuse. Syracuse crunched up and down the field with its customary power (22 first downs v. 4 for Kansas), but did not take the lead until the fourth quarter when Halfback Ernie Davis crashed across from the 1-yd. line to put Syracuse ahead. Abruptly, the breaks of the game swung against Kansas: a penalty for an illegal backfield shift killed the drive that seemed headed for the winning touchdown. Final score: Syracuse 14, Kansas 7.

¶ In a weekend of improbable scores, the big news was in the Big Ten. Purdue scored four touchdowns and a field goal in a wild second quarter, went on to rout Notre Dame, 51-19. Minnesota showed surprising strength while defeating Indiana, 42-0, as did Iowa while beating Northwestern by precisely the same score. Missouri gained more prestige for the rising Big Eight (its main rival: Kansas) by beating Penn State, 20-8. And Harvard, a strong pre-season favorite to win the Ivy League, suffered the humiliation of a 27-12 loss to the University of Massachusetts.