Sport: After Byrnes, Baseball?

The double-barreled blast at sport by War Mobilizer Jimmy Byrnes (TIME Jan. 1) reaped a hectic harvest. His order padlocking U.S. race tracks produced a multitude of moans from horse-folk, but mightier still was the chorus of questions that sprang from all kinds of sport fans all over the nation: did re-examination of 4-F athletes indicate the near-end of every sport, especially big-league baseball?

At week’s end, no one knew the score—for certain. But Washington insiders held to the notion that racing was the one real target of the crackdown, and that the crack about re-examination of 4-Fs was a sop to silence race-track squawks. For one thing, every rejected draft registrant always has been subject to re-examination at any time; for another, it is no secret that Washington was sorely irked by last year’s race-track gambling of a billion dollars that might have gone into war bonds, and by the increase in war-plant absenteeism during Los Angeles’ recent Hollywood Park meeting. It was a good bet, as most big-league club owners agreed, that baseball at least would carry on.