Sports Lure Some Students to Soldiers Field; Others Pick Professionalism of Boston Arenas

On a Saturday afternoon, Soldiers Field is often host to several hundred participating athletes, several thousand wandering observers, a dozen or more arbiters, field judges, and referees, a sun, and a popcorn and program man. They all combine to turn the playing fields into sort of an athletic circus, with something that's bound to interest everybody going on, somewhere, all the time.

All Perfectly Timed

Tomorrow, for example, there is an Ivy League baseball game, with Army, a lacrosse game with Williams, a track meet in the Stadium with Dartmouth, and possibly a cricket match or a rugby game, and an intersquad scrimmage in spring football. In addition there are four easily observable freshman contests, and a monster crew race down in the Charles basin, cleverly timed so that the feature races take place only after the Soldiers Field events are long since past.

The accepted system of attending a Soldiers Field sports convention, is not to get all wrapped up in one event, but to wander discreetly around the playing fields, savouring the flavor of each game. A track meet is all very well and good but there is no use sitting around while the public address announcer pleads that "all quarter-mile relay men please report to the starting line at the judges' table"; just wander over to the football enclosure and size up next year's team. Or try and dope out the intricacies of a rugby match, or question the eyesight of an umpire.

Then when the wind dies down and you get tired of wandering, it's time to pick up some cold beer and repair to the Charles River basin until the eights go by.

Al of this can be obtained at a ridiculously low cost--generally a numbered coupon from your H.A.A. ticket book, or if you don't have one, your roommate's H.A.A. ticket book.

The Tribe and the Sox

But if the blushing amateurism of Harvard sports leaves you cold, Boston is a big enough town to supply professional baseball, dog racing, horse racing, midget auto racing, and wrestling by both men and women.

Beantown supports two major league baseball clubs, and by mid-summer this becomes a truly courageous undetaking. The denizens of Braves Field are known as the Braves; sometimes they are called the Tribe and their hangout, the Wigwam. The Braves are located along Commonwealth Avenue, so--when they are playing at home--they are within walking distance of the Square. The Boston Americans, the Red Sox, are situated at Fenway Park in Kenmore Square.

For Sun Bathing

There is much to recommend Braves and Red Sox games: that is the fact that by attending them the baseball fanatico has an opportunity to observe the best teams in both leagues when they come to Boston. The local citizenry does not fully appreciate this, which is probably just as well because Boston fans are a farily objectionable lot anyway. Therefore, pavilion seats at Braves Field are always available for one dollar. By day, the pavilion is a fine spot in which to absorb the sun. The park becomes somewhat more crowded for the night games.

Both clubs posses elements which are bound to annoy many followers of the game. For example, the distance to the left field wall at the Fenway is generally considered an outrage. It is quite short and a sportswriter who paced off the distance last one night discovered that it is ten feet shorter than advertised. The Braves use Earl Torgeson at first base and he is the only player left in either league who still wears his pants at the knee. This does not help his appearance or his batting average.

There is a good series coming up at Braves Field next weekend, when Brooklyn moves in for two night games and a Sunday contest. Brooklyn-Boston affairs average approximately three hours and are most enjoyable. The following weekend finds Cleveland in town for two games against the Red Sox.

Investigations into the speed of one steed as opposed to another take place daily expecting Sunday at Suffolk Downs in Revere. While Suffolk may lack the quaint touts of Jamaica and the flamingoes at Hialeah, it nevertheless holds eight races a day at purses which assure at least that the entrants will be horses. If the sun is out and the luck is with you, an afternoon at Suffolk can be exceedingly pleasant; or course, it might rain, you might lose. C'est tout pour le sport.

The gambling spirit may be kept alive in the evening by another trip to Revere, this time to Wonderland, the greyhound track. But all the aging greyhounds look alike, and the rabbit wins every race, so Boston Dog racing is only a little more refined than a crap game.Almost anyone can come to a crew race. Pictured above are three Boston University students and a friend from Tufts mingling with the Harvards. At this Juncture In the Cambridge regatta the boats were abreast of these spectator. The pin stripe suit on the boy in the left foreground is typical of the Boston University styles this Spring. The wildly-flowered ties his friends wear are also very popular on many of the New England campuses although the Harvard men seem to hold to more conservative things.