Sports Review

Game's The Thing

(If You Win)

From Ralph Craib Truk Islanders are the only Dple in the world who “wage sebair like some people wage the old days the Trukese settle their disputes with and slingshots. Now, two 3 settle their rivalries around .seball diamond. “Play ball!” come the battle cry. sever, according to Professor ; P. Murdock, of Yale Uni , temporarily at the Institute ranced Behavioral Studies at rd University, the Trukese learn the American national e from the Americans —but be Japanese. Japan ruled the ;, which are in the Western , until the end of World [. ;ssor Murdock, who on several to the islands has observed e waging baseball, says that of the tribal war traditions been carried over into the tribal days, for example, 's had to go into isolation their womenfolk for three tefore going forth to battle, they follow the same three- Dlation ritual before playing ag the game, women sit in sections along the first and )ase lines. Their function is ; special baseball songs, the of which are a mixture of i, Japanese and native e. songs are not to encourage me team but to place a hex opposing side. Each one of ngs is believed to have a magical effect, of them is supposed to sub e “enemy” team to dysentery Trukese start playing base soon as they can toddle. They with bats made from the es of jungle trees, and they all coconuts as balls.

Truk Islands may have the ; number of baseball players pita of any territory in the

world. Romonum, for example, a village of 230 people, has four teams; and each has a full schedule ahead for a year provided squabbles with neighbouring villages continue.

They Couldn't

Please Everybody

From Norman Baxter, in Suva r'R several years Fiji has had an inter-racial cricket tourna ment for European, Fijian and Indian teams.

The idea to have the three races play annually for a trophy was admirable in principle, for it seemed that it would draw the races closer together.

Unfortunately the effect has been just the opposite, so much so that the Suva Cricket Association, which conducted the annual tournament for the Fiji Cricket Association, early this season decided to hand the trophy back to the FCA.

The undercurrent of feeling seemed to grow each match, so the Suva attitude in not wanting to have anything to do with the trophy is understandable. Suva,

incidentally, became heartily fed up in trying to please everybody in the annual tournament.

With tension mounting each game, Suva took the only possible course, and it might be a few years yet before anybody will be game enough to suggest that the tourna ment should be revived.

Auntie (84) Will Be

There To Cheer

SUVA cricketing brothers, Harry and Billy Apted, will be taking time off from the January- February Fiji tour of New South Wales to pay a social call to an aunt they have never seen.

The aunt, Mrs: L. McCrossin, lives at the Sydney seaside suburb of Bondi and is 84 years of age.

Like her brother, who went to Fiji more than half a century ago, she is keen on sports, and no doubt will give her nephews from the South Seas a warm welcome.

The brothers’ father was a stern disciplinarian when it came to cricket and saw that his sons played the game properly. The result is that they have something of the orthodox Australian approach to the game, while they still retain their inherent refreshing Islands outlook in cricket.

Mrs. McCrossin, who knows by now that her nephews will arrive at Sydney in early January, could be at Mascot airport, and is almost certain, in spite of her 84 years, to watch the boys playing in their two Sydney games.

Truk Islanders, but baseballers in New Guinea, where the game has also grown amazingly since the war.