East v. West (Cont'd)

The drawing rooms and porches of leafy Lake Forest, Ill. talked of nothing but polo last week and eight thick-wristed, sunburned guests-of-honor had lots to say to each other when they met. Week before, the four best players that swanky Eastern polo could produce had been ridden groggy by a hard-hitting, hell-for-leather Western four, beaten in the first of three games, 15 to 11 (TIME, Aug. 21). Since he became a 10-goal player in 1922 the East's Captain Thomas Hitchcock had never been challenged on a field as the West's Cecil Smith had challenged him last fortnight.

When they rode out on Onwentsia's close-cropped field, Raymond Guest was still in the East's lineup, but in Michael Phipps's stead was a burly, baldish fellow with a fringe of red hair and a bright red helmet. This Was another scion of one of the East's great socialite polo families, Earle A. S. ("Young Earle") Hopping, 199 lb., a cool, rough-riding player who helped beat Argentina in 1928. He went in at No. 2 while Hitchcock moved to No. 3, Winston Guest to No. 1.

Play in the second game had hardly begun when the West realized that for its rough play in the first game the East was giving back double measure. This time it was the Eastern player who shouldered his opponent out of the way, swung his mallet heedlessly in races for the ball. Hitchcock took the game's first bad tumble, his pony rolling over him, pinning his right leg, giving him a slight brain concussion. Play was stopped for 20 minutes, but Hitchcock insisted on going back. Shaken and aching, he rode automatically with an old campaigner's alert abandon, helped account for all three of the East's first chukker goals. Then red-helmeted Hopping slammed his pony unchecked into rangy Boeseke, rolled him to the ground and his pony over him. With a twisted right ankle, Boeseke played on. A foul was called and the West scored its first goal. For five periods the West kept within striking distance. But formidable Rube Williams could not seem to get loose, and Cecil Smith was hitting wild. Hopping was everywhere, his red helmet charging into every scrimmage, sometimes entirely surrounded by Western players. As the white wooden ball shot out of a scrimmage, the ponies would prance up & down for a moment of suspense, then rush headlong together. In the sixth the East was leading 8 to 7 when it added two goals. In the seventh Rube Williams, boiling to get loose, rode his pony full into Hitchcock. At the same moment Hopping rode into him. Hitchcock and Hopping rode off after the ball. Alone, Williams reeled in the saddle, then fell to the ground. Hustled to a hospital, he was found to have a refracture of an old break below the right knee. Assistant Manager Neil McCarthy went to No. 1. Aidan Roark to back, and the West, with its captain gone, scored only one more goal in the last three chukkers, to lose 12 to 8. Of the East's twelve goals, four were driven in by Hopping, one from 100 yards.

Facing the playoff four days later with its captain's leg in a cast, the West was dismayed. To make matters worse scandal suddenly smeared Cecil Smith. He was arrested on a charge of attacking one Eugenia Rose, 25, pretty Evanston nurse who had been nursing Rube Williams. Saying, "It's a frameup," Smith was released on $5,000 bail signed by distinguished Lawyer Silas Strawn. Managers Carleton F. Burke and Neil McCarthy announced, "The charges seem to be groundless. He will play." And meanwhile the yawning hole in the West's lineup had been filled.

Like Roland's horn at Roncevaux, the West's cry for help reached the West's polo Charlemagne in Los Angeles: Eric Pedley, 8-goal internationalist whom Hitchcock has called "the greatest No. 1 I have ever seen." He had sorrowfully turned down the chance to play because of pressure of business. Last week he answered two telephone calls from Will Rogers and one from Carleton Burke by boarding a plane for Chicago. He had time for two days of practice before the third and deciding match.

Riding out with his three bruised mates against the aristocrats of Meadowbrook polo, Pedley found, besides 17,000 spectators, young Raymond Guest set to watch him. Hopping and Hitchcock on their imported ponies began at once to ride down the West like Cossacks, set up the ball for two goals by long Winston Guest in two chukkers. Then Cecil Smith and Boeseke began to boot their Western ponies into the offensive, rode again & again into spine-shaking, blocking collisions with Hopping and Hitchcock. Having seen the worst the East could do, with everything to gain and nothing to lose, the West rode wildly to drive in three goals. Their star was Cecil Smith, looking like "the greatest player in the world." By the end of that sunny afternoon he had scored six goals, as many as the entire Eastern team. But equally spectacular was No. 1 Pedley who, riding like a madman, time and again whipped the ball into position for Smith. The rough play became bitter and tense. At the end of the third period, when the referee blew his whistle for a foul against the East, Hitchcock swung at the ball to send it down the field. His mallet hit Smith in the left leg and Smith fell off his pony.

In the next chukker it was the West that fouled, the East that scored on a free hit. In the fifth the fouling was reversed again, twice. Going into the last three chukkers the East was behind, 5 to 8. Hitchcock passed the word to his men to go all out. But as a half-ton of pony & Hopping went slamming around the field it kept meeting another half-ton of pony & Boeseke doing the same thing. Smiling Boeseke, playing with a broken foot taped up, was careening through every play, riding like a hellion. In two of the most savage chukkers ever played, East and West locked in a mutual flailing strangle. Each team scored once. At the end of the seventh the East realized its best was not good enough for that day. The West promptly trampled its victory in, drove through three goals in the last chukker to the East's none, to win the game 12 to 6 and the first East v. West series. Just as the game ended Boeseke was knocked off his horse one last time, lay on the ground for several minutes.

Western sportsmen of all kinds were exultant. Already dominant in tennis, rowing, track and football, the West had now surpassed the East in the proudest of all its sports.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.