Winning Ways

In the Grand American Handicap, the World Series of trapshooting, there are no favorites, for no champion has ever succeeded in repeating. One morning last week, competing in his first Grand American, a Wisconsin high-school boy in overalls and shooting jacket "went straight" for the first 68 clay birds, muffed the 69th, finished out his 100 shots without another miss. Then curly-haired Jimmy Rasmussen, 17, went back to his job as scorekeeper for other contestants, to help pay his way to the meet at Vandalia, Ohio.

For an hour and a half, not one of the 1,696 trapshooters bettered his score of 99. Then a Pennsylvania truck farmer hit 96 birds in a row, missed the 97th, shattered the next three to tie Jimmy. Under a 97DEG sun, Farmer John W. Schenk and young Rasmussen met in a 25-target shoot-off, with Jimmy firing from 19 yards, his opponent from 20. The crowd was rooting for Jimmy. Both Jimmy and Farmer Schenk missed their sixth birds. Then Jimmy muffed his 23rd, almost wept when he realized that it had cost him the first prize of about $3,500 (second prize: about $2,000). Said 49-year-old Champion Schenk consolingly: "There's a realshooter, that Jimmy. I'd shoot with him any time."

Other winners last week:

P: The Brooklyn Dodgers walked victorious off the field one night, because everybody on both sides had forgotten an old baseball rule. In the ninth inning, with two out and the tying Pittsburgh Pirate runs on base, Brooklyn's Manager Burt Shotton put in a relief pitcher, then yanked him with the count only three-and-one. At the time, nobody objected. But in the clubhouse after the game, an ex-sportwriter advised Pittsburgh's Manager Billy Meyer to protest: the Dodgers had violated Rule 17 (a relief pitcher must handle at least one batter). Confessed Manager Meyer: "I pulled a real rock." Said Manager Shotton: "We pulled a rock." Agreed Umpire Jocko Conlan: "Everyone pulled a rock." The game will be replayed later this month, beginning with the three-and-one count in the ninth.

P: Just before the finals of the National Doubles, at Longwood Cricket Club in Massachusetts, Billy Talbert admitted: "Gardnar Mulloy and I want that Davis Cup doubles job the worst way." Talbert and Mulloy decided that the best way to get it was to beat their Davis Cup teammates, Frank Parker and Ted Schroeder, in the Longwood finals. Talbert fortified himself for the match with cold towels (against the 97DEG heat) and sugar (he has diabetes). Then he and Mulloy ganged up effectively on the erratic Schroeder with sharply angled placements, won their fourth National Doubles title--9-7, 6-3, 3-6, 9-7.

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