Scoreboard

P:"I'll take him out in the seventh or eighth round," said Lightweight Champion Joe Brown just before he climbed into the ring in Houston to defend his title against nimble, light-punching Challenger Ralph Dupas. As good as his word, the lean Louisiana Negro put Dupas on the deck three times in the eighth, finally stepped back politely to let Referee Jimmy Webb announce what everyone in the arena already knew: Brown was still the boss of the 135-lb. division.

P:After two months of chess, during which both contestants begged off for occasional bed rest, Challenger Mikhail Botvinnik demonstrated the intellectual stamina of a champion. Sticking stubbornly to the defensive strategy that experts insisted he was constitutionally incapable of using, Botvinnik, 46, strung out the 23rd game of the tournament until World Champion Vasily Smyslov, 37, broke under the strain. Rather than resume the adjourned game, Smyslov offered a draw by telephone. This gave Botvinnik half a point and the match, 12 1/2-10 1/2. Thus, without even the satisfaction of a handshake, Botvinnik regained the title that he lost to Smyslov last year.

1/2 On Princeton's Lake Carnegie, Yale's powerful eight pulled up to the finish of the 1 3/4-mile course half a length ahead of Cornell, 1 1/4 lengths in front of Princeton, was clocked in a lake record 8:35.8. P: In the eighth race at Massachusetts' Raynham dog track, the greyhounds were faster than the $2 hunch players hoped for. They caught the mechanical bunny, and quit racing to chew on the fur-covered teaser. Track officials took an even worse licking: they had to return $18,345 in bets.

P:What may prove to be one of the most expensive fouls in baseball history was a long fly by a Milwaukee batter one day in 1955. In the scramble to catch it, a fan knocked down Mrs. May Lee, 69, and broke a couple of her ribs. The Braves refused to pay May Lee's $100 hospital bill on the ground that fans assume certain risks when they buy their tickets. Last week the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld an award of $3,675 to Mrs. Lee on the ground that the Braves' County Stadium ushers were negligent in their duty to protect spectators. In the past, ball clubs have rarely been held liable for similar injuries, and ball teams in both leagues braced themselves for a flood of claims.

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