The ep45 The Sports Public - And Ted Williams

It's time for yours truly, Jimmy Powers with another Grantlin Rice story. Hi there, this is Jimmy Powers with another transcribed chapter from the Grantlin Rice autobiography, The Tumal and the Shouting.

And once again, I'll narrate it in first person. For a brief matter of some five decades, I've been trying to discover what the massive readers want to read on a sporting page. Now this is no easy assignment.

You write a golf column and while it pleases more than a few golfers, you are surprised to to find the number who have time for golf. This despite the fact that there are some 5 million golfers in the country, possibly 600,000 caddies, and some 3 million wives waiting for their husbands to leave the locker room in

the 19th hole. You write a racing column and it takes an even deeper drop. The average or normal racing fan, if there is any normal racing fan, is only interested in tips or information. And when I'm at the track this includes me.

As far as racing goals, 95% of the fans are at the track to bet. Without betting, a big day at any track would be 2,000 spectators, with possible exception of the Kentucky Derby when about half of the estimated 100,000 are there to see or be seen.

Some 80% of the human race, one way or another, have the gambling instinct, whether it is in racing, bridge, gin rummy, canasta, golf, football, basketball, baseball, bingo, poker, or some other sport including betting on how far a toad can hop.

Racing however is the main outlet. It is also the most spectacular and the most thrilling of them all. But racing isn't the hottest of all reading mediums except around Derby Day, not unless you are trying to stab winners.