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Download the full scan here.
Or read online or download in .pdf format from my Internet Archive shelf here.
The cover to this issue by Modest Stein was featured on the 2023's
edition of The Pulpster in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the
first issue of Sport Story Magazine. It's far from my favorite Stein but does possess a kinetic energy and celebration of sport. Michelle Nolan has
pointed to this issue as the only sport pulp to feature women on the cover. In
Warming the Bench, the editor (I'm not sure who it was at the time)
writes about having Jackson Scholz visiting his office and admiring Stein's painting which would become the cover for the issue. He asks
Scholz (three time Olympian and ultra-frequent contributor to the
magazine with three stories in this issue alone) if he can come up with a
story for the painting. No problem, boss.
I've read this one
before posting (fittingly in a fun week of sports including the first
game of the NBA Finals as well as some great NCAA softball and baseball)
and will give a quick teaser on these. I do like synopses and reviews
but don't want to spoil the fun.
Hoop Lesson - the cover story by
Scholz - Carl Temple has taken a job with Grayson Tire perhaps a prize
for the fact his grandfather owns a large share of stock in the
company. Shown the company gymnasium (and corporate teams are often the
setting of sports pulp stories, a facet of athletic life that's largely
receded in American life), Carl has an adverse reaction to the fact
women are on the court. As fate would have it, one of the women players
is the daughter of the company President and has recommended Carl, a
former college Center, be recruited for the company team. Done with
basketball, Carl nonetheless is cajoled into taking a back-up spot and
is even roped into chaperoning the women's team on a trip out of town.
Can Carl get his basketball groove back and make peace with the fact
women have hoop dreams, too? Can he find his footing on the court and
keep his feet out of his mouth? An excellent sport story and maybe a
bit of romance, Scholz writes a good lead story here with the type of
inspiration one might expect of the genre, even if the source might be a
twist. The call of the action on the court might leave a little to be
desired but in an era when a final score might be 22-21, I imagine the
game was indeed very different than today.
Iron Chin begins with a
young rube making the error of bending down behind a donkey and taking a
hoof to the jaw. Amazingly the lad remains still standing, but lodgers
happen to witness the event, one being a former light heavyweight in
the fight game. Does an iron chin a boxer make? Our rube will find out
as he's tricked into a match far beyond his skill. How I do love
boxing tales.
Ben Peter Freeman who wrote a great number of
novels for Dell's Five-Novels Monthly writes Ten-Grand Set. Playboy
Dusty Dean takes the game none-to-seriously giving in when the game gets
tough. A tough-minded uncle holds back his inheritance, though,
forcing Dean to grind it out on the low end of the pro circuit. Things
take a turn, though, when a top pro does his pal dirty. Can Dusty Dean
get his act together and win the (Twenty) Grand Set? A fun story.
Freeman is best remembered as a writer on TV's Adventures of Superman.
at Flickr
Six
Girls and a Basket by Handley Cross - Cross must have been some sort
of sports writer, as he handles this article on the rise of women's
hoops as well as the later sections on Big Moments in Sport (running
down a couple of big games from the last season in various sports) and
Trainer and Coach (advice for athletes getting in shape for the Spring
Season). Here Cross gives the lowdown on women's basketball c.1939
citing such authorities as James Naismith and Phog Allen and describes an
epic game between Wichita and Little Rock as well as variations between
the men's and women's rules. Having Six women per side seems to be the
most shocking difference in rules, but odder than that might be the fact
each player was allowed a single dribble. Cross easily seems the worst
writer in the issue, so perhaps it's best he's confined to the
non-fiction areas of the magazine. In the Trainer and Coach department, regarding cigarettes and athletics, Handley writes, "Smoking? Well that depends. If you are a runner, you had better stop altogether. But baseball players and many other athletes seem to be able to smoke moderately without it doing them any harm. If you continue smoking, make certain that your smoking is moderate." Lucky Strike advertises on the back cover of this sports magazine and no wonder my high school still had a smoking section in the early 90s :D
Telemark Tension by Leonard
Lupton, longtime practitioner in the sport genre with a mystery tale
involving the Ski Jump and shots fired mid-flight. I think this might be
the first Ski Jump tale I've ever come across...
Home-Town Hero
by Leslie McFarlane, writer in many genres and described by Fictionmags
as "Newspaperman; prolific hack; also author of “Hardy Boys” stories
under name of Franklin W. Dixon." The story of loutish Skates Kelsey,
washed up hockey player, gambler, drunkard, and scout for the Chiefs who
finds himself fired and penniless at story's outset. Luckily for him,
he gets a tip about a local hockey prospect that Skates intends to use
for at the very least train fare back to the big city. A rewarding tale
of devious and loutish behavior, small town pride, and competing
interests on ice.
.400 Eaters by Royal Hall, pseudonym of Scholz,
but this time in a humorous vein. My favorite story in the issue
regarding a baseball team that's gotten fat and lazy and put on a
no-lunch diet by a coach that has seen it all. Called up to aid the
struggling team is a lanky player from AA with a huge head with sunken
cheeks and gargantuan feet that match his enormous appetite. The rookie
puts coach's dietary regimen to the test and hilarity ensues. Any
coach that's gotten a bit of wicked glee hitting fungo to lazy players
is going to get a kick out of this one.
Seal-Skinned by Jack
Volney, another pseudonym of Scholz, regards a water polo team for a
feed manufacturer. Sadly, when a team member goes to collect payment
for goods rendered to a visiting circus, he receives payment in the form
of trained seal. All the horses were taken. The seal becomes the team
mascot, but can they keep him out of the water?
A uniformly
excellent issue with only a low spot or two. A nice mix of sports and
story types as is usual for the sports pulps. If you haven't read a
sports pulp before, this might a good place to start. If you must pick
only a story or few my faves were 1) .400 Eaters 2) Home-Town Hero and
3) Ten-Grand Set. The opener gets special mention, too, as a meditation
on women's sports and the nature of mojo. Exactly what inspires our
hero to action might irk those of us with a feminist bent (me!), but
maybe not...
Notes on the scan: there's some variance in page
color from page to page. The edit matches the copy I scanned from, and,
as mysterious as the coloration may be, I rolled with it - the color
edit is uniform across all of the interior pages. I did remove all the
pencil from the crossword, "Skull Practice," just in case any cruciverbalists
want to try their hand at an 80 year old sports puzzle.
One last image, the inner back cover, Lee Jeans and Ripley's Believe it or Not
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