Commercial Sport Gambling and its Players

Professional boxing could not resist strangling itself.

It tried to swallow three TV fights a week. There were not enough good fighters to sustain public interest.

TV audiences became weary of the same old faces. Meanwhile, the small fight clubs - St. Nicholas and Eastern Parkway arenas in New York and Marigold Arena in Chicago.

These places began to founder, and with them went a good portion of the lifeblood of boxing: the young talent. Of no help were the monopolizing influence of the International Boxing Club and the hoodlum influence of Carbo.

As the result of almost universal concern and pressure, the sport now appears to be in reasonably good order, but there is still a disregard of the boxers' safety.

Moreover, whenever there is a close fight, someone is sure to holler fix Public faith has been shaken.

The finances of pro basketball and pro hockey are now dependent on an interminable league schedule - the hockey season begins in October and ends in April.

Pro basketball teams play a minimum of 80 games apiece - and then, as if all that did not mean a thing, they engage in a series of playoffs involving a total of six of the nine teams.

Professional golfers, also enjoying a new boom of interest, do little for their brotherhood by abandoning the tour to take part in big-money but trumped-up 'specials.'

Stars like Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, among many others, thereby lessening the professional significance of the match. The end result is a cheated fan.

The horse racing industry, possibly the most self-consciously honest because of its great attraction to the fast-buck crowd, is so well guarded by security measures and is such a cheerful tax supporter of state governments that it has become almost as respectable as living in Darien, Connecticut.

Ex-FBI men are everywhere. So are pastel-colored ticket windows. But the sport's last pretense of aesthetic quality - 'the betterment of the breed' - is being undermined by an unstinting devotion to The Handle.

An Aqueduct, with easier, more mechanical racing and a longer line of ticket windows, thrives, while lovely old Belmont dies on the vine.

There is nothing starry-eyed in believing that the men who manage or take part in the most commercial of sports should combine with their business ambition a dedication to, or at least a real respect for, their sport and all that it stands for.

After all, there are millions of ordinary Americans who love their jobs and respect their professors.