 It's time for yours truly Jimmy Powers with another Grantland rice story Hi, there. This is Jimmy Powers coming your way once again transcribed Grantland rice like all writers like to dream today's chapter from the tumult and shouting which I'll narrate in the first person Opens with a poem about dreams which granny wrote and titled these are my dreams My dreams are not tomorrow nor yesterday for yesterday is gone and on its way and by tomorrow It may be much too late to find my way through darkness and through fate When you have reached a certain span in life today is all that counts for fun or strife The past is blurred with fogs and mists and myth the future is too brief to bother with I Dreamed today with no vain vague regrets for yesterday and all its unpaid debts With no fear of the future's fading son since it may end before this rhyme is done I dream of romance and a song that rings above the dollar elemental things Not caring what may happen to skies dark or blue if I can know that just one dream comes true Having spent 64 of 74 years in the maelstrom of sport I seem to have spent the vital segment of my life in crowds of 50,000 and 100,000 people as I look back the picture is a vast canvas of shouting and tumult where on many occasions I was seeking a solitude. I could call peace. It's been an endless highway of thrills I look back on countless examples of gameness smartness stamina uphill struggles and with them all the varying tides of luck that test human character Most of the headliners in sport that I've known have been decent humans Exceedingly few have been dull or stupid. They have all had the proper rhythm the right angles What are the most important qualities that should belong to a champion in no particular order? I found them to be confidence coordination concentration condition courage at impact fortitude stick to it of us determination stamina quickness and speed To a degree these ingredients belong to any top-flight businessman doctor or lawyer Just as they belonged to a Dempsey Jones cob or a roof There is also the highly important factor of ability born with a competitor. Yes, and luck too is worth cultivating While I salute of the golden days of the amateur in sport I've watched the professional takeover almost completely I have a keen sympathy and understanding for those sportsmen whose game must lay midway between The pro and amateur label it is the rare bird who can hustle a living in today's going and still find time to excel as an amateur That's why I thrilled with the rest of America when amateur Billy Joe Patton shot everything from a nace to a seven in the 1954 masters golf tourney and finished just a shot off the collective heels of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead the fact that Patton played every shot for 72 holes Stiff to the pin and let the devil do his worrying was a tonic today's cash register game needed desperately While sport has been a big part of my life I must admit that verse has meant even more Frank Stanton in his tribute to poetry gave the answer Had it not been for thee life had been drear to me and all its flowered ways Untraveled and alone no song in any stream no daisy in a dream and all that makes life beautiful unknown Verse and sport together make up the menu perfectly nothing else is needed where brain and brawn heart and ligament are concerned Rhythm the main factor in both is one of the main factors in life itself for without rhythm There is a sudden snarl or tangle It has long been my belief that each of us needs a certain philosophy of life As for me, I was around 12 when I first discovered Shakespeare two years later I found the brilliantly lighted domains of Keats Shelley and Carlisle I was about 20 when I had full contact with Homer and Rudyard Kipling While in my teens I ran across two proverbs or injunctions which have traveled with me ever since one is from the Bible Judge not that she not be judged the other is from the Koran know thyself Just why they should have had such an appeal at such an age. I'll never know the first one changed slightly to Judge not too swiftly that she be not judged too swiftly in return This biblical injunction has served me often down the years It was an order not to be in too big a hurry to condemn. I Discovered also that know thyself carried a decisive message Why spend all your time studying the faults and virtues of others while learning little of what you actually are Know thyself meant the destruction of self pity the end of alibis and excuses the placing of the blame where it belonged I learned that good rarely comes from kidding yourself Another part of my philosophy stems from Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-reliance and Compensation there. I learned that often when things are at their worst brighter days are just beyond Conversely when skies are bluest then is the time to look out for the black clouds It was a check either way not to become too optimistic when everything looked good Not to get too low and depressed when everything seemed black There's an old song entitled the life that loves the valleys is lonely on the hills I would certainly be lonely on the hills and I would always feel at home in the valleys I'd rather look up to some peak than to be on some peak looking down on those who need help Of course those on the peak sometimes need help too Often they and their loneliness are the more bewildered. They expect a way of life They can't have or a happiness that an unsound philosophy has made impossible. I Recall so well the time I read Keats's and Demian and saw this line Time that ancient nurse rocked me to patience. I thought then here is all the philosophy of life Human nature is often perverse, which is one reason why it remains so interesting When arguments develop between square shooters and the chislers much of the public drifts to support the chisler Winning is important But to win at any cost through any form of trickery one can devise is never worthwhile While watching every type of record smashed with more to follow in the briefer time left I found that all records were made to be broken Previous marks have fallen with a crash on land on water and in the air Year by year each record has only been the incentive for another today when anyone sets a new mark He puts up a sign which reads there's your new target If this happens to marks that can be measured or timed Doesn't it apply to the individuals to ball players football players fighters golfers and tennis stars? It must the old-timer looks back on the stars of his youth as much faster stronger and better than those of today I don't agree. There have been ball players in recent years to match all but the exceptions of Ty Cobb Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner the Dodgers and Yankees of 1953 and 54 were full of players better than most of the names who played for the 1906 Cubs or the 1910 athletics The best doesn't belong to the past It is with us now and even better athletes will be with us on ahead when we arrive at the top athlete the Jim Thorpe Of the year 2000 we should really have something But by that year I will have slight interest in what the field has to show I guess this thought gave me the inspiration to pen the long road Here is my traveler's cloak dusty and torn for half a century It is known the road once it was clean and new now it is frayed and worn The end is near beneath a heavy load But from the valley to the topmost hill the sky is blue the birds are singing still Yes, I have seen my share along the way Ruth Jones and Tilden and the mighty Cobb The fists of Dempsey with their deadly sway the speed of Owens on the record job and coming on still driving like the surf Milburn and Hitchcock ripping up the turf. I've seen my share upon a busy trip I've looked at Johnson's fastball outspeed time I've seen Pete Alexander's deadly whip and I've seen Natty in his golden prime But there was Grange the ghost of super rank the four horsemen and the Gersky moving like a tank One by one. I've watched them march on by from vanished years They move across the field Sarazan Hagen Pudge and Thorpe and Psy Lewis and Paddock decked with sword and shield the mighty thousands who have done the same to leave this epitaph He played the game the long line forms through life's remembered years The flaming heart the cold brain and firm command of nerve and sinew blotting out all fears The will to win beyond the final stand Now this is Jimmy Powers transcribed and I hope you enjoyed today's story half as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you Until next we meet the best of the bestest