Gardner Loses

The sport world was reminded last week that in connection with Robert A. Gardner of Chicago, one-time (1909) Yale pole-vaulter, it must think of not just one little white ball, but two. No small baggy-pants of the caddy-shed, no large baggy-cheeks of the locker-room, but knows that tall, slender, white-flanneled Robert A. Gardner of Chicago won the national amateur gold championship in 1909 and in 1915; and that he is captain of the U. S. Walker Cup (golf) team. But some had forgotten, until he swished his long-handled bat in the long dark-walled courts of the Philadelphia Racquet Club last week, that Mr. Gardner, paired with Howard Linn, a fellow Chicagoan, was national racquets doubles champion last year. He came, literally, within an ace of being that again this year. In the final against onetime champions C. C. Pell and Stanley Mortimer of Manhattan, with games 2-1 against him and the points at 8-13, he sailed four sharp-cracking* services successively into his opponents' corners. All were unreturnable. But then Mr. Mortimer broke through, ran out the third game in five, at 15-12.

* Tightly covered with white kid, smaller than a golf ball but just as hard, a racquets ball travels rapidly, striking the hard black composition walls of the court with a smart noise. The court is about the size of a tennis court, walled around, marked (in red) like a squash or squash-racquets court.