Lone Pirate

As the U. S. professional football season reached its halfway mark last week, Laundryman George Preston Marshall's Washington Redskins, defending champions of the National Football League, were out in front in the 1938 race--as expected. Major disappointment of the season was Plunger Art Rooney's Pittsburgh Pirates, who had won only two games, lost five.

Seven weeks ago the Pirates were rated one of the strongest teams in the League. Owner Rooney, who won some $200,000 on horses last year, had rounded up the most expensive collection of stars in major-league football. No. 1 star: Rhodes Scholar Byron (''Whizzer") White, at $15,000 for eleven games.

But this year the luck of the Irish deserted Mr. Rooney. First he was unlucky at the race tracks. Then he was forced to postpone the Pirates' home games at Forbes Field (National League baseball park) because of the World Series plans of the baseball-playing Pirates. That deprived him of large gate receipts. Then the Whizzer, who had scored 122 points for the University of Colorado last year, was unable to whiz for Owner Rooney. Some observers, noting that White averaged only 2 1/2 yards per try, accused his teammates of refusing to give him proper interference.

Month ago Owner Rooney released two of his ablest backs. Last fortnight he sold three others. He even peddled the Whizzer but there were no buyers. Last week, looking like a one-man team, the Pirates played the Green Bay Packers, were slaughtered, 20-to-0. Whizzer White, who had carried the ball 81 times in six previous games (nearly twice as many as any other player in the league), had apparently only begun to work for his $15,000.

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