After Byrnes, Baseball?

The double-barreled blast at sport by War Mobilizer Jimmy Byrnes (TIME Jan. 1) reaped a hectic harvest. His order padlocking U.S. race tracks produced a multitude of moans from horse-folk, but mightier still was the chorus of questions that sprang from all kinds of sport fans all over the nation: did re-examination of 4-F athletes indicate the near-end of every sport, especially big-league baseball?

At week's end, no one knew the score--for certain. But Washington insiders held to the notion that racing was the one real target of the crackdown, and that the crack about re-examination of 4-Fs was a sop to silence race-track squawks. For one thing, every rejected draft registrant always has been subject to re-examination at any time; for another, it is no secret that Washington was sorely irked by last year's race-track gambling of a billion dollars that might have gone into war bonds, and by the increase in war-plant absenteeism during Los Angeles' recent Hollywood Park meeting. It was a good bet, as most big-league club owners agreed, that baseball at least would carry on.

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