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Listen to Leo DeRosier.
Chimney Sweep, America's number one soot destroyer, presents the famous fiery manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Leo DeRosier, in a sparkling new 15 minute program, your sports question box.
You send in the questions, any question on any sport or game, and Leo answers it.
For every question used, Chimney Sweep soot destroyer pays the sender $5.
And the question considered by Leo, the most interesting, nets the sender $50.
Compliments of Chimney Sweep. Send in your question tonight. All questions become the property of Chimney Sweep.
And here's the masterminding manager of those dashing slam bang Brooklyn Dodgers, Leo DeRosier.
Greetings and salutations, one and all.
Feeling expansive, eh, Leo?
Nothing expensive about being friendly, Frank.
I said expansive, not expansively.
Oh, I thought it was one of those corny dialect routines you were trying out on us during rehearsal.
In any case, leave us not argue about it. The customers are waiting for the answers to their questions.
Just can't wait to exhibit the ham in them, Frank.
A little less baloney from you, Ken, will make the show a lot more enjoyable to the listeners and to the star.
Get him!
Here we go, Leo, with a question from Herb Meadows of Kansas who asks, what is the game known as Tables?
Pool or billiards?
Neither, Leo, the game known as Tables.
What? Tables? What do I know about Tables?
Tables, Mr. Meadow, is merely another name for backgammon. Five dollars to you.
Next.
Ruth Corbett of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, would like to know where the game of baseball really originated.
So would a lot of other people.
Meaning what, that you don't know either?
Nobody knows for certain. They've been trying to answer that one for years.
Well, Abner Doubleday is registered in baseball's Hall of Fame as having originated the game in Cooperstown, New York in 1839.
So they tell me. But if Doubleday thought up the game, how do you account for the fact that the first Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed baseball was one of the sports of his Harvard College days and Dr. Holmes graduated in 1829?
Why, that's a full ten years before Doubleday has given credit for thinking up the game.
Right, Frank, and claims of playing the game go back even further than that.
There was one man, Alexander Cartwright, who said he invented baseball in New York City in 1845. Now that was six years after Doubleday.
Cartwright never said he invented baseball, Frank. He improved and revised the game and is pretty generally credited with laying out the first regular baseball diamond, just about as it is today.
Cartwright also helped to draw up the game's first official rule.
Well, to get back to the question, Leo, you say there is no answer to it?
No accurate answer, Ken, that I ever heard of. Meanwhile, five dollars to Miss Corbett.
And now I'd like to take the mic for a few seconds.
Now go ahead, Ken. I'll spend the time massaging my tongue.
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And now back to Leo DeRosha and Frank Chase and your questions on sports.
To Springtown, Pennsylvania this time, Leo, where Mr. Jay Kirkland is waiting to learn what sporting rights are.
And here's the information you want, Mr. Kirkland. It's like this.
Say I'm coaching at first. Pete Reesor is at bat.
The guy pitching for the other side throws Pete a fast one on the inside.
This is going to be good.
You're telling me. Anyway, Pete steps up and hits a line drive to deep short.
The shortstop knocks it down, finally finds the handle and fires the first base.
In my opinion, Reesor is safe a full step.
But the umpire, a guy who's studying Braille in his off time, calls Pete out.
Why the cement head?
Oh, Reesor of the umpire.
Are you kidding? So okay. Now comes the things known as sporting rights.
I walk up to this blind umpire and start telling him how Reesor looks safe to me.
You see, that's the first of my sporting rights.
Uh-huh. Then what happens?
Why, that no good bum's never heard of sporting rights.
And he still says, Pete is out.
And then?
Then I fall back on sporting right number two.
That gives me the privilege, or right, of reminding the umpire of his background and ancestry.
Yeah, but Reesor is still out.
Not only that, but I'm generally out too, right out of the park.
Wonderful thing, those sporting rights.
Only thing is, nobody's ever told the umpire about them.
And that, Leo, was as beautiful a bit of malarkey as ever I've heard.
Ken, if you'll be so kind, please tell Mr. Kirkland what sporting rights are.
Sporting rights, Mr. Kirkland, and you might get a load of this too, Leo.
Sporting rights are the rights of fouling, shooting, taking or killing game or rabbits,
and of fishing on or over a given area or within certain boundaries.
Those are sporting rights, Mr. DeRosier.
Yeah? Well, what do you know?
Am I going to be smart when this program is over?
And here's our next question, Leo.
James Vogel of Cape Cod up New England Way seeks some information on diving.
Well, that's a setup used by punk promoters of boxing or wrestling bouts
in which one contestant throws the match.
It's known as taking a dive and as one of the lousiest.
Whoa, whoa, Mr. Vogel's query has to do with diving in water, Leo.
Start from scratch, and please listen to the whole question.
What are the standard points in diving contests?
Well, for goodness sake, by chance I have the facts right at my fingertips.
The table from which a diving judge makes his decisions are six.
Completely fail, no points.
Unsatisfactory, one or two points.
Deficient, three or four points.
Satisfactory, five or six points.
Good, seven, seven and a half, eight or eight and a half points.
Very good, nine, nine and a half or ten points.
Yeah, but how many points for the girl's figure?
The rules don't say, Leo, but it's five dollars for Mr. Vogel.
Next.
Corinne Adams of Montana gets her five dollars for this one.
She says she was bowling a game or two last week and saw a sign in the bowling alley
on which was printed the Bowler's Prayer.
She says it starts, Lord, give me the grace to make a score.
What do you mean, the Bowler's Prayer?
I'm merely repeating Miss Adams' information.
That's the fisherman's prayer.
Lord, give me the grace to catch a fish, to make a score yet.
Wait a minute, Leo.
Is this to be another of your famous recitatives?
Call it anything you want, but don't call the fisherman's prayer any bowler's prayer.
A little mood music, please, Kenneth.
Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, the one and only, redoubtable, inimical, Mr. Leo DeRosha,
manager of the Brooklyn National League Baseball Club,
will now set Miss Adams and the rest of the bowling world straight
on a touchy but beautiful poetic point.
Listen, one and all, while the lip breaks his heart
with his rendition of the fisherman's prayer.
Lord, give me the grace to catch a fish so big that even I,
in telling of it afterwards, will find no cause to lie.
Beautiful, Leo, even more stirring than Casey at the bat, don't you think, Ken?
I got a lump in me throat.
Come on, you eggheads, we got a show to finish.
Okay, Leo, now comes at the surprise, the question you ain't heard of.
Oh, another one of those, eh?
All right, just try and stick me today.
That's what we intend doing, Leo.
Each week, listeners, we dig up one question which the lip is unfamiliar with
before we bring it on. This week is a turkey.
I suppose you'll get to it eventually.
Here it is, Leo. What is a turkey?
It's a bird.
No.
Is it a plane?
No.
It's Superman.
No, a turkey is three strikes in a row in bowling.
Well, when a guy on my ball club takes three strikes, he's out.
And I don't call him any turkey.
I can imagine.
Now, back to the customers, Leo, with one from right around the corner.
You mean from Brooklyn?
That's right.
Edward Drummond of that famous borough wants you to tell him the correct length for a lasso.
You say this guy's from Brooklyn?
That's the address he gives in his letter.
And he wants to know about the length of lassoes?
What's his job? Roping ticket scalpers?
Maybe so.
How do you like that? A good citizen of Brooklyn, and he's only interested in lassoes.
Oh, well, it just goes to prove that there are some people in Brooklyn who haven't got the dodges on their minds all the time.
Mr. Drummond, there is no correct or standard length for a lasso.
In rodeos, most of the cowboys use a rope of between 40 and 50 feet in length,
but the ropes can be either short or long, depending on the roper's preference.
You tied that one up good, Leo.
Yeah, sure, but it's still a disappointing question to get from a fellow who's practically your next door neighbor.
Why, supposing everybody in Flatbush started to get interested in roping and the length of lassoes.
What would happen to our attendance record? It's a dangerous trend, Frank.
Hey, look, Leo, maybe this Mr. Drummond just moved to Brooklyn.
Well, that's an idea. I hope you're right. Lassoes, yeah. Trouble, trouble, trouble.
And now we come to our choice of the most interesting question of the week.
What is the oldest known sport in which only two contestants took part?
Hold it, boys. Before you give the answer to that one, Leo, I've got a question for every homemaker.
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And now for the most interesting question of this week. Take it, Frank.
Its sender is Jack Lacey of Ogden, Utah.
He wants us to tell him the oldest known sport in which only two contestants took part.
Well, that's not me and the umpires because there's generally three or four of them beeping at me at once.
In fact, it has nothing to do with baseball at all, Leo,
because eighteen contestants take part in that game.
Well, that's using the old noodle, Frank. They can't fool you, can they?
No, sir, really, Leo. Not as long as I can count.
Well, to get back to the question, a lot of people probably think that boxing or wrestling is the oldest two-contestant sport.
And that's wrong?
Yup. The very first two-contestant sport was cockfighting.
Is that so?
Yeah, and that's so. Oh, excuse me, but you sounded just like an umpire I know.
Is that so?
In fact, you sound like all umpires I know.
Yeah? Well, did you also know, Leo, that in cockfighting the umpire or referee was a one-man complete law-making body unto himself?
Is that so?
Yup. He had the complete say about everything.
His decisions had to be accepted by officials and spectators, and there was absolutely no appeal from his rulings.
Well, brother, now I know where those National League umpires must have gotten their early training.
But congratulations to you, Mr. Lacey.
That was a fine question, and your check for $50 will be in the mail tonight.
Time's about up for today, gentlemen.
We've just got a minute or two left for me to tell the good folk in our audience how to join in the festivities with us.
You know, folks, this is your Sports Question Box.
You send in the questions, any question, on any sport or any card game.
For every question used on any program, we'll mail the sender $5.
But that's not all.
If your question is judged most interesting of the week, we'll mail you a check for $50.
Just write your question on a plain piece of paper, and be sure to include your name and address.
Mail to Leo DeRosier, American Broadcasting Company, New York 20, New York.
This is Leo DeRosier saying, see you next Sunday, same time, same station, when I'll be back for Chimney Suite with more answers to your Sports Question Box.
Meantime, remember, even an umpire knows there are two sides to every question.
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Your Sports Question Box is the original production of Frank Chase.