12 Sports Aces, January 1943 — page 49: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

STOOGE FOR A SPIKE KING 47 6 ee Be Gee he ce Be ara Oe Be eB res Coen Bs Oe es Bes Brae Bie 6 BH O11 Other Orr Ose Bes Corer Gee es OHO Bs han Gas be Oren Obese EO 1H Benes eo yardage. It was a tough, fast pace that Eddie set right from the opening gun. But it was no faster than the clocking Doc Hansen had set down for Eddie. That puzzled Eddie, Doc’s call on the time of his quarters. Doc was asking him to do faster quarters than the pace Bat ordi- narily wanted. DDIE pushed that thought out of his mind. Doc Hansen had Bat’s inter- est at heart, and whatever was up Doc’s sleeve was certain to work to Bat’s ad- vantage. The field moved up, maintaining a sizzling pace. It was an open secret that Eddie was out to burn up the boards and win. Nobody meant to let Eddie steal a beat on them. Twice around the boards and Eddie widened his lead to ten yards over Marty Hudlin. Then trailed Chuck Oliver and Bat in that order. The other threat in the freld was Leo Caldwell, the Midwestern record breaker. Eddie was running loose and easy. He heard the crowd’s throaty roar and knew his time for the half mile was plenty fast. Going into the backstretch of the next lap, steel bands began fastening around Eddie’s legs. There was a terrific pull in his chest that threw off a hot, burning sensation. | Eddie fought doggedly to hold his pace. Heavy footsteps pounded behind him, then faded. Again they came on and again Eddie met the challenge with a steel heart, refusing to falter. One by one the runners made their bid, only to drop back into the pack. Eddie’s chest began to pound from the pace. Soon his ears picked up the steady, driving steps that were moving up on him. Eddie sensed that the ~ yunner was Bat Nordell. Then he knew it. Bat Nordell was coming on and the mob was going berserk. Shoulder to shoulder, Eddie and Bat were hammer- ing down the homestreteh, neither runner yielding an inch to the other. The tape stretehed thirty yards ahead. Eddie’s stride was jerky and he weaved from side te side, He kept driving, driving toward © that goal. Then Eddie was running alone. He-ran five more yards and the tape broke across his chest. He felt himself falling. Hands reached out, grabbed him. Then Doc Hansen had Eddie, and put him on the boards. The blur cleared from . Eddie’s eyes. He got to his feet and Doc kept a steady- ing hand on him, leading him to the dress- ing room. Eddie tried to say something, but Doc pressed a finger to his lips. He maneuvered Eddie over to the rubbing board, and Eddie stretched out on it. A few minutes later Bat Nordell came into the room. Bat had a big grin on his face. “T’ve got me a real protégé now,” Bat chortled. “Hey, Doc, did you see the way Eddie let me have it in the stretch. I knew then I had the kind of preiace I’ve been looking for.” “That’s what Bat’s been wanting,” Doc said. “A protége—a guy who could take his place when he stepped down. Call it the pride of a champ. Bat wanted to pass on the stuff he had learned. It was a notion first. Then it got to be an obses- sion. Especially when a couple of guys Bat thought were the real thing flopped on him. EH got him down when people started to say that Bat used these guys for stooges. Bat’s past his prime, but he wouldn’t retire while he was under fire. But Eddie solved all that tonight.” “But what about Marty Hudlin?”’ a newspaper man asked. “Hudlin didn’t have the stuff,” Bat said. “It was the same with the other guys. Hudlin was a natural front-runner. The guy after him happened to be the same kind of runner. So the story went around that I needed a pacemaker to win my old age. Maybe I did sometimes. Al- most every runner who goes out after a record needs one. Those were the times, I had Hudlin pace me. But Hudlin thought he was being abused. He pulled a double-cross and tried to set me up for Chuck Oliver to take. That’s why [ got rid of Hudln.” Doc Hansen said, “Funny thing about it is that the kink in Eddie’s running was his pacing. So we got him to held back his kick in the other races. But we knew he was ready for this one. He showed that tonight. Of course, Bat had to get him a little sore to turn the trick.” ~ Gomichbooks (E@)