Sport: Making It Perfectly Clear

Baseball, football and Nixon search for absolute truth

Baseball was always better suited for radio, where the ballplayers could only be imagined spitting invectives at the umpires, and the umps' own lips could not be read so distinctly. But since technology is a force more irresistible than Ozzie Smith and George Brett put together, even weekend World Series games begin after sundown now, and the umpires are in such a turmoil over working conditions, hectored as they are by television's instant replays, that they have turned to Richard Nixon.

The former President, father-in-law of a former statistician for the + Washington Senators, a former team, was appointed the arbitrator...

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