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"For the game's sake" is a phrase long since laughed into oblivion by disillusioned sports writers. The sharp black line supposedly drawn between amateurs and professionals has become a wavy web of honorable evasions, and the conclusion must be drawn that amateur athletes derive income from their strength and skill as surely, but not so profitably, as does, say, the world's champion heavyweight pugilist. Helen Wills, as fine a character as amateur sport has ever known, is a paid artist drawing tennis pictures for the press. Her pictures are good—for a tennis player; but it has been accurately remarked that they are not good, for an artist. "Bobby" Jones writes for a sports syndicate. There are similar examples for almost every amateur champion or near cham- pion. But there is one champion who has never been found in any lucrative sideline of his sport. He is Devereux Milburn.
Milburn is never on any polo sideline. His flail flies every day. He is always on horseback on the field. When international or club polo is unscheduled, Milburn mounts a pony and referees junior games at some Long Island field. The records show practice games in which he has played on mixed teams of men and women.*
The earliest echo of Milburn playing polo comes from Buffalo where he was born. (He lived in the house where President McKinley died.) With the late C. C. Rumsey, polo internationalist, the boy Milburn learned the game on a bicycle with a sawed-off mallet; later, on Shetland ponies. He went to Oxford (for his father, though a Buffalo settler, was a native Englishman), and played on the Oxford polo team. He also rowed on the Oxford crew. Later he went to Harvard Law School, and now practices law with the firm of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn in Manhattan. Outside of his law practice he lives the life of a country squire; owns poodles.
When Harry Payne Whitney organized the famed International team of 1909 to bring back to the U. S. the polo prestige long lost to England, Milburn played back. Milburn has played back on every U. S. polo team since 1909 (seven of them, including 1927) and felt defeat in the 1914 series only. He has been an unwavering star of every contest. He plays an unorthodox game that has partially altered the theory of polo. Time was when the back was chiefly a defense mechanism like the quarterback (safety man) behind a defensive football team. Milburn made back an offensive position, driving up to score the goals, and letting the No. 3 player drop back to care for accidents.
Like most successful veterans, Milburn before a game is like a girl before her first ball. He is excited, crazy to start; swept by an emotional and nervous fog. He paces; he mutters; he struggles with the energy within him and his craving for the game. And when he goes on the field this craving, this energy fuse an iron wrist and a clear eye into the irresistible force that has won so many international games.
Schedule. The first International Polo Match will be played at the Meadowbrook Club, Long Island, Sept. 5. The second Sept. 6. The third, in case of tie, Sept. 14.
The U. S. Team:
No. 1. J. Watson Webb, 42, a left hander, rare in polo. Played on the last U. S. team (1924). A saddle hitter (meaning a player who hits the ball while sitting on his horse instead of standing in his stirrups). Saddle hitters are common in England, uncommon in the U. S. It is believed by some