The Coral Gables Times

to him—and to the 100,000 boys on the teams

In 1953, when I was working as a broadcaster for the New York Yankees, I was asked to become president of the newly organized PONY League. PONY stands for Protect Our Nation's Youth. It was started in Washington, Pennsylvania, by Lew Hays, who had helped start the Little League. The idea is to give boys of 13 and 14 a chance to play some kind of organized ball, using a smaller-than-regulation diamond and equipment suited to their age and physical limitations. The Little League diamond is 60' between bases. In the Pony League the boys play on a 75' diamond, which they can easily handle. Well, I'm proud to say I'm still the president, and this summer we'll have 100,000 boys playing ball in the League on fully uniformed teams in towns all over the country, with the PONY World Series climaxing the season. We're a going concern—the kind boys like to be associated with, and so do I. I NEVER MISS a game if I can help it, but it's what you might call the fringe benefits of the League that mean the most to me. Over the years I have seen how the chance to play ball has given a rugged purpose to lads who might otherwise not have known what to do with themselves. There was a time, as I well remember, when a boy had no doubts about his place in the world. Splitting kindling, dumping ashes, and running errands were among the many necessary operations that ran largely on boy-power, but today such chores are out of date or handled by machine. In a sense, a community has not as much use for a boy as it once did. To be on his town's Pony squad gives a boy the recognition he needs and teaches him the right way to earn it, too, because baseball is a game that can be played only one way. It takes hard work and sportsmanship. There is also hard work for the families and neighbors who have to organize and maintain a team, but it helps bring people together. "We get as much out of it as our son does," a Santa Monica father once told me. "It gives us a common bond and a sense of belonging." A GOOD FRIEND of mine, comic Jerry Lewis, is proud as a peacock about his oldest son Gary who is the leading hitter and star shortstop on the Beverly Hills Pony League team. Jerry gets out to as many games as he can and has even signed a $1 per year scouting pact with Chicago White Sox president, Bill Veeck, to assure the major league of his son's future services. "The pay isn't much," Jerry admits, "but wait till they get my expense account!" I love a good ball game, but I hope I've been able to make it plain why, for me, there's more than that to the Pony League. And gosh, you get the ball game, too!

SUBURBIA TODAY O. SOGLOW

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