Yanks v. Diggers

When the A.E.F. began arriving Down Under, sports-loving Australians immediately began seeking to match their athletes against soldiers from overseas. But there seemed to be almost no sport common to both countries. Australians play cricket in the summer and football in the winter -rugby or soccer in New South Wales and Queensland, Australian football in other states.

Australian football is played 18 men to a side on an oval field whose measurements are 180 yards by 120. There are two sets of goalposts at each end of the field. If the ball is kicked between the tall center posts, six points are scored : between the adjoining posts one point. There is no crossbar. American ex-footballers say the game produces the finest and most accurate kicking they've ever seen: frequently players running full speed can drop-kick the ball between goalposts from 60 yards and more.

So almost the only chance for competition between Americans and Australians lay in baseball, which has been played in Australia since the Great White Fleet's visit in 1908. Baseball is played in winter in Australia usually by cricket players who desire to keep in form for next summer.

Some American teams have been formed and are playing in amateur baseball leagues in Australia's larger cities. The Senior Metropolitan Division in Melbourne, for instance, includes U.S. teams. One team has won seven, lost none, tied one, and leads the league.

The first big-time contest between American and Australian baseballers was a game played at the Carlton Cricket Club in Melbourne last week as part of July 4th exhibition.

Winter Baseball. All-Star Americans drawn from three teams playing in the Melbourne league won the feature baseball game from All-Star Australians 4-to-1, due largely to the pitching proficiency of one Private Johnny Lund, a big tobacco-chewing Swede from Portland, Ore., who holds the dubious distinction of being the property of the Philadelphia Phillies. Lund allowed only three hits, struck out nine in the seven-inning game. Losing pitcher was Aircraftsman George Dickinson, who was just as good. He gave only three hits in the five innings that he pitched -two of them veriest scratches -but four Australian errors, two of them his own, marked him as the losing pitcher with the score 2-to-1 when he withdrew.

The weather was typical Army-Navy football game weather, without snow - it was the filthiest day with the coldest and slickest mud Americans had ever seen on July 4th. But the Australians stuck it out despite the fact that many of the 6,000, who paid a total of -L-500, had to stand in an icy wind. At the game's end, the Australians applauded politely.

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