Sport: Polio Scare

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Last week, in Manhattan's tabloid Sunday News, Sports Editor Jimmy Powers offered his 3,400,000 readers a bloodcurdling sensation as a possible explanation for the surprising collapse of the New York Yankees.

Under the scarehead Has 'Polio' Hit the Yankees?, Editor Powers demanded: "Has the mysterious 'polio' germ which felled Lou Gehrig also struck his former teammates, turning a once great team into a floundering non-contender? According to overwhelming opinion of the medical profession, poliomyelitis, similar to infantile paralysis, is communicable. The Yanks were exposed to it at its most acute stage. They played ball with the afflicted Gehrig, dressed and undressed in the locker room with him, traveled, played cards and ate with him. Isn't it possible some of them also became infected?"

To add weight to his fantastic diagnosis, "Doctor" Powers quoted medical textbooks, cited cases of other athletes who had been "struck down in the dark by the dread 'polio' germ." He dressed up his four-column story with a full-bosomed photograph of Diver Georgia Coleman (stricken with infantile paralysis three years ago), pathetic pictures of onetime Iron Man Gehrig "before and after," and a lurid drawing of "the Yanks" smitten by a terrifying plague.

Actually, Gehrig never was "felled" by the polio germ. His ailment, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (TIME, March 25), is something quite different, is not communicable. The New York Yankees hurriedly disproved "Doctor" Powers' quack diagnosis by winning six games in a row and moving up to third place in the American League pennant race—only six games behind the league-leading Cleveland Indians. Lou Gehrig's rebuttal was more direct. Saying that he is now "a pariah whom many people shun," honest, earnest Lou Gehrig, who has been practically canonized since retiring from baseball last summer, last week brought suit for $1,000,000.