City in Sound; Argonne Lab Gamma Radiation

This is Jack Angel with city and sound these are stories out of Chicago city of all things one among them and industry to leisure time more people play tennis than play anything else these baseball people in these golfers often think I'm crazy to say that but throughout the world more people play tennis than play anything else the biggest item as far as we're concerned as golf equipment we turn out anywhere from three to four thousand clubs a day which comes to a tremendous total of pretty close to twenty thousand a week if we were to consider the number of units made available for play I would say by far the largest individual

item is our baseball the Wilson sporting goods company is a Chicago industry that began as part of another Chicago industry Wilson and company the meat packers once looking for a market for its animal hides and buy products today Wilson the sporting goods company stands beside Wilson the packer as a major enterprise is the largest maker of sports equipment in the world and the source of ready adrenaline indeed for a sporting man's blood we're here with Rip Collins who is one of baseball's all -time greats need to tell you who he is remember the famous gas house gang played with Chicago Cubs is now on the Wilson advisory staff and Rip I never did know your first name what is it James James Rip Collins and what do you do on the advisory staff here well I'm on the advisory staff Jack but I'm also in charge of the promotion and sales for this department and of course my duties are to contact baseball players and the owners

of the ball club selling them uniforms team equipment then of course I have some boys working for me that contact the individual selling them gloves well Rip of course you could sell ball gloves to every major leader in the business and still not be solvent you want to sell ball gloves to the kids around the country and you have a lot of names on them I understand that youngsters and teenagers like to buy ball gloves because of the name rather than the particular brand is this an item they they do because they they pick their favorites who are some of the great sellers I suppose the name Ted Williams really well there's no doubt about that Gomez has always been a terrific seller in the pitching model then we had Feller and we've got Pearson Adam and locally and we've got Morn and Banks and fellas like that from the Cubs and we have Macmillan and and Hulk of Cincinnati I mean these are your better fielders rip on non -occupational question what's the future

of baseball is it getting better is it getting brighter or is it the other way I think jagged just hitting a level back before the war you know there were about 28 legs and then they went up to 56 entire entirely too many legs now they're getting back to where they were before the year so there's gonna be better legs and better baseball now that picks up their ball parks what about the story that old ball players were better Ruth well I don't go for that I think today a ball per is a better business man of course he's got outside interest in our time why we had we like relax during the offseason but I think the ball per today the good ball per today could play in our time fine rip you told me you had to go to the ball game if the Cubs get in trouble maybe they can come up and get you well I'd like to be the second -based coach I've been trying to get that job for a long time jagged it's been nice visiting with thank you sir Charles Hare and Murray Hardwick are a couple of great names in tennis and they're both here at Wilson which is very

handy because they're Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hare of course very hardwick both famous British tennis stars and doing a fine job here at making tennis a more widely and generally accepted sport and that right Mr. Hare that's right Jack you know Mary and I come from England and over there tennis is a really big sport it's as big as the for instance Wimbledon is as big as the World Series or even bigger same thing in Australia same in Australia so Mary and I have since we've been over here now for 20 years we first came over on the international teams I came over on the Davis Cup team for me and the days of Fred Perry and Mary came over on the Whiteman Cup team and we liked it over here and we've been with Wilson ever since and the Wilson Company have given us a chance to go around this great country to talk to city groups and city recreation directors and the schools and colleges and put on clinics and exhibitions to stimulate more youngsters to take up this great game which is probably one of the biggest

international games of all well why can't we do what Australia has done and is doing Mr. Hare well there's nothing wrong with our talent down the line but the Australians of course it's a national sport over there and a youngster at school Jack when he leaves school or is in school he doesn't want to play baseball doesn't want to play English soccer or cricket he wants to be a tennis player well now in this country the great athletes of this country want to become baseball players and basketball players football players because that are horse players well I don't know too much about that sport but I I think there's anything wrong with tennis is that if we can attract more good athletes to the game otherwise when you get a great athlete like a Bobby rigs like a Jack Kramer like a Don Budge like a Tony Traver they come through like a Barry McKay now is 22 we we picked Barry McKay out of a clinic when he was only 12 years old in Dayton Ohio we say we who well Mary and I were down there on a clinic and we like the look of the boy and he looked as if he had talent now he's a 22 he's almost knocking at the door of of international fame

and if he just works hard he's a good athlete I think he can become a world champion. Mrs. seems to have many women tennis stars around these days do we all yes we do you know Maureen Connolly of course is still probably the best player in the world she's still only 23 years old and she's giving these clinics now like I do she's been all over parts of the this country in the West this spring but the girls are actually this particular weekend the white man cup is on at women the girls and I haven't seen the results yet but the American girls are pretty strong out here Gibson is still a very good tennis player and as you know she's the champion Beverly Baker flights will probably play in this country she's not in Europe but there are some wonderful ones coming up and the young girls now the very very strong little girl called Karen Hents who's only 16 she is the national under 18 and under 15 champion and then there's another girl called Maria Bueno who's Brazilian who's also quite wonderful and lots and lots of girls and there's a girl right here in Chicago called

Nancy O 'Connell who we've heard a lot about but they're the better girls now all about all under 20 so we'll hear much more from them in the future wonderful who are some of the people you have on your staff here Mr. here that help you with it well when I first came over Ellie Vines and Ellen Attendant went on the staff and then over the years we've had Donald Budge Bobby Riggs was on our staff several years ago but now he's gone into business with his family and we had Alice Marble the Marine Connolly that Mary just mentioned Mary of course is on our staff and keep a very busy I might say running all over the country and Tony Trabot and of course Jack Kramer and then also we've I have Frank Sedgman from Australia so we have probably the greatest staff of tennis stars that have ever been assembled and it's been very helpful to us in carrying out our national program which is to try and get more people playing at this great game of tennis especially when they're youngsters you know tennis

isn't an easy game to learn Jack you go I never did you know golf golf is quite simple really because you can see that ball up you see and if you don't want to hit it is still standing there we know on the tee the only trouble with golf is you've got to put the ball in a little hole at the end of this thing and it's rather tricky yeah but tennis you've got to learn to move your body as well as you're as hitting the ball and so there's two things you've got to do and the youngsters find it very difficult to get started but once they get started and get the bug and know they can control the ball then I think they have a feeling of accomplishment they want to go out and play in tournaments and get going and it's a great sport and it goes on so long more people play tennis than play anything else now you do you know then these baseball people and these golfers often think I'm crazy to say that but throughout the world more people play tennis than play anything else we'd love to sit and watch people watch people play football they watch them they even watch them play golf don't they buy the hundreds but more people are throughout the world run

around on tennis courts than any other competitive sport and we play with the same balls and the same kind of equipment the same type of equipment not all the same makes but the same kind all over the world and you can't say that about anything else you know even the golf balls are different size in Europe from the American golf ball which is so foolish but not with tennis well thank you very much for helping us along with the tennis program certainly appreciate talking to you thank you this mr. William P. Holmes who's vice president and charge of merchandising here at Wilson I'm learning a lot of things about Wilson for one thing I just learned today that it didn't belong to our engineer George Wilson but actually is a subsidiary of the Wilson and company Packers and actually came along as a kind of a by -product industry isn't that true mr. Holmes yes that is true actually the sporting goods end of Wilson had a very humble beginning back in the year 1911 at that particular time

Wilson and company were looking for an outlet as far as gut and particular was concerned used in tennis rackets it's used in strings for tennis rackets and at that particular time was also used largely for surgical gut and also for musical instrument strings of various types one Wilson started back in a little red schoolhouse and Sangamon Street here in Chicago their principal sales were devoted to those by -products of the parent company over the years of course that has completely changed and today relatively few of the meatpacking by -products are used in our industry what all you manufacture here mr. Holmes we manufacture a complete line of leather goods by that I mean principally gloves and mits striking bags boxing gloves football helmets football shoulder pads and other protective equipment

in addition to that we also manufacture a complete line of golf clubs and we hope to pay a call to that operation just a moment as a kind of a measurement of what some businessmen have called a recession here have you noticed any any falling off of the type of item that you manufacture and sell so as might indicate that maybe people aren't spending as much time playing golf or buying as much sporting equipment or anything of that nature our business is really affected the same as other industry the economic conditions have a lot to do with the amount of money that people spend on recreational activities in addition to that of course it's always difficult for us to measure the direct effect over a period of a single year because we also must take into consideration weather conditions our goods are of a highly seasonal nature

and although the weather in the Chicago area has been exceptionally good this year in other parts of the country that has not been true particularly in the east and in certain parts of the northwest and southwest where there have been excessive amounts of rainfall which of course would reduce the number of rounds of golf and they play in those particular areas so then your source of concern is not so much economic as weather or well the two are tied right in as far as we're concerned naturally the economic condition does have a lot to do with the demand for our product well of course the growth of a hard time and recreational activities has been phenomenal in the last 20 years and doesn't this thing ever reach a saturation point can you look forward to another era of millions more or even if like golf and thousands of more boys from coast to coast playing more a little league ball and does this thing have a stopping point with the tremendous growth in youth

activity particularly an organized league play such as your little league and pony league and baseball your growth in youth play as far as tennis is concerned the bitty league and basketball the organizational movement now going forward as far as youth football play is concerned we're certainly extremely optimistic about the future we feel that as far as athletic activity is concerned it should continue to grow mr. Holmes the softball people tell us that softball is the biggest thing the baseball people of course have the same story and the basketball people tell us that more people watch basketball and the bowlers tell us that more people bowl what what is your big item here what's the biggest the biggest item as far as we're concerned as golf equipment Joe wolf you're the real golf pro here you're the boss of the factory where we now stand what are we doing here well

Jack we're building golf clubs naturally what's quite an interesting operation because you start here with what looks to be a reasonably well shaped block of wood and then you take it down and before it's off the end of the line you have a real golf club here a wood yes this these heads you're looking at now Jack our raw billets or raw blocks you might call them of birds eye maple wood that is our strata block material which you've heard about no doubt we have over 100 hand operations in here Jack before this club is completed yes I noticed that there wasn't a completely mechanized production line here I guess there's a lot of hand work on the line that is right that's one thing about golf clubs it is not mechanized at all like you might find some of these steel or metal industries this is entirely a hand operation we have employees here who have been working on these operations for years and years and all strictly by hand so you take the block and I see them being sanded here and then drilled and the shaft attached well you're over in the early operations now after we put the shaft

into a golf club we go into the gripping of a golf club we grip it we sand it I as you're progressing in a club you you reduce your sandpaper in other words you go from a real rough sandpaper into a smooth sandpaper and a still smoother sandpaper until the club is completely smooth and ready for the final finishing operations I see you have any idea how many a day you turn out oh yes I have a pretty good idea I should have a boss we turn out anywhere from three to four thousand clubs a day which comes to a tremendous total of pretty close to 20 ,000 a week makes quite a job be a salesman then it yes they had better sell them so you're a golf doctor they tell me too you actually get out of the field and take what you've learned here through the years right under the turn of it's don't you yes and you might put it vice versa what I learn at the tournaments I bring here into the factory as you mentioned before I have the somewhat dubious honor of making the golf clubs for such notable

personalities as Sam Sneed and Dutch Harrison Porky Oliver Jean Saras and Billy Maxwell and Lord knows how many more of our staff men and you're out of the tournament like say the night till open and they're not doing too well do they ask you to do something quick here and straighten them around oh occasionally we run into that yes if they're hooking for instance they might ask me to face the club open to help keep the ball straight and if they're having trouble with their grip sizes they might have me change to grips and things such as that yes we do that quite a bit but usually when you get into the open tournament as Jean Saras and once said to me years ago if you ain't got it when you get here you ain't gonna have it club or no right well actually has much been done to the golf club in the last 20 or 30 years isn't the same basic thing that it always was oh basically yes but please let's stop there I believe being a club maker that we are partially responsible for these tremendously low scores that are being put out by the tournament players this day yes I believe we've done a lot with the golf club we've improved the shaft we've improved

the field the grips the locks and the general workmanship is so much improved over what we say 15 20 years ago but Joe let's take a look at some of the rest of your operation here sure let's go on Joe we've gone from where you turn out the woods and we're over here with the irons now which is quite an operation of these things come out of a Ford shop and yes iron heads are made out of carbon steel and they are made out of a Ford shop you told me that George Shible here who's the supervisor in this particular iron operation has been here almost from the beginning and used to fashion these golf clubs or the irons anyway all by himself oh yes that's right I'm glad we came over here to see George he's been with us for about 35 years Jack and he's seen these things come from a raw forging where he hammered him out by himself with his own hands into this special stage we have right now here's George George actually you started out as a blacksmith then wouldn't you say that's right I started out as a blacksmith's helper and then

graduated the blacksmiths and you used to make the whole club make the whole club shaft iron all the shaft with what in we made the iron and then they were shafted after that I see it's a lot a lot better this way isn't it oh yeah sure you know the old days was all hickory shaft it wasn't a steel shaft in the bunch I suppose the manufacturer of these clubs is old chains along with production in general through the years over the years we had to build clubs like that we'd have to have about three times the space we've got to build clubs today as we did then I don't doubt it at all I understand that some of the great names in golf come into you even now and ask you to take a wrinkle out there or put some weight in here and more or less customize their club well they do they come in here and we put them on what we call iron loft to their specification some of them want a little stronger some one a little weaker someone I'm upright and someone I'm flat I see and they never send you any share their never know we don't get any share they're any how are they pretty temperamentals a new business with

some along with some of them are just ordinary people just like anybody else well I certainly lead an interesting and unusual life and you contribute so much to it I bet you've had a lot of fun in here haven't you say I have I had to do it over again I do the same thing you play golf yourself no I don't I get enough all week without playing the dirt and go off weekends and bowl somewhere no I go and garden on the weekend oh wonderful thank you very much George you're welcome all right sir you're red rattling and I can see that there are a few gray hairs in with the yes that's right I guess that's because you've been here for how long well I think just about 41 years and you've got the packing department here I see right now I'm in the packing department yes the thousands and thousands it looks like golf clubs here on racks and what in the world you do with them well we accumulate them accumulate the clubs until

the run is complete now we match them in the sets and match them in the sets they're packed up in boxes in the way they go you know when you certainly got a tremendous stock here is it difficult to match these up actually from different sizes and the different styles and models well the models the models of course have to be right and we match them in a swing weight within a point and that's the length they have to be proper around when we get to it it's a complete set well this is an operation that's also done by hand isn't it red that's right boy a lot of hand work around here right while it's certainly a pretty fabulous storehouse here like they grab a couple and go out and play here that's right it makes you feel like it anyway here it does thank you read it is not remarkable in the American scheme that the use of leisure time should provide a major industry after life and liberty comes the pursuit of happiness pursued with happy vigor by the great majority of Americans

the field of athletics and recreation has been championed as a builder of leadership morale and fitness nowhere else in the world has it taken such important shape in national life some will say that we Americans spend too much time not working but the measurement of what we do is not how long it takes us but how much it amounts to and the times we live in move ever towards less time at work more time away the potential for an industry to serve this vast area of emancipated time is the sheer delight of Wilson the sportsmaker this is Jack Angel with George Wilson an engineer whose recordings here have imprinted city in sound