AMERICAN SPORTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25660, 7 October 1944, Page 9

AMERICAN SPORTS

NEW ZEALANDERS’ INTEREST

BASEBALL AND BASKETBALL (R.N.Z.A.F. Official News Service) GUADALCANAR, Oct. 2.

Mutual interest in athletic sports and eagerness to test individual skill in competition are factors that constitute a bond between New Zealanders and Americans serving in the Pacific. Association on the field of sport has brought to hundreds of young New Zealanders an interest in the American national game, baseball, and also in basketball, and both these sports are now played by increasing numbers of officers and airmen of the Royal New Zealand Air Force in the Islands. In spite of the intense heat, sport is encouraged, and at one island base in particular it looms large in the station’s activities. Even football is played, Rugby being the main choice, while basketball, baseball, and volleyball all have their followers, and help keep the men fit. Swimming and boating are also popular where conditions permit, but it is in field sports that inter-Allied competition is keenest. So far no one has induced Americans to take a large-scale interest in cricket, nor can New Zealanders be persuaded that pitching horse-shoes is a worth-while hobby. A few Americans have, however, been introduced to the intricacies of Rugby, and it can confidently be predicted that, after the war, both baseball and basketball will occupy a more prominent place among popular men’s games in New Zealand.