Everyone should read Frank Litsky's fine obituary in Friday's New York
Times. Eastman's 46.4 world record -- by a full second -- on March 25,
1932, is about my earliest memory. My father took me to the old Angell
Field and we watched as, first, Eastman and his coach Dink Templeton, in a
hospital in San Francisco, communicated by telephone and then Eastman ran
his extraordinary race, around one turn, finishing on the wrong side of the
track, but much more attractive to spectators than today's 400-meter races
because you could tell throughout who was winning and who was losing. And
then two weeks later on the same track I saw his first 880 record, 1:51.3,
around three turns.
Bill Allen
