DC Comics has been putting out their Strange Sports Stories for quite a long while. The feature got a cover spot for two separate three-issue runs in The Brave and the Bold in the early sixties, and had a brief run as a reprint title in the early seventies (as a companion book to Champion Sports). There were quite a few of these odd stories written, appearing in the pages of DC's science fiction anthologies (Strange Adventures, Mystery In Space, etc.), so it must have been a rather popular genre at one time.

DC Super-Stars #10 was billed as "The Strangest Sports Story Ever Told!", this little story was one of the relative few that actually took place in the mainstream DC Universe … or to rephrase that, actually used characters from the DC universe. Our story begins with a fight, an argument of a married couple. The Sportsmaster and The Huntress, longtime enemies of the Golden Age Green Lantern and Wildcat, were "discussing" The Huntress's desire to become a crime fighter, since she was tired of getting beaten all the time as a super-villainess. To decide whether or not she would remain a criminal or become a super-hero, the Sportsmaster proposed a "friendly" baseball game: The Huntress would pick a team of super-heroes and the Sportsmaster would front a team of villains. Whoever won would dictate the outcome of the Huntress's career.

Bruce Wayne, Dinah Lance and Oliver attending a pro-bowlers tournament sponsored by the Wayne Foundation in Gotham City when the Joker and the Matter Master showed up to take the $250,000 prize money. The trio made short work of the dastardly duo and The Sportsmaster and the Huntress used a strange device to transport them to their game.

This happened several more times: Lex Luthor and Amazo attacked Superman at a charity tennis match (in which he was playing himself at super-speed); Wonder Woman and Plastic Man guarded the trophy at a United Nations soccer championship that Chronos and the Weather Wizard crashed; Robin and Kid Flash were trying to prevent the Tattooed Man and Doctor Polaris from interfering in a special match between the top two horses in the country (an event which also featured appearances by Uncle Sam and the sorcerer Felix Faust); in each case, all the heroes and villains were teleported away to Crandall Stadium.

66,000 people, all living within a three-mile radius of Crandall Stadium, were compelled to attend the event set up by the "Mr. and Mrs. of Menace." They explained to the assembled group the reason behind the game, explained the main rule of not using super-powers, and told the heroes that the people in the stadium would stay there forever if necessary, only leaving when the scoreboard said the game was over. Uncle Sam and Amazo the Android were chosen as umpires, and the game began.

The game was tied eight to eight going into the ninth inning, and the Sportsmaster hinted to his team of villains that they had to win, so the villains started using their powers. The Tattooed Man caught a fly ball from Black Canary with a baseball glove tattoo, but forgot the catch the glove and she got on base. Later on, Felix Faust used his magic to teleport the ball to tag Green Arrow for the final out of the inning, but not before the heroes drove in three more runs.

The bottom of the inning started off with Luthor using a gizmo'ed bat to draw a walk, and the Weather Wizard blinded Wonder Woman with a storm to let him advance, though Kid Flash managed to get there and tag Luthor out first. A bunt with Joker-gas allowed the Harlequin of Crime to get on base, and Chronos used a trick to slow down time for the heroes…though not slow enough for Kid Flash, who tagged him out. A literal fly ball (with flapping wings) from the Matter Master was shot down by Green Arrow.

The Sportsmaster hit a long fly ball past The Huntress and Black Canary in the outfield and it looked like the villains had driven in the tying run, but first baseman Plastic Man had a trick of his own up his sleeve…he shaped his foot like the base and the Sportsmaster touched it instead of the real first base, so Plas tagged him out at second, a sneaky play that even impressed umpire Amazo.

The scoreboard read eleven to ten for the heroes, the crowd filed out of the stadium, and the heroes all returned to their proper places, finishing up their altercations and toting the bad guys back off to jail. And, of course, "Mr. And Mrs. Menace" went back to bickering again.

No need to really worry about continuity here. This story is quite obviously not in current DC continuity. Hell, I doubt it was in continuity back when it was written in 1976. Lord knows we have had a rash of "retroactive continuity" over the past twenty years, so this story never happened…but even if you were to somehow iron out the Earth-1/Earth-2 story elements. I mean, can you see Batman … I mean, THE fraggin' Batman … playing baseball? Not as a catcher, anyway. Lex Luthor, Felix Faust, Doctor Polaris … some of the most important and powerful people on the planet … worrying about the outcome of a baseball game? Even the Huntress must've re-thought her position on wanting to be a crime fighter, since the next time she appeared she was her evil self again and doing her best for the other side.

I'm betting this was in part inspired by the then-perennial softball games between the Marvel and DC bullpens. But let's face it, folks. The days of stories like these are probably long gone. I think the last time I actually saw a baseball game involving super-heroes was in The Young All-Stars #7, when the Justice Society and the young headliners squared off for a charity game. Seeing the names in the credits explain a lot as well. Bob Rozakis and Julius Schwartz I can definitely see coming up with this, a simple, fun and very Silver Age story. And that's all it should be…fun.

And Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin provide some great artwork. I personally remember buying this comic and thinking it was like I got an extra issue of Justice League of America that month. That was definitely a treat good enough for me!

The Box Score

Super-Heroes	1	0	2	1	2	0	1	1	3	11	21	0
Super-Villains	0	1	0	4	0	0	0	3	2	10	17	0

E - None, LOB - Heroes, 12; Villains, 8. 2B - Wonder Woman, Robin, Kid Flash, Green Arrow, Huntress, Black Canary (2), Dr. Polaris, Felix Faust, Luthor, Chronos (2), Sportsmaster. 3B - Dr. Polaris. HR - Black Canary, Tattooed Man, Sportsmaster (2).

	                   lp	h	r	er	bb	so
Superman (W, 1-0)	      9 	17	10	10	1	6
Sportsmaster (L, 0-1)	9	21	11	11	4	8
(T - 3:22 A - 66,581)

DC SUPER-STARS #10

December 1976
"The Great Super-Star Game!"
Script by Bob Rozakis
Pencils by Dick Dillin
Inks by Frank McLaughlin
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Cover by George Tuska (?)

This issue also featured two reprinted stories, "The Super-Athletes of Outer Space" by Otto Binder, Gil Kane & Bernard Sachs, and "The Fight for the Championship for the Universe" starring Green Lantern (by John Broome, Gil Kane and Side Greene).