From the article on Page 1D:
Billie Jean Crushes Chauvinist Riggs
HOUSTON (AP) ─ Audacious Billie Jean King struck a blow at all male chauvinists by crushing Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 Thursday night in their circus-like, $100,000 winner-take-all tennis Battle of the Sexes at the Astrodome.
A wild roar went up from the 30,472 fans in the huge air-conditioned arena when Bobby dumped a weak forehand shot into the net for the final shot.
Billie Jean, leading 5-3 with Riggs serving, earlier blew to match points with weak shots into the net for errors.
At the end of the match, while skyrockets flared on the big Astrodome scoreboard and the University of Houston band played a marching tune, the happy Mrs. King flung her racket high in the air and hurdled the net in traditional fashion.
The 55-year-old, bespectacled Riggs was a tired, rubbery-legged old man at the finish.
"She was just too good for me," he acknowledged ungrudgingly, rubbing his chronically sore right elbow. "She was much too quick and made better shots than I did."
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The match was played on a green synthetic court stretched over the second and third base lines of the home of the Houston Astros baseball team in an atmosphere that more resembled a heavyweight title fight, a college football game or a circus than a tennis match.
Billie Jean was borne into the huge domed area on a litter like an Egyptian Cleopatra. The litter was carried by four muscled men with others leading the way carrying plumes on long sticks.
Riggs, not to be outdone, was a Kubla Khan as he was hauled into the stadium over a gold carpet on a ricksha pulled by eight bosomy women in red shorts.
At courtside Bobby presented Billie Jean a huge lollipop ─ which he called a sucker ─ just as he [earlier that year] handed Mrs. Court a bouquet of roses before overwhelming her in San Diego last spring.
Mrs. King was not to be upstaged, however. She promptly handed over a small pig in a box to the man who had once said, "If I am to be a chauvinist pig I have to be the No. 1 pig."
The match was nationally televised and the Trendex rating service reported that an estimated 50 million television viewers watched for the first hour. There were no figures available for the final 90 minutes.
A wild, bullring crowd in the Astrodome hooted and yelled throughout the match in a sport in which tradition has dictated deathly silence from spectators.
State's High Court Backs Nudity Ban
PHOENIX ─ The Arizona Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion Thursday upholding Tucson's ordinances against topless and bottomless dancing.
Tucson City Atty. Herbert E. Williams said immediately that any of six local cabarets could expect police raids as soon as he reads the decision and consults with police legal counsel.
Written by Justice Fred C. Struckmeyer Jr., the court ruled on a case against Edgar D. Yauch, owner of the Body Shop in Tucson, and Leota J. Porter, a dancer at that club.
The seven-page decision, climaxing a long and complicated history of litigation, denied that Tucson's ordinances violate the First and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution and said they are but "statutory applications of the English common law offense known as indecent exposure."
The City of Tucson, Struckmeyer wrote, can legally prohibit nudity in public places in the interest of promoting health, safety, morals and the general welfare of the community.
In attempting to clear up some of the vague provisions in the Tucson ordinances, the court defined public places as "restaurants, nightclubs, bars, cabarets, etc., where spiritous liquors and food are dispensed."
Aimed at "crass, commercial exploitation of sex," the ruling noted, however, that the ordinances were not designed to suppress ideas conveyed in legitimate theater such as dances, plays, exhibitions, shows "or other entertainment where the dissemination of ideas is the objective."
"We cannot say," Struckmeyer wrote, "that these ordinances are aimed at serious works which lift the spirit, improve the mind, enrich the human personality and develop character."
The Arizona court's opinion Thursday came after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision June 21 that left obscenity standards and their enforcement up to each community.
The state decision overturned a Feb. 6 ruling by Arizona Court of Appeals Division 2 in Tucson that held Tucson's ordinances unconstitutionally vague. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge made a similar ruling this year on Scottsdale's ordinances.
Echoing City Atty. Williams delighted reaction was State Liquor Superintendent Col. Harold Moore, who has fought for six years to shut down the state's cabarets.
The decision "will enhance the new regulations which I now have under advisement," Moore said. "To me it leaves it very clear that we have the authority and responsibility to enforce the ordinances throughout the state and put the regulations into effect."
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