- Father Mulcahy must save the camp's honor in a high-stakes footrace against the 8063rd. Hawkeye, BJ, and Margaret each bet on it. Meanwhile, Charles tries to help Private Walter Palmer, a patient who suffers frequent verbal abuse from his fellow soldiers due to a speech impediment.—Anonymous
- Father Mulcahy must save the camp's honor in a high-stakes footrace against the 8063rd. Basically Klinger is all excited that sprinting (a hundred yard dash man from Ohio state.. He barely missed making the 1952 Olympics by a 10th of a second) champ Jessup Mcfarland (William Schilling) is being assigned to the 4077. 8063rd has sprinter Earl LeMasters (Mark Anderson) on their rolls and love to have a betting game on his races. But Klinger reckons that 8063rd wont know about Jessup and will bet big on Lemasters.. This is the chance for the 4077th to clean up.
Hawkeye, BJ, and Hot Lips each bet on it. Margaret wants to plot revenge on the head nurse at 8063rd Major Judy Parker, or her alias "Parallel" Parker. She bets a week's pay. BJ & Hawk join when Klinger begs them for this once in a lifetime chance to clean up good. BJ and Hawkeye are in for a week's salary as well.
But when Jessup turns up at the 4077, its the father and not the son (and he is fat and gets out of breath by simply climbing down the truck he arrived in). So, now the only other decent runner at the 4077 is Mulcahy, but he is more of a long distance runner than a sprinter. Klinger had not discussed the running distance with the 8063rd. So, the 4077th arrange for this to be a long distance race, rather than a dash. Mulcahy wants the roof over the orphanage to be rebuilt in exchange for running against LeMasters. The Orphanage was falling apart and didn't have any food or heating fuel either.
Meanwhile, Charles tries to help Private Walter Palmer (Phil Brock), a patient who suffers frequent verbal abuse from his fellow soldiers due to a speech impediment. Palmer is from the Engineers corps and was brought into the 4077th when pieces of a bridge they were building fell on him and some of his colleagues. Winchester tries to build Palmer's confidence by getting him to build his knowledge and IQ (Palmer already has a above average IQ) and to work on his speech impediment. Winchester insists that there is no co-relation between IQ and stuttering. He gifts Palmer his own leather bound copy of Moby Dick to start Palmer on his journey. Winchester is helping Palmer as his own sister Honoria stutters. Meanwhile BJ and Hawk talk to the engineer's captain and ask him to build the roof if Mulcahy wins the race. If he loses, Margaret promises him 3 week's pay (1 week each from her, BJ and Hawkeye). Mulcahy's training duly begins, with everyone giving their inputs. He runs for miles, does skipping ropes and so on.
The race duly starts with all the pressure on Mulcahy to save the 4077 payroll (everybody, including Potter, have bet on Mulcahy). It is a 12 mile race (from the MASH 4077th to the orphanage and back) and soon Mulcahy is a lot behind. Mulcahy doesn't have a chance in hell and convinces LeMasters to throw the race by telling him that the money is for the orphans. but before he crosses the line, Mulcahy gets everyone at 4077 to promise their winnings to the orphanage.
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