The 1940s: Sports: People in the News

THE 1940s: SPORTS: PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

At age thirty Eddie Arcaro joined an elite horse-racing circle in 1945, winning his third Kentucky Derby, riding Hoop Jr. His previous victories had been on Lawrin in 1938 and Whirlaway in 1941.

When Citation won the eightieth running of the Belmont Stakes in 1948 (worth $77,700 to the winner), he became the eighth horse to win the Triple Crown since 1919. It was the second Triple Crown for both jockey Eddie Arcaro and Calumet Farms, who won with Whirlaway in 1941.

In 1941 Ken Bartholomew captured the North American speed-skating championship.

In 1942 Saint Louis Cardinal pitcher Johnny Beazley won 21 games, including two in the World Series, to attain the best rookie record since Peter Alexander won 28 in 1911.

In 20 August 1945 seventeen-year-old Brooklyn Dodgers shortstop Tommy Brown hit a home run off Preacher Roe of the Pittsburgh Pirates to become the youngest person to hit a major league home run.

In 1941 the AAU selected swimmer Gloria Callen as the outstanding woman athlete of 1940.

Gerald Cote won the sixth annual Yonkers Marathon in 1940 to win the national AAU championship. He finished in 2:34:06.2.

In 1943 Gerald Cote won the forty-seventh Boston Marathon, running the 26-mile course in 2:28:25 4/5.

In 1945 eighteen-year-old Ann Curtis won the grand slam of the women's national free-style swimming championships, capturing the 100-, 400-, 800-, and 1,500-yard races during a single meet; Curtis became the first woman and first swimmer to win the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award as outstanding athlete of the year.

In 1940 female skipper Katherine Dewey guided the AAU senior national bobsledding championship team at Lake Placid, New York. The rest of the Sno Birds team were Leo Martin, Pat Martin, and Lawrence Straight.

In 1943 the AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Trophy was awarded to miler Gilbert H. Dodds.

In 1940 David Freeman of Pasadena, California, successfully defended his men's national badminton championship title, previously won in 1939.

In 1945, with manpower shortages at their height, Saint Louis Cardinals baseball team called up one-armed player Peter Gray; he appeared in 77 games and collected 51 hits in 234 at bats for a .218 batting average.

In 1943 twenty-year-old Lorraine Heinisch of Kenosha, Wisconsin, became the first woman to umpire a major professional event, the National Semi-Pro Baseball Tournament, played in Wichita, Kansas.

In 1940 Russ Hoogerhyde of Northbrook, Illnois, won the individual national archery championship for the sixth time in a tournament held at Massachusetts State College. Ann Weber of Bloomfield, New Jersey, set records in all events, winning the women's individual championship.

In 1941 Willie Hoppe won the world three-cushion billiard title for the second consecutive year.

In 1949 Willie Hoppe, at age sixty-one, won his sixth world three-cushion billiard title without a loss since 1937; Hoppe began playing in 1906.

On 30 June 1948 Detroit Tiger pitcher Bob Lemon threw the first no-hitter recorded in Detroit's twentysix league years and the first night no-hitter in American League history.

In 1948 handball champion Gus Lewis drew a capacity crowd of 300, at $10 a head, to capture his second straight National AAU title without the loss of a game.

In 1941 Toni Matt won the national combined ski championship.

In 1940 Marion Miley, ranked number two among women golfers in 1939 and winner of numerous national tournaments, was murdered by an unidentified masked man.

In 1941 Clarence Parker was named the most valuable player in the NFL in 1940 by the Professional Football Writers Association of America.

In 1940 Samuel Reshevsky of New York won his third national chess tournament held by the United States Chess Federation.

In 1941 long distance runner Gregory Rice received the AAU's James E. Sullivan Memorial Trophy as outstanding athlete of 1940.

In 1945 Maurice Richard, the high-scoring right winger of the Montreal Canadiens, set a new modern goalscoring record with 44 goals in one season.

In 1942 sixty-year-old Branch Rickey of the Saint Louis Cardinals took the general manager's job with the Brooklyn Dodgers, succeeding another legend of baseball, Larry MacPhail. Rickey's reported salary is $40,000.

In 1941 jockey Alfred "Robby" Robertson won six out of seven horse races in Jamaica, New York, the first time that record had been accomplished on a New York track.

In 1948 Matt Sassone of Saint Mary's Academy pitched a no-hitter, but lost 1-0 to Ray Lappointe of Glens Falls High, who also turned in a no-hitter.

In 1949 Red Schoendienst set a National League record for a second baseman by handling the ball 320 consecutive times without an error.

In 1947 Joe Verdeur from LaSalle University set a world record in the 200-yard breaststroke, then broke his own record four times.

In 1946 Babe Didrikson Zaharias won the Associated Press's Best Athlete of the Year award for the second time, the first time based on her Olympic track prowess, the second for her excellence in golf.