The War Was Over, and a New Era in Sports Had Arrived

On Wednesday morning, Oct. 16, 1946, the Page 1 banner in The Times read: “GOERING KILLS SELF WITH POISON; 10 OTHER NAZI LEADERS HANGED.” Next to that story from Nuremberg, Germany, was a one-column headline: “CARDS WIN WORLD SERIES IN 4-3 GAME.”

Taken together, these were among the more notable developments of that watershed year half a century ago--in the real world and in sports.

World War II had ended cataclysmically the year before, and justice was being carried out in Germany. In this country, great athletes were returning to the playing fields and an unprecedented boom--now 50 years old-- was beginning.

Americans, weary of war, turned to sports. And sports returned the favor.

This sudden reawakening was stimulated further by more than four years of anticipation combined with speculation about three topics:

--Would Billy Conn, who had missed his chance to topple Joe Louis on June 18, 1941, be able to win the heavyweight boxing title in their long-awaited rematch?

--Could Joe DiMaggio, who had hit safely in a record 56 consecutive games in 1941, and Ted Williams, who had batted .406 that season, resume their careers without missing a beat, and how about Stan Musial--could he hit postwar pitching?

--Was Notre Dame, or any college football team, capable of stopping mighty Army, with its fabled Mr. Inside, Glenn Davis, and Mr. Outside, Felix (Doc) Blanchard?

There was also considerable discussion about who would win the first Wimbledon and Davis Cup competition since 1939, or the first U.S. Open golf championship and the first Indianapolis 500 since 1941. Also, with air travel becoming more commonplace, sports fans wondered: Which major professional league would be the first to go West?

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This last question was soon answered when Dan Reeves, 33-year-old investment banker and owner of the Cleveland Rams, announced in January that he was moving his 1945 NFL champion team to Los Angeles and its 101,296-seat Coliseum.

At the time, however, many thought that calling the NFL a “major” league was a bit of a stretch. College football was still predominant just about everywhere, as was college basketball.

Although the NBA was born in 1946, opening its first season on Nov. 1 with 11 teams under its original name, Basketball Assn. of America, it remained for several years virtually a bush league.

Only baseball’s National and American leagues, with 16 franchises--none west of St. Louis--and the NHL, with its six cities in the East, Midwest and Canada, were considered truly big league in pro sports.

That’s 22 teams, or if the 10 NFL clubs were included, a total of 32.

Now, 50 years later, the map is cluttered with 113 teams throughout North America in the four main sports. Providing the impetus for this expansion, of course, was television, but in 1946 it was still a novelty in the average U.S. household.

Radio, with sportscasters such as Mel Allen, Red Barber, Bill Stern, Ted Husing, Lindsey Nelson, Clem McCarthy, Don Dunphy and, in Los Angeles, Sam Balter and Bob Kelley, provided the words-only live descriptions of major events.

In 1946, there was a lot to describe, and the most eagerly awaited events transpired in the summer and fall of that year.

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On June 19, five years and a day after Billy Conn had battled heavyweight champion Joe Louis on better than even terms before getting careless--and knocked out--in the 13th round, the two fought again. The rematch, on a hot brink-of-summer night at Yankee Stadium, had been the subject of countless arguments throughout the war.

Louis, 32, came in at 207, 7 1/2 pounds over his ’41 weight. Conn, 28, a former light-heavyweight champion, had puffed up 13 pounds to 187.

A couple of comments by Conn during the fight, as reported in The Times by then-sports editor Paul Zimmerman, provide a hint of what happened:

“In the first round, Billy said he told the champion, ‘Take it easy, we have 15 rounds to go.’

“Then in the eighth, when the house started falling in on Billy, he said to Joe: ‘What are you trying to do, kill me? I thought we were pals.’ ”

The next day, Zimmerman wrote: “In the face of a request by Rep. O’Toole [D., N.Y.) for an investigation of last night’s Joe Louis-Billy Conn mismatch for the world’s heavyweight title, promoter Mike Jacobs weathered all insults today and even went so far as to try to talk the unfortunate Pittsburgh challenger into reversing his decision to retire.

“Conn, with two bruised eyes and a cut across the bridge of his nose to remind him of the eighth-round knockout Louis administered last night, reiterated, however, that he was through for keeps.

“As for O’Toole’s complaints that the fight was so bad that the New York Athletic Commission should investigate, Jacobs explained it in his usual simplicity.

“ ‘O’Toole wanted a complimentary ticket to the fight,’ Jacobs said, ‘and I wouldn’t give it to him. I guess he’s sore.’ ”

Still, the bout produced the second-largest gate in boxing history to that time, more than $1.5 million after taxes. Louis got $626,000, Conn $313,000.

In another noteworthy boxing occurrence that year, Sugar Ray Robinson, 26, won the welterweight title with a 15-round decision over Tommy Bell on Dec. 20.

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Less than three weeks after the Louis-Conn fight, on July 9, Ted Williams turned baseball’s All-Star game into a midseason celebration of his comeback from three years as a Marine pilot, hitting two home runs as he went four for four in the American League’s 12-0 demolition of the National.

In his last at-bat, Williams drove a blooper pitch by Rip Sewell into Fenway Park’s right-field bullpen for a three-run homer, amid much laughter by everyone in attendance, including Sewell.

There was no doubt that “the Kid,” now 27, was back, and he finished the season with a .342 average and 38 home runs as the Boston Red Sox won the AL pennant by 12 games over the Detroit Tigers, with the New York Yankees another five behind.

Joe DiMaggio, four years older than Williams, rejoined the Yankees after 2 1/2 years in the Army and struggled somewhat at .290 with 25 homers.

The St. Louis Cardinals won the National League championship by sweeping the first two games of a playoff series with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Stan Musial, 25, who had played through the 1944 season before joining the Navy for the final months of the war, had returned to lead the Cardinals, batting .365 with 16 homers.

Obviously then, the World Series, starting on Oct. 6 in St. Louis, would turn on the Williams vs. Musial hitting contest. Or so it seemed.

Instead, the Series became a showcase for Cardinal pitcher Harry (the Cat) Brecheen, who won Games 2 and 6, then staggered through two innings of relief on Oct. 15 as the Cardinals took Game 7 and the Series from the bumbling Red Sox.

Al Wolf wrote in The Times from St. Louis’ Sportsman’s Park: “This morning they were the Boston Red Sox; tonight they’re the Boston red faces.

“For the American Leaguers from Beantown, who entered the 1946 World Series as shoo-in favorites, one of the shortest-priced clubs ever to qualify for the big show, took it on the chin from the upstart St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3, in the seventh and, of course, deciding game of the 43rd world championship tournament. . . .

“After staging a two-run rally in the top of the eighth to knot the score 3-all, the Bosox turned right around and gave the National Leaguers the winning marker in the same frame, shortstop Johnny Pesky falling asleep on his feet right out in front of 36,143 incredulous watchers.

“With two out and Enos Slaughter perched on first, Harry Walker golfed a two-bagger to center. Leon Culberson snapped up the ball and fired it to Pesky, only to have the one-time Portland clubhouse boy casually catch it and leisurely pivot as Slaughter, instead of pulling up at third, daringly kept on going to be safe at the plate easily instead of out by yards and yards.”

And what happened to the two great hitters, each named the Most Valuable Player in his league?

Williams batted .200 (five for 25) with no home runs and one run batted in; Musial batted .222 (six for 27) with no homers--but he had four doubles and four RBIs.

Perhaps the best pitcher in baseball that season was Bob Feller, who was 26-15 with a then-record 348 strikeouts for the Cleveland Indians.

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Fast-forward to Nov. 9 and what The Times called in a front-page story, “The college gridiron battle of the century.”

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, coached by Earl (Red) Blaik, had won 25 consecutive games, but Notre Dame, coached by Frank Leahy and with Johnny Lujack at quarterback, had routed its first five opponents that season by a combined score of 177-18. Surely, it was assumed, Army would finally meet its match.

And that’s exactly what happened, as Dick Hyland reported in The Times:

“The reactions of the majority of the sellout crowd of 74,000 fans who jammed a sunlit Yankee Stadium indicated that they wondered what all the pregame fuss had been about as Notre Dame and West Point, two titans of the gridiron, played a scoreless tie.

“All realized that they were seeing a hard-played ballgame between two highly conditioned groups of men, but the expected thrills failed to materialize as Glenn Davis, Doc Blanchard and their fellow Cadet stars were stopped by the Irish line as effectively as the Army line bottled up the Notre Dame ball carriers. . . .

“If there was a standout player on the field, it was Arnold Tucker, Army’s quarterback, who made tackles and intercepted passes at crucial points in the game when it appeared that the vaunted Notre Dame attack would finally get going. Notre Dame was able to venture into Army territory but four times, but one of those trips in the first quarter produced the nearest thing to a score seen during the afternoon.

“The Irish advanced to the Cadet four-yard line before losing the ball on downs after third- and fourth-down cracks at the rugged Army line failed to gain the lone yard needed for a first down.

“Army was on the Irish side of the field 10 times during the contest, once venturing to the 16-yard line and once to the 20. . . .

“Blanchard and Davis, facing for the first time a line equal to their own and equal speed in opposing backs, appeared to be just another pair of good football players, certainly not the all-time greats their supporters have claimed them to be.”

So, after all the hype and suspense, Army-Notre Dame turned out to be like the other two major postwar confrontations, Louis-Conn and Williams-Musial . . . Another big anti-climax.

By season’s end, Notre Dame (8-0-1) had outscored its foes, 271-24, and was voted the national championship. Army (9-0-1), scared by Navy in its final game before escaping with a 21-18 victory, had to settle for the Heisman Trophy, won by Davis, and coach-of-the-year honors, awarded to Blaik.

But the hysteria, illegal gambling and ticket-gouging that preceded their 1946 meeting caused an interruption of the series, effective after the 1947 game at South Bend, Ind. In a joint announcement, Notre Dame and Army said it was the “conviction of the authorities of both schools that the game had grown to such proportions that it had come to be played under conditions escaping control of the two colleges, some of which were not conducive to wholesome intercollegiate sports.”

Neither Notre Dame nor Army played in bowl games at the time, although UCLA, which went 10-0 and won the Pacific Coast Conference title, tried to persuade the Cadets to accept a Rose Bowl bid. Instead, the Bruins were “forced” to play in the first game under the new contract with the Big Nine against Illinois (7-2). The Illini, with Julius Rykovich and Buddy Young each gaining more than 100 yards, trounced them, 45-14.

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As the year drew to a close, there was one last bit of deferred business to be resolved.

In 1939, Australia had managed to take the Davis Cup from the United States, then kept it throughout the war while competition was suspended.

On Dec. 26, 1946, at Melbourne’s Kooyong Stadium, an underdog American team began its quest to regain the trophy as Ted Schroeder played the Aussies’ great John Bromwich in the first singles match of the Challenge Round. Schroeder, 25, pulled a five-set upset, and the U.S. team went on to sweep the remaining matches without the loss of a set.

Jack Kramer, also 25, defeated Dinny Pails, then teamed with Schroeder to beat Bromwich and Adrian Quist in doubles, clinching the cup.

Earlier in the year, on Sept. 8, Kramer had won the U.S. men’s singles championship at Forest Hills, N.Y., in a final reported by the Associated Press as follows:

“Jack Kramer, the big, sandy-haired slugger from Los Angeles, proved decisively that he is the nation’s best amateur tennis player. . . .

“Although 23-year-old Tom Brown Jr. of San Francisco finally got his comeuppance by scores of 9-7, 6-3, 6-0 before a howling crowd of 15,000 that wanted to see him win, it took superb tennis on Kramer’s part to do it. . . .

“Sharing the final day’s honors was blond Pauline Betz of Los Angeles, who won her fourth women’s title with a hard-earned victory over Doris Hart of Miami by scores of 11-9, 6-3.”

Betz had also won at Wimbledon, where Yvon Petra took the men’s singles title, an honor Kramer added to his resume the following year.

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There were, of course, other notable sports heroes in 1946:

--A 3-year-old colt named Assault, who became the seventh winner of the Triple Crown.

--U.S. Open champion Lloyd Mangrum, Masters winner Herman Keiser, and Sam Snead and Ben Hogan, both 34, who won the British Open and PGA Championship, respectively.

--George Robson, whose speed of 114.250 mph topped the field in the Indy 500.

--Bob Kurland, who scored 23 points as Coach Hank Iba’s Oklahoma A&M; Aggies defeated North Carolina in the NCAA basketball tournament final, 43-40.

--Maurice Richard and Toe Blake, who led the Montreal Canadiens to the Stanley Cup, four games to one over the Boston Bruins.

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Nearly all of the faces on the sports pages that first post-war year were white.

But Kenny Washington, 29, a former UCLA backfield star, joined the Rams for their first season in Los Angeles and was in the lineup on Sept. 29, when the defending NFL champions lost their opening game to the Philadelphia Eagles, 25-14, before a Coliseum crowd of 30,553.

The Rams, with stars such as quarterback Bob Waterfield, end Jim Benton and halfback Tom Harmon--Mark Harmon’s father, for those too young to have heard of Ol’ 98--wound up 6-4-1 as the Chicago Bears won the title.

In the Rams’ media guide, Washington was referred to as “the first Negro player to be signed by an NFL team in 13 years.”

But the times, they were achangin’, and way up in Montreal, there was another former Bruin who led the triple-A International League in batting that year with a .349 average, while stealing 40 bases and topping all second basemen with a .985 fielding percentage.

His name was Jackie Robinson and he would soon become a Brooklyn Dodger. After that, the world of sports would never be the same.