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Show Sports Here and There by Al Ablett Nineteen forty-nine is about to pass into history. Sports as a whole fell off in attendance but in the caliber of its participants in some cases was above par. Baseball came back to pro-war level so far as actual play was concerned and counting the attendance at-tendance in all 59 leagues operating, oper-ating, it had a good year. The highlfght of course was the great stand of the Yankees in the face of so many injuries, especially the loss of the great Joe DiMag-gio DiMag-gio for over half the season. The St. Louis Cardinals Hop was a great disappointment in the National Na-tional league but Brooklyn had youth and speed and in the end that is what counted. In our own Industrial league Helper won the first half and de- jfeated American Fork, second half winner, in the playoff. In the Pioneer kague Twin Falls finished first in the regular season with Pocatello winning the playoff. American Legion ball found Bingham again winning the state championship. They went to Arizona Ari-zona and made a great showing, losing to Oakland, and Oakland won the national championship. Football again saw the great Notre Dame team classed as the nation's best in college circles, the Philadelphia Eagles won the National league championship, with the Cleveland Browns on top in the American for the 4th straight year. 1949 caw the end of the pro-football war as the two leagues have gotten together and formed two divisions under the same head. Next year we'll see a world's championship game between the winners of each division. As for the local college picture it was the most dismal season on record, as not one of the three schools was in the running in the Skyline conference Wyoming won the flag for the first time in conference history. Davis county high won the class A title and Judge Memorial the B championship champion-ship for the second straight year. Our local high school team had a good year, losing only to Magna Mag-na and Tooele. Basketball had a great season with Utah and BYU both having great teams. 1949 also saw the passing of the second half of Utah's great pair of Ferrin and Gardner as Gardner joined his playmate in the pro ranks. Wyoming won the title in the Skyline. The great Kentucky team played its last year together togeth-er in college and they were ranked rank-ed the best. Our local high school team didn't do too well but our sophomore sopho-more team never lost a game giving giv-ing us high hopes for the coming year. Winter sports had its best season sea-son in Utah as well as old man winter himself. Skiing was at its best and one of Utah's own is ranked as one of the best in the nation on the waxed boards. Don Reddish is that man. Boxing had its greatest year in Utah, but it fell off in the rest of the nation. 1949 saw the great Joe Louis Abdicate his crown as heavyweight champ, and Ezzara Charles beat Joe Walcott to win the N.B.A. title in that division. 1949 also saw the ending of the career of Ernie Hunick, the boy that did a great deal to bring boxing back in Utah. Ernie nas quit the game for good. Rex Layne, a promising young heavyweight, heavy-weight, has come like wrildfire the past year. Keith Nuttall had his ups and downs. But these two are Utah's hopes for the future. Starting 1950 here are my winners win-ners for the major bowl games: Ohio State in the Rose bowl. Kentucky over Santa Clara in the Orange bowl. Oklahoma over L.S.U. in the Sugar bowl. Rice over North Carolina in the Cotton Cot-ton bowl. Thanking everyone- for all the nice things in 1949, I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous 1950. Happy New Year. AL |
