JackGordon.Org: The Sky-Writer, Pasco NAS, Swabbin' the Deck Column, June 1, 1943

JackGordon.org

PAGE SIX

THE SKY-WRITER, PASCO, WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 1943

By Jack Gordon

BEFORE WE START!

(Don't let the "lead" of this weekly wash fool you--it isn't all about baseball, it's mostly about you!)

A few weeks back, when the Pasco Flyers were knocking off teams like Geiger Field, Ephrata Army, the Whitman Collegians and taking two-out-of-three with Seattle's Isaacson's Iron Workers, a cry, faintly reminiscent of the major league bellow: "Break up the Yankees--they're too good!" began to filter through our scuttlebutt grapevine.

EDO VANNI
"What Crowds?'

So the Flyers, resplendent with 22 ex-Pacific Coast and Major Leaguers on their roster, divided the team into two separate nines, and started playing intra-squad games.

The resultant games between the so-dubbed "White Sox" and "Bombers" gave the fans just what they wanted--a first class version of Double A-ball, and what's more a brand of play that could top a lot of the current major league action.

But the attendance at those ball games--the games which are played by YOUR shipmates on their OWN time certainly didn't have Manager Edo Vanni hanging out any S.R.O. signs--or scurrying around for some extra chairs. In fact for the past three intra-squad games, you'd think the cellar battling Seattle Rainiers and Portland Beavers of the P. C. L. were playing another one of their "you-win-one, 1-win-one" series.

It may be that most of the men who rate liberty on that shift can't get into town to the Pasco Ball Park by 1630 and that raises the question of whether or not the time of the ball game shouldn't be scheduled later, say, for example around 1800. But that's another issue.

What we're interested in, is getting you out to that ball park to support your team. The fact that you have the recognized strongest service club in the Northwest--maybe in the nation--is evidence that a drawing card is not lacking.

It would seem however that what is lacking is a station spirit that would back the STATION'S team!

That's too hard to believe. Let's see you in the stands next time the Flyers make a home appearance and debunk that idea!

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Wing Tips ....

Maybe you overlooked it in the hustle but three aviation cadets aboard the NAS set some sort of a track record in a recent Avcadathlon. Cadets B. B. Piper, H. Foust and J. Faussi ran the 100-yard-dash in 10:8 and although that mark's short of the world's record, don't forget that the lads turned the trick on an asphalt surface in tennis shoes .... the Spokane Athletic Round Table's baseball league finally got underway last week .... the league's title: "Army-Worker's Organized League" has some nice initials: "A.W.O.L." .... wonder if that's how the soldiers get away to play those games? . . .

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Basketball Postscript:

It's a bit past bedtime, for basketball but here's a few figures on how the leading hoop clubs in the nation stack up according to Dick Dunkel's Converse Basketball Rating Sheet: Illinois topped Wyoming in the national leaders with a 83.5 rating over the Cowboy's 75.5 average. St. Johns, N. Y. grabbed third place with 74.8. In the Service teams grades, Great Lakes Naval Training Station headed the list: 76.5.; Camp Grant second: 71.9. with Norfolk N.T.S. (71.5) and Corpus Christi N.A.S. (67.4) in third and fourth place. St. Mary's Pre-Flight's team placed tenth on the list with a 62.6. average. Of the 668 teams listed in the nation-wide summary, Coach Frank Mandie's Pasco Flyers squad rated 233'rd in the nation with a 50.8 rating. McClellan Field, Cal. had the lowest rating of either collegiate or service teams, with a 'neat' 3.5.