JackGordon.Org: The Sky-Writer, Pasco NAS, Swabbin' the Deck Column, May 31, 1944

JackGordon.org

PAGE FIVE

THE SKY-WRITER, PASCO, WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1944

with Jack Gordon

RECENTLY A JOE PHAN, apparently disgruntled after watching his "beloved bums" lose a softball game to an underrated opponent, alibied that the reason the team lost was all the fault of the manager who, according to Joe P., "played favorites and, regardless of playing ability, started only his friends in the lineup while really talented players rode the bench or were discouraged from turning out" ... The charges of the fan in question were investigated by this department and were subsequently proved untrue, but the incident brings up a point that is worth the attention of every manager and player participating in the current intra-station league play ... the charges hurled by the fan in question boil down to the swan-song of many a good team gone wrong: Petty polities ... no team manager, regardless of what particular playing ability or all-round knowledge of athletics he may have, can afford to cripple his team by resorting to such unsportsmanlike actions ... It would be a sorry state of affairs if such a case were actually found on this station, for such actions have no place in athletics, in or out of the navy ... so it would be well if all those teams checked up on themselves to see if they are getting the maximum playing support from their departments; to see if they are giving a break to team aspirants who have the ability and talent to play; and to clean house if even a trace of such despicable conditions are found . . .the creed of every sportsman has been and always will be fair play . . . let's remember that in every game . . . because following that creed will go a long way to making No. 1 sportsmen out of every teammate as well as making the current race one long to remember ...

BLUEJACKET JOHN KINNEY, who was stationed here before a sea-duty assignment dispatched him to Bremerton and subsequently to San Francisco just missed his brother Bill, also a patron of Uncle Sam's Blue Uniform Tailor shop who returned to the states after over a year overseas ... with him, Bill brought solid proof that Honolulu is America's best sports town ... according to newspaper clippings brought back by Kinney, the Hawaiian metropolis' first evening boxing show since Pearl Harbor drew 6,011 fans who shelled out $9,200.75 the last Saturday in April, and the next afternoon 18,000 saw the 14th Naval District's all-star baseball team defeat the Oahu soldiers 9 to 0. Prior boxing shows were staged on Sunday afternoons ... If Hawaiians in America's closest-to-war outpost are that sports-daffy, a little athletic entertainment should be healthy for the home folks, too ... Honolulu has weekly professional boxing and wrestling cards, with Leo Leavitt (formerly of San Francisco) promoting the fisticuffing, and Al Karasick, who used to wrestle in Seattle, the grunt and groaners. The Navy all-star baseball team, by the way, was almost a major league outfit. It included such players as Peewee Reese, Johnny Lucadello, Barney McCosky, Johnny Mize, Al Brancato, Skeets Dickey, Hugh Casey and Bob Harris ... and while you're still thinking of balmy breezes and the tropics, we'll report the scuttlebutt that Dan Parker gave us last p. m. about Jackie Souders, who, it seems, has been granted permission by the Navy to take a band on a tour of the South Pacific Isles to entertain the servicemen out there ... nice goin', Jackson ...

YOU CAN TALK about your big-name colleges having reunions now and then and old grads flocking from near and far on a return pilgrimage to old alma mater but you'll have to go some to beat the record of the Pasco NAS which was the first Navy home for many a bluejacket now serving out at sea or at distant training centers, and which continues to be treated with visits of ex-NASites who always manage to stop by "the old base" on leave from their new posts ... newest visitors were Johnny Soule and Halver "Red" Townsend who stopped off while on leave of absence from their present "home," the NAS Indiana ...

"GOSH, I WISH WE HAD A BASEBALL team department" report on what's doing at the Sand Point diamond dust headquarters where Hunk "that's our boy" Anderson hurled another one-hit game last week for the Naval air nine to beat a City League rival 3-1 ... Anderson helped his cause by singling in one of the runs on the route ... Eddie Davis, A & R's photogenic softball player, is rumored instigating a movement to form a "league" of A & R teams in a softball loop of their own ... the A & R manager Pat Ryan will no doubt freeze up on that one, though ... Bob Elgin hints there'll be some mighty hot activities on the NAS bowling alleys this summer despite the heat and the apparent "shut-down" of league activities...

BIG MACK MACDONALD'S "See-Beeing" Seaman Guardsmen may not have started so impressively in the NAS league but if you'll take time out to glance at their record you'll find they're one step out of first place ... One thing that the fans would like to see, one Guardsman reported, is "Tiny" Darnold on the diamond However, the Old Salt believes the Guardsman version of Tony Galento would be a better sight in the ring squaring off against 5 foot Shorty Marion for instance ...

ADD TO YOUR REINCARNATION OF 97-pound weaklings to 165-pound muscle-benders' collection the tale of NAS sailor Larry Hannon, the ex-Seattle pugilist who at the age of eight was a victim of infantile paralysis ... Although Hannon was rid of the disease under skillful direction of medicos, a year later he still found that to completely regain his physical well-being he would have to become a diligent devotee of physical training ... his success was obvious, as in later years he became famed as an amateur, semi-pro and finally professional fighter up and down the Pacific Coast ... Not many North-westerners remember Larry ... but that's because he fought under the name of "Lucey" Hannon ... Hannon, now 39, still looks and is a perfect physical specimen, however when he let the secret out of the bag last week that his "fightin' name" was "Lucey," his Barracks mates have taken to scoffing at Hannon's story of fighting Freddie Steele to a draw in Tacoma (1929) ... starting his boxing career in 1923 Hannon won 100 fights in a nine-year tour of Coastal sports arenas ...