Americo ,Jewish Periodical
Thursday, September 7, 1950
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
Page 44
"Oo-o- Ii ! So Biol
New Year Finds Jewish
Athletes Among the Best
By SAM SPATTER
HE YEAR 5710 does not leave us uneventful. World affairs
T have seen to that. Yet to those who follow sports closely, and
find solace in the accomplishments of Jews in sports, the past year
did not need the unsettled world condition to make it a year to be
remembered. Jewish athletes did that job themselves.
Baseball, perhaps, is the best
example of Jewish accomplish- Trotsky and the "pre-war" Hank
ments in athletics. In 1949 the Greenberg.
major leagues had only one Jew-
It is interesting to note that
ish player, Sid Gordon. Today, two players, Sid Gordon, outfield-
six Jews have been active as er with the Boston Braves, and
major leaguers, in 1950, some for Al Rosen, thirdbaseman with
short and others for longer pe- Cleveland, were among the loops'
riods.
top sluggers.
If we were to switch to the
Gordon tied and probatily will
football field, we would find (or has by this time) set a new
more Jewish players on the na- record in grand-slam homers dur-
tion's collegiate front than in ing one season, this year. Be-
5709. And if track or tennis was sides hitting at a .300 clip, Gor-
to enter into the spotlight, ac- don is also one of the best slug-
complishments of Jews would gers in the National League, hav-
also be seen.
ing hob-nobbed with Ralph Kiner
Other events also helped 5710 throughout the campaign in that
beco nn e- "eventful." Brandeis department.
University, first Jewish spon-
His counterpart in the Ameri-
sored non-sectarian college in can League is rookie Al Rosen.
the States began scheduling foot- This Cleveland Indian is consid-
ball games for 1951. And the ered best bet for the AL's
new nation- of Israeli continued "rookie of the year" title. His
along its sports-minded path by homerun production kept him
holding the World Maccabian among the leaders of that de-
tournament.
partment throughout the season,
Here are the sports and the while his play at third left little
Jews that played them. Keep to be required.
an eye open for these names in
Pitcher Saul Rogovin saw little
5711. They are stars of our gen- service this year with Detroit but
eration.
the Tiger hurler proved effec-
• • •
tive in relief chores. This was
BASEBALL: The major leagues Rogovin's first season in the ma-
are back to normal this year.
jors.
At least they are in respect to
For awhile the Tigers could
the number of Jewish players boast of an all-Jewish battery in
in the majors this season. For Rogovin and Catcher Myron
1950 found at least six Jews gain- Ginsberg. Ginsberg proved not
ing major league status during ready for big league competition,
the pennant campaigns. This however, and in June he was op-
marks the largest group of "big tioned to Toledo as was Rogovin
league" Jews since the days of when he came up with a sore
Marrie,Arnovich, Moe Berg, Hal arm.
• • •
BASKETBALL: Nat Holman
New Year's Greetings
and his City College of New York
basketball team wrote basketball
to all our friends
history when the CCNY Beavers
gained the first grand-slam in
collegiate cage records.
CCNY, which had not won a
title in 30 seasons, accomplished
the remarkable feat of winning
the National Invitation crown,
and then capturing the National
Collegiate Association of Ameri-
10424 W. Seven Mile Road
ca title—a feat no other squad
UN. 4-2400
has done in one season.
Klipf el and
Company
Realtors
L'Shono Tom
Tikosevu
BEST WISHES
O'Hara Quinlan
Lumber Co.
••
MIDWEST
PAPER
PRODUCTS
CO.
2747 Humboldt
TA. 5-1411
14801 MEYERS ROAD
VE. 8 0300
-
ROSH HASHONAH
GREETINGS
East Side
Auto Parts Co.
New and Used Auto Parts
Tires - Batteries - Radiators
Generators - Accessories
11941 Gratiot LA. 6-7300
Kurt Stein, 2-year.old DP, born In
a DP tamp of an Austrian father
and a Belgian mother, breaks out
In astonishment when he ad-
dresses his teddy bear concerning
the height of the skyscrapers as
he and his parents land in New
York, whither they came with the
assistance of HIAS, the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society.
Holman, whO was selected bas-
ketball's best athlete in the first
half of the 20th century by INS
writer Pat Robinson, had a host
of Jewish talent to aid him in
the grand-slain.
Lefty Iry Dambrot, voted the
most valuable player in the
NCAA tourney as well as being
selected on the all-NIT squad,
paced the CCNY attack.
Teammates Al Roth and Ed
Roman also held down regular
spots on the New York five,
Roth as a guard and Roman as
center. Both men, as is reserve
Herb Cohen, are sophomores.
Other Jewish cagers could be
found around the nation. Art
Goldberg completed a successful
sophomore year with Duquesne.
Marvin Jaffe of Muhlenberg, had
337 points to lead the Mules' scor-
ing, and was selected "most val-
uable player" of the school as
well as placed on the AP's all-
Pennsylvania team.
Jerry Weinstein was a Miami
guard; Joel, Kaufman captained
NYU; Ierb Scherer was a center
for LIU; Ed Miller held down the
center spot for Syracuse; and Al
Kaplan was a guard at Brooklyn.
In professional ranks, Jewry
was well represented. Max Zas-
lofsky continued one of the
game's top players with the Chi-
cago Stags, and was again se-
lected to the all-NBA team.
Adolph Schayes Spaced Syracuse
into the NBA finals and won a
spot for himself on the NBA sec-
ond all-star team.
Sonny Hertzberg was a guard
for Boston; Jerry Fleishman, a
guard for Philadelphia; Big
Harry Boykoff played plenty of
center for Waterloo; Lionel Mala-
med was one of Indianapolis' best
defensive players, while Phil
Farbman and Dan Forman began
the season with Boston and Min-
neapolis respectively.
President of the NBA was
Maurice Podoloff while Phil
Brownstein coached the Chicago
Stags, and the Philadelphia War-
riors had the "old pro" Eddie
Gottlieb at their helm.
• • •
FOOTBALL: The year 5710
produced no "all-Americans"
among the known Jewish football
players on the collegiate front,
to be considered another Benny
HAPPY NEW
YEAR
First Mortgage Corp.
FRIENDSHIP
OF DETROIT
Plaster and Building
Supplies
F.H.A. APPROVED MORTGAGEE
1139 PENOBSCOT BLDG.
-
Baltimore Colt hopeful, and Iry
Heller, Detroit Lions candidate.
• • •
BOXING: This sport, once
fille'd with Jewish champions,
finds few Jewish boxers in its
midst good enough to, be con-
sidered among the top names of
boxing.
Young Georgie Kaplan holds
the key that could well bring a
new Jewish champion to the fore.
Kaplan, a 26-year-old New York-
er, had (up to this writing) an
unblemished professional record.
He is a heavyweight.
Another newcomer Phil Ber-
man of Paterson, N. J., may bear
watching in the light heavy-
weight ranks. The old names,
however, were the main core or
Still active are Bill Weinberg,
heavyweight; Solly Levitt, wel-
ter; Herbie Kronowitz, middle-
weight; Frank Abrams and Al
Hersh, welters; and Iry Palefsky,
middleweight. Referee Ruby
Goldstein was named by N. Y.
Boxing Writers as the "referee of
the year" for 1949.
Tennis: The youngsters of the
Jewish tennis players took the
front seat among the nation's
best tennis players.
Young Herbie Flam of UCLA
won the NCAA crown as well as
the Western Open, defeating such
players as Earl Cochell, Ted
Schroeder, and other top names
in tennis.
Miami's Sid Schwartz also was
high among the nation's collegiate
stars, losing to Don McNeill in
the Eastern indoor finals. 'An-
other collegiate star was Len
Steiner of Cornell.
Iry Dorfman is ranked high
among the pro tennis players
while Seymour Greenberg is a
top-flight amateur.
Track and field: No writeup on
the year's track and field events
could be complete without men-
tioning the exploits of Yale'S "F"
twins, Vic Frank and Jim
Fuchs.
GREETINGS
Rosh Hoshonah Greetings
14395 SCHAEFER
Detroit, Michigan
VE. 8-6000
e.
Greetings
DAVID
Furniture Co.
7303 W. McNichols
OM
1
■■
• • a.• •
■•■ •
• ■■ •• ■ ••• • ■■•■■•
••■■.■■••■•■•■•■•■■••■•■■•■•■••■•
GREETINGS
BURK'S
I
PRESCRIPTION
PHARMACY
7446 W. McNICHOLS
UN. 1-6000
EAGLE
COAL
CO.
MR. & MRS. MANUEL
KAPLAN AND SON
858 LAKEPOINTE
1843 ILLINOIS
VA. 2-1425
0.......0
NEW YEAR GREETINGS
Phone WO. 5 6770
Friedman or Marshall Goldberg.
Yet the year did find a large
number of Jews playing ball for
their respective alma mater, be
it large or small. It would be
impossible to list the complete
roster of those players through-
out the nation. Yet enough play-
ers are known that a good list is
available.
The East once again produced
the nucleus of players. Probab-
ly 50 percent of them could be
found at Eastern colleges. Take
for example these gridiron stars.
In New England, Yale Univer-
sity has two track stalwarts, Vic
Frank and Jim Fuchs as a regu-
lar guard and fullback respective-
ly. Boston U. had Iry Heller com-
pleting his third season as a reg-
ular at guard, while Harvard's
best halfback was little Hal Mot-
fie.
Al "Boozny" Malekoff was Rut-
gers' quarterback; Milt Hodosh
was a varsity guard for Brown;
Leon Cohen held down the regu-
lar center spot for Syracuse; and
Columbia showed Walt Grubman
at end; Arnold Schwartz at half-
back and Don Berger at center.
Penn could also show at least
three Jewish gridders in Bernie
Lemonick, an all-state guard, and
halfbacks Bob Topchick and Ger-
ald Cook.
Moving into the South, Stan
Lavine, erstwhile Pittsburgher,
quarterbacked Maryland into a
Miami bowl game; Norman
"Red" Stein, another Pittsburgh-
er, saw action with the Navy;
Gordon Polovsky fullbacked for
Tennessee; Myron Gerber, ex-
Navy fullback. performed for
Florida; and Herb Rich drew
raves from his excellent half-
hacking for Vanderbilt.
Out in the mid-West, Jerry
Faske, a halfback, and Lou Gins-
berg, a lineman, proved outstand-
ing gridders for Iowa. Jim
Blumberg and Marshall Finkel-
stein played for Northwestern
and Jack Dorfman was a member
of the Minnesota eleven.
In the far west, Jim Rosenzweig
proved a valuable extra-point
kicker for Washington. Oregon
had two linemen in Larry Black
and Bob Rudolph while Ed Hart
played the line for California.
Professional football saw its
ranks decrease in the number of
Jewish players. Sid Luckman
claimed 1949 was his final year
in the pro game as younger quar-
terbacks, trained by Sid, pre-
pared to take over his job with
the Chicago Bears.
Mery Pregulman announced
his retirement from the pro
league following the season. Pre-
gull/Ian alternated between cen-
ter and guard for the New York
Yanks. Phil Slosburg began the
season with the New York Yanks,
but decided to quite the game in
the middle of the season.
In the AAC (now defunct), Bob
Dobelstein and Dan Dworsky
played guard and center respec-
tively for the Los Angeles Dons.
Martin Ruby was at tackle for
the New York Yankees, and Ed
(Buckets) Hirsch was a line-
backer for Buffalo.
Newcomers to the pro ranks
this season will be Herb Rich,
TEmple 2-5245
■ 111.0.11•••=0.0.. ■..■•■•■•■.■•■••■■•••■••■■
tiMMO
■ 1.1.1111 ■ 0111Mow•• ■ n
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Commercial Reproducing
Company
131 WEST LAFAYETTE AVENUE
PIIOTOSTATIC COPIES
WO. 2-6428
Dependable Service for 29 Year.;
[.......m......m... ■ •• ■ •• ■ ••••
■■■■••■••■■
•■•■••■•■•■
•••
••••••• ■ •. ■ ••••