October 1, 1949: A small plane crashes on Beverly Boulevard in West Los Angeles. The pilot, Jim Hayter, and 4 of his passengers survived. One did not: Singer Buddy Clark.
He was born Samuel Goldberg on July 26, 1912, in the Dorchester section of Boston. He first joined a "big band" in 1932, and in 1934 began singing with Benny Goodman on the NBC radio show Let's Dance. From 1936 to 1938, he sang on NBC's Your Hit Parade.
But he didn't have hit records, and serving in World War II delayed his appearance on the music charts. His 1st hit came in 1946, with "Linda," written by Jack Lawrence, in honor of the daughter of his lawyer, Lee Eastman. That girl, Linda Eastman, became better known by her married name: Linda McCartney.
Clark had several hits in 1947, including the Number 1 hit "Peg O' My Heart," and topped the chart again the next year with "Love Somebody," a duet with Doris Day.
On October 1, 1949, he got together with some friends: Sam Hayes, a noted radio announcer; Sally Hayes, Sam's wife; and a pair of NBC executives, Jennings Pierce and Frank Behrend. Together, they boarded a small plane, and flew from Los Angeles to Palo Alto, California, to watch a football game.
The University of Michigan, then ranked Number 1 in the country, and coming off back-to-back National Championships, played Stanford at Stanford Stadium. Although Stanford ended up going 7-3-1, the game was no contest: Michigan won, 27-7. Clark and his friends were part of a crowd of 87,123 to watch Michigan extend its winning streak to 25 games. (They lost the next week, home to Army.)
On the way back, the plane ran out of fuel, lost altitude, and crashed on Beverly Boulevard at its intersection with Rampart Boulevard, not far from its intended landing. A coroner's jury ruled that pilot James Hayter acted "with a lack of care and caution."
Hayter later enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, but was involved in another accident, in 1956. He survived that, retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and lived until 2012. By that point, Buddy Clark had been long forgotten, a star of the Hit Parade era, buried by the legacy of rock and roll.
*
October 1, 1949 was a Saturday. This was the day of the Communist takeover of China. I have a separate entry for that event.
There would be National Football League and All-America Football Conference games the next day. The National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League were preparing to start new seasons in the coming weeks.
And the Major League Baseball season was reaching its climax: The next day would be the last day of the regular season, and it would turn out to be the only time in the single-division era, 1901 to 1968, that both League's Pennants remained unclinched at the final day began.
* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-4 at the original Yankee Stadium. It was Joe DiMaggio Day, since the Red Sox included Joe's brother Dom, and the rest of their family could participate as well.
Joe told the crowd of 69,551, "I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee." The Good Lord only knows what George Weiss, then the Yankees' general manager and the farm director who had approved Joe's signing in 1934, thought about that.
The Yankees trailed the Red Sox by 1 game going into these last 2 games, and had to win both of them in order to win the American League Pennant. Allie Reynolds did not have his best stuff, and the Sox took a 4-0 lead in the 3rd inning. Joe Page, one of the earliest great relief pitchers, had to pitch more than 6 innings. The Yankees came back, knocking Mel Parnell out in the 5th inning, and tied it up. In the bottom of the 8th, left fielder Johnny Lindell hit a home run off Joe Dobson, and the Yankees won.
The next day, Vic Raschi held the Sox off long enough to gain a 5-3 win and the Pennant, the 1st under manager Casey Stengel.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-4 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Del Ennis, Andy Seminick and Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones hit home runs for the Fightin' Phils,
* The Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. What that meant was, on the last day, a Dodger win or a Cardinal loss would give the Dodgers the National League Pennant. The next day, the Dodgers won, 9-7, on 10th inning RBI singles by Duke Snider and Luis Olmo -- bookending an intentional walk to Jackie Robinson -- so it didn't matter that the Cardinals also won their finale, 13-5.
* The New York Giants lost to the Boston Braves, 3-0 at Braves Field in Boston. Vern Bickford -- one of the pitchers the Braves relied on when they couldn't start Warren Spahn or Johnny Sain and knew it would do no good to pray for rain -- allowed 8 hits 6 walks, but still pitched a shutout.
* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 7-4 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-0 at Briggs (later Tiger) Stadium in Detroit. Mike Garcia allowed 7 hits and 4 walks, but still pitched a shutout.
* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-6 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.
As I said, it was a Saturday. In addition to the game that Buddy Clark and his friends watched, notable college football games played that day included Notre Dame defeating Washington, 27-7; and Oklahoma beating Texas A&M 33-13.
As for New Jersey's teams, Rutgers lost to Temple, 14-7 at Temple Stadium in Philadelphia; and Princeton lost to Navy, 28-7 at Municipal Stadium in Baltimore, which was later converted into Memorial Stadium, home of the Orioles and Colts.
New York City still had something of a college football following. NYU went to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania and lost 14-0 to Bucknell. City College played at home at Lewisohn Stadium, and lost 20-14 to Colby College of Maine. (CCNY only played 1 more season before dropping its football program.) And Fordham didn't open its season for another week.
This was also the day that the George R. White Memorial Stadium opened in Boston. White Stadium would be the longtime home of high school football in the city. It opened with these games:
* Boston Technical High School beat Boston College High School, 12-6.
* Dorchester High School beat Boston Trade High School for Boys, 18-0.
* The English High School beat Roxbury Memorial High School, 12-6.
* And the Boston Latin School beat Boston High School of Commerce, 33-6.
The Boston Latin School is America's oldest high school, having opened in 1635, and while the term "magnet school" wasn't coined until 1968, it has always been one. Commerce closed in 1960. Roxbury Memorial closed the same year. Boston Tech moved into its building, and in 1994 was renamed The John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, for a longtime black educator in the city who had recently died. Boston Trade, also in Roxbury, closed in 1970. BC High is actually across the city from the BC campus, on the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts, across from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Dorchester High closed in 2003.
And, in English soccer, Arsenal beat East Midlands team Derby County, 2-1, at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.
No comments:
Post a Comment