Baseball and track and field continued to feel the effects of the World War II with shorter seasons and limited participation.
Teachers and students were answering the call from Uncle Sam and leaving for the military. Allied forces continued to fight fierce battles in Europe and the Pacific.
No official count of the number of baseball games were played, but practice games and nonleague encounters sometimes went unreported or weren’t published by the shrinking staffs of The San Diego Union, Evening Tribune, and The Daily Journal.
San Diego, Hoover, and Sweetwater tied for first in Victory League baseball, each with a 3-1 league record. Track and field managed to complete a full season with a combined championship day for the Southern Section and Los Angeles City Section.
The sections competed separately before a crowd of about 15,000 in the L.A. Coliseum.
The war took a historic turn in Europe, with D-Day and the Normandy invasion, thirteen days after the final track meet.
(Bold type for Track, Light for Baseball)
 4/2/44
San Diego defeated Hoover, 57 2/3-46 1/3, in a dual meet that did not count in Victory League competition.Â
Ralph Phillips of the Hillers won the 100-yard dash in :10.1 and 220 in :23.1. Sophomore Norman Stocks won the 440 in :52.2 and anchored a 1:35 victory in the 880-yard relay.
Vocational dropped a 5-1 decision at Golden Hill Playground to the San Diego junior varsity, whose Luis Urquidi had five hits in five times at bat.
4/4/44
Jack Harshman collected four of San Diego’s 10 hits but the Hillers were beaten by the Coast Guard base team, 11-4, at Golden Hill.
4/5/44
The Point Loma varsity combined two hits, two errors and a walk for three runs, and defeated the San Diego High JV, 4-2.
4/11/44
Hoover dropped a 7-1 decision to the visiting Camp Kearny Marines.
—Byron Ward homered and his triple scored Don Sparling in the 10th inning as Sweetwater outlasted Camp Miramar, 6-5, on the Red Devils’ diamond.
4/13/44
Lee Singleton’s single scored Tom Maheras and George Caswell in the first inning and that was enough as host Hoover beat Point Loma, 4-0, in a Victory League opening game.
The Cardinals rolled behind the four-hit pitching of Dick Barnes, who struck out 11 and didn’t allow a base runner after the fourth inning.
4/14/44
San Diego scored 6 runs each in the first and second innings and pounded out 14 hits in an 18-0 execution of Vocational on the Balboa Stadium diamond.
—The Fort Rosecrans team bunched two-base hits in the sixth inning at Hoover and defeated the Cardinals, 1-0.
Grossmont’s James Wood won the 70-yard high hurdles, next to last event of the meet, in :10 and the Foothillers dominated the field events to edge San Diego, which won all races on the track, 54-50.
—Hoover was a 52 ½-50 ½ winner over La Jolla and led the Victory League with a 5-0 record, followed by Grossmont and San Diego, each 4-1. Top mark was the 21-foot, 6 ½-inch broad jump by the Cardinals’ Jack Norberg.
4/18/44
Victor Salazar scored from second base on a fly-ball out by Carl Goodwalt and San Diego defeated Fort Rosecrans, 5-4, in Balboa Stadium.
Bud Andrews and Bob Marr each won two events and La Jolla topped Sweetwater, 66 ½-37 ½. Grossmont beat Point Loma, 62-42.
4/21/44
Hoover (6-0) swept the broad jump and shot put and took four other first places plus a tie for first to clinch a tie for the Victory League dual meet championship, 55 ½-48 ½, over San Diego (4-2) on the Cardinals’ oval.
Thirty-two combined base hits and 10 combined errors later San Diego stood 2-0 in the Victory League after a 16-11 victory at Point Loma.
The Hilltoppers struck 21 base hits and put the game away with a five-run seventh inning.
4/25/44
Three Sweetwater pitchers, Castro, Johnson, and Don Sparling held Point Loma to three hits and Sweetwater made the most of eight hits to score an 8-0 victory on the Pointers’ diamond.
4/26/44
Charlie Harris gave up four runs but survived a seventh-inning uprising as Point Loma defeated the San Diego Electric Railway team, 9-4.
(The Electric Railway operated in San Diego from 1892 until 1949, when trolley cars gave way to buses and the continually expanding use of automobiles).
—Hoover capitalized on singles by Tom Maheras and Don Brorson, a walk to Lee Singleton, and a wild pitch in the sixth inning propelling the Cardinals to a 2-0 victory over a team identified as Kearny Ship’s Company and not affiliated with Kearny High.
4/28/44
Outhit, 10-7, San Diego took advantage of 11 Sweetwater errors to score a 13-7 victory on the Red Devils’ diamond.
—John Brody struck out 15 and St. Augustine scored six runs in the fifth inning en route to a 10-7 win at Point Loma.
—Idle Hoover backed into its second straight Victory League dual meet championship when coach Dave Rebd’s Cardinals rested and La Jolla went to the foothills and defeated Grossmont (5-2), 60 ½-43 ½.
The Cardinals (6-0) had one meet remaining, versus Coronado the following week.
—San Diego won 10 of 11 events, routing Kearny, 92-11. Ted Simpson won the 880 in 2:09, Norman Stocks the 440 in :52.6, and Pasqual Buono the pole vault, clearing 11 feet, 4 inches.
—Bob Seiben won the 440, broad jump and 220 low hurdles but didn’t get much help as Point Loma topped Sweetwater, 67-37.
4/30/44
The city’s Civil War was five days away and coaches Bob Breitbard (Hoover) and John Brose (San Diego) were setting their lineups for the three-game series that would not count in Victory League standings.
San Diego, Hoover, and Sweetwater were tied for first in the abbreviated campaign.
5/2/44
Hoover closed a 7-0 dual meet season with a 92-11 victory over Coronado that was its 14th in a row since 1943. Jack Norberg was a triple winner, :09.8 70-yard high hurdles, :13.5 120 lows, and 21-4 ½ broad ump.
Runners-up in the standings were San Diego, Grossmont, and La Jolla, each 5-2, while Grossmont (7-0) swept Classes B and C.
—Hoover’s Dick Barnes and Marty Gaughan combined to pitch the first perfect game in Victory League history, 7-0 over Vocational on Golden Hill Playground.
Barnes pitched the first three innings and Gaughan the last six, striking out 8 and walking one. Lee Singleton and Frank Smith each had two hits and drove in three runs.
5/4/44
Al Smith allowed six hits but Point Loma committed eight errors and dropped a 6-4 decision to the Camp Kearny Liberators on the Pointers’ diamond.
5/5/44
Carl Hurlbach kept Hoover in check on five hits and benefitted from a San Diego attack that scored nine runs in the final three innings for a 13-5 victory in the first of the best-of-three City series at Hoover.
A five-run ninth against Cardinals pitchers Bill Ruzich and Marty Gaughan highlighted by Louie Dukes’ two-run double clinched the win.
5/6/44
VICTORY LEAGUE FINALS, @BALBOA STADIUM
San Diego won the team championship with 36 points, followed by La Jolla, which had 28, and Hoover 18½. Grossmont had 18 1/6, Sweetwater, 13 1/3, Coronado 11, Point Loma, 3, and Kearny, 1.
Jack Norberg of Hoover was the individual star with 13 points, winning the 120-yard low hurdles in :13.3 and broad jump at 20 feet, 10 inches, and placing second to the :09.3 by Don Nelson of Grossmont in the 70-yard high hurdles.
San Diego’s two first places were the :53.1 440 by Norman Stocks and the 5-11 3/8 high jump that tied Ivan Robinson with La Jolla’s Don Ide.
Ray Turnipseed of Coronado was a double sprint winner, running the 100 in :10.2 and 220 in :22.7.
La Jolla’s Bob Marr, Phil Prather, Bob Faniel, and Bud Andrews raced to a season-best 1:32 in the 880-yard relay.
5/19/44
Lefthander Bill Ruzich stopped San Diego on three hits and Hoover, scoring three runs each in the eighth and ninth innings, evened the City series at one win apiece, 6-1, in Balboa Stadium.
—Don Sparling singled, doubled and tripled and Bob Rinkleib drove in four runs, and Sweetwater hammered visiting Point Loma, 15-2.
Jack Norberg of Hoover ran :15.8 in the 120-yard high hurdles and :25.2 in the 220 lows at Sweetwater to qualify for those events in the May 27 CIF Southern Section championships in Los Angeles.
Norberg and other Victory League athletes did not run the highs or the longer-distance race during the season, instead competing in the 70-yard highs and 120 lows.
Don Nelson of Grossmont and Bob Marr of La Jolla also qualified for the CIF meet.
5/24/44
The venue for a rare, wartime night game was Lane Field and San Diego clinched the City series with its second win in three games over Hoover, 18-11.
Jack Harshman had four hits, including a home-run with the bases loaded in an eight-run sixth inning, to lead the Hilltoppers, who trailed, 8-1, after the Cardinals scored six in the fourth inning.
Harshman also had a double and two singles and the Hillers were ahead, 18-7, after seven innings.
Dick Barnes hit a bases-empty home run in the ninth for Hoover.
5/26/44
—Don Nelson was a surprise winner and the only local gold medalist in Class A when the Grossmont hurdler won at 220 yards in :24.9 in front of a crowd of approximately 15,000 persons in the Los Angeles Coliseum, where the Southern and L.A. City Sections combined their championships for a total of 66 events in Classes A, B, and C.
CLASS A MEDALISTS
—Ray Turnipseed of Coronado, third in the 100-yard dash to the winning :09.7 and tied for second to the winning :21.4 in the 220.
—Jack Norberg, Hoover, third to the winning :15.8 in the 120-yard high hurdles.
—Ivan Robinson, San Diego, third at 5-11 in the high jump to the winning 6-1 ¾. Don Ide, La Jolla, tied for fifth at 5-8.
—Don Nelson, Grossmont, first in the 220-yard low hurdles in :24.9.
—Gilbert Martin, Grossmont, fourth in the shot put at 47 feet, 7 3/8 inches to the winning 52-6 1/2.
—La Jolla, fifth in the 880-yard relay to the winning 1:31.2.
Inglewood outscored Beverly Hills, 23-22, for the team championship. La Jolla was fourth with 9 ½.
