1945 Baseball: School, Military, Jobs, Money Affect Students
World War II was almost over (Victory in Europe was declared in May) and CIF travel restrictions for high school teams virtually had ended, but calls to the colors and other dynamics continued.
By the 1944-45 school year San Diego High enrollment had dropped to 2,694 students, with 750 graduates, down from a high of 851 and enrollment of 3,316 in the September 1941-June 1942 period, according to Don King’s Caver Conquest, athletic history of the school.
Students were leaving early and joining the military, or just leaving for jobs, many amid wartime financial challenges.
San Diego and Hoover held sway on the diamond. The Cardinals won 2 of 3 rivalry games and the City Series with the Hilltoppers, who were led by future major leaguer Jack Harshman.
Harshman hit .370 and signed a professional contract with the San Diego Padres. He would hit as many as 40 home runs in one minor league season but eventually transitioned to the pitcher’s mound.
The move resulted in Harshman’s posting a record of 69 victories against 65 losses in parts of 10 seasons with five teams, with records of 14-8 in 1954 and 15-11 in 1956 with the Chicago White Sox. He once threw 245 pitches in a 16-inning, 1-0 White Sox victory.
Harshman also pinch hit. The lanky (6-foot, 2 inches, 175 pounds) slugger hit 21 home runs in his big league career.
3/31/45
Pitcher Bob Peterson and first baseman Jack Harshman were selected to the Pomona 20-30 Rotary Club all-tournament team.
The Hilltoppers won 3 of 4 games but El Monte was the tournament champion.
4/1/45
Jack Harshman hit two triples but San Diego dropped an 8-4 decision to the Naval Air Station team at Navy Field.
4/3/45
A game in which there were more combined errors, 13, than hits, 10, saw Point Loma and St. Augustine struggle to a 9-9 tie at Golden Hill Playground.
4/6/45
Phil Adams’ pinch-hit single in the seventh inning robbed Hoover’s Dick Barnes of a no-hitter in the Cardinals’ 8-0 victory over Point Loma.
4/10/45
John Hatz collected three hits and Sweetwater, which scored four runs in the first inning, won a nonleague game at Point Loma, 6-1.
—Brown Military dropped an 8-5 decision to the visiting San Diego High junior varsity.
4/13/45
Hoover opened the Victory League season at Sweetwater with a 5-1 victory.
Starting Cardinals pitcher sophomore Ken Clary singled in the fourth inning, followed by walks to Marty Gaughen and Bill Paul, and George Caswell’s single and a Sweetwater error that led to three runs.
—Point Loma’s Charlie Harris pitched a no-hitter and Point Loma swamped Vocational, 24-0, in a game called after seven innings. The losers did not help themselves with 13 errors.
—San Diego High hit the road for the first time since 1942 and defeated Redondo Beach Redondo Union, 13-2, on five hits, aided by three Seahawks errors, eight walks, and four hit-batsmen.
San Diego’s trip included next-day victories of 21-5 over Inglewood and 5-4 over Lawndale Leuzinger.
4/16/45
St. Augustine was defeated by the Hoover junior varsity, 4-1, at University Heights playground.
4/17/45
Pete Corona of the San Diego JV threw a no-hitter as the Hilltoppers defeated the Point Loma varsity and Charlie Harris, 1-0.
4/19/45
Ken Clary scattered three hits and Hoover moved to 2-0 in the Victory League with a 15-1 rout of host Point Loma.
4/20/45
Redondo Beach Redondo returned the favor by being the visiting team in a rare doubleheader. Dick Barnes’ four hitter stopped the Seahawks in Hoover’s 3-2 victory in the afternoon on the Cardinals’ diamond.
Possibly fatigued and out of sorts, Redondo moved over for an evening game in Balboa Stadium, where San Diego High scored nine runs in the first inning and needed only six hits, plus 17 bases on balls and five Seahawks errors, to send the Los Angeles team home a 14-0 loser.
4/24/45
Ken Clary pitched Hoover to a 3-1 victory over San Diego in Balboa Stadium in the first of the three-game City Series.
Clary was gifted with two runs from third-inning wild throws by the Hilltoppers and kept them off the scoreboard until the bottom of the ninth inning after Hoover scored in the top of the inning.
Clary gave up for hits, one more than losing pitcher Harry Ohlson.
4/25/45
A six-run fifth inning propelled Sweetwater to a 10-6 win over the visiting San Diego junior varsity.
4/26/45
Point Loma and Vocational felt the wrath. San Diego clobbered the Pointers, 25-1, and Sweetwater scored a 20-0 rout of the downtown school.
—St. Augustine was beaten again by a junior varsity, San Diego’s, 8-7.
5/1/45
Dick Barnes struck out 13 and gave up six hits and Hoover beat Sweetwater, 6-5. George Caswell’s single scored Ken McCoy with the winning run in the last of the seventh inning after McCoy singled and stole second base.
—Point Loma scored seven runs in the seventh inning and took St. Augustine, 12-6, in a game that had almost as many errors (14) as base hits (16). Point Loma made fewer (6) and overcame a 5-3 deficit.
5/2/45
Malin Burnham’s two hits led Point Loma to an 8-4 win at Brown Military.
5/3/45
Jack Harshman had two hits and Harry Ohlson struck out 12 and San Diego moved into a tie with idle Hoover for first place in the Victory League when the Hilltoppers beat Sweetwater, 10-0, for a 3-0 record.
—Lawndale Leuzinger was supposed to travel South but would forfeit games to Hoover and San Diego the following week.
5/4/45
The San Diego Junior Varsity was a rude guest, whacking the Point Loma varsity, 12-2, on the strength of a 10-run eighth inning.
—Six errors doomed St. Augustine in an 11-3 loss to Los Angeles Cathedral at University Heights playground.
5/8/45
Bob Turley allowed three hits and Point Loma defeated visiting St. Augustine, 12-2.
5/10/45
Sweetwater’s 6-1 victory at Point Loma clinched third place in the final Victory League standings. The Red Devils finished with a 2-2 league record to the Pointers’ 1-3.
5/11/45
San Diego, trailing, 6-4 entering the top of the ninth inning, scored two runs to tie and three more in the 10th inning to defeat Hoover, 9-6, on the Cardinals’ field and even the City Series at 1-1.
Jack Harshman was 4 for 4 and Bob Peterson 4 for 5 as the Hilltoppers reached Cardinals ace Dick Barnes for 16 hits.
5/17/45
The Hoover junior varsity outlasted the St. Augustine varsity, 10-8, at University Heights playground.
5/18/45
Awaiting their City Series-deciding game next week, the Hoover and San Diego squads each played host to the Imperial Valley All-Stars in separate afternoon-evening games.
Hoover won the sunshine contest, 16-3. San Diego won, 6-1, under the lights.
Ken Clary and Jimmy Gleason divided pitching assignments for Hoover, holding the visitors to five hits in the seven-inning contest. Redbirds Don Brorson and George Caswell each homered and tripled.
Jack Harshman hit a home run and Harry Ohlson and Carl Hurlbach stopped the desert entry on three hits hours later in Balboa Stadium.
5/23/45
Centerfielder Dick Barnes had three hits and drove in four runs and Hoover defeated San Diego, 7-5, for a 2-1advantage in the three-game City Series, clinching city bragging rights and the Victory League championship for the Cardinals.
San Diego’s Jack Harshman hit a two-run, 400-foot home run over the rightfield wall in the top of the first inning at Lane Field, where an estimated 2,500 persons attended.
The Hilltoppers led, 3-0, after Harshman’s clout but Hoover scored a run in its half of the first and was in front, 4-3, after three innings.
San Diego took a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning, but the Cardinals scored two in the seventh and one in the eighth.
Ken Clary went the distance for Hoover, surrendering 10 hits. Shortstop Victor Salazar and second baseman Bob King had two hits each for the Hillers.