World Mourns Death of Pope; Ban Baseball on Radio? February 18, 1939

Posted on February 18, 2009 by lmharnisch

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1939_0218_pope
 The Daily Mirror is a few days late with coverage of the passing of Pope Pius XI, who died at the Vatican on Feb. 10, 1939.

In Los Angeles, Pius XI was remembered in an elaborate Mass at St. Vibiana’s and in a memorial at Wilshire Boulevard Temple by the local B’nai B’rith lodges.   

Henry Monsky, grand president of B’nai B’rith, said of the pope: "His philosophy of brotherhood and the indivisibility of mankind, under God, served as a bulwark of protection against subversive and sinister forces variously called fascism, communism and Nazism, which threaten our civilization."

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The Times gets a photo of a detective untying the manager of a store that had been robbed, a Glendale man is charged in the death of his wife and a woman dies while viewing the stained-glass reproduction of "The Last Supper" at Forest Lawn.  

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When she was tried in 1940 on charges of presenting a lewd show at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, Jade Rhodora demonstrated her performance for jurors, calling it: "A classic interpretive dance routine."  She was fined $100.

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Sometimes an old story begs for an explanation. What did the
reporter know that wasn’t printed? Why was a particular story written?
What was the columnist thinking?

Braven Dyer left me wondering what I was missing in his column on the Hollywood Stars.

He wrote an item about the Stars hiring Oscar Reichow as business
manager and ballyhoo boss, whatever that was supposed to mean. "For
years we writers have harped on the advantages of a ballpark in the
heart of Hollywood and to Oscar goes the chance to make something of
it," Dyer wrote.

The columnist said he knew how to make the Stars a success: "Were I
in his shoes I would ban broadcasts of home games. Giving something
away for nothing never came under the head of sound business."

How could baseball on the radio be a bad thing? 

–Keith Thursby
1939_0218_pts
 Hey, Keith! Look at the little one-column ad I found in the sports section. Did The Times actually run condom ads in the 1930s? That’s a new one on me–lrh.
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About lmharnisch

I am retired from the Los Angeles Times
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1 Response to World Mourns Death of Pope; Ban Baseball on Radio? February 18, 1939

  1. Vincent's avatar Vincent says:
    February 18, 2009 at 10:49 am

    “How could baseball on the radio be a bad thing?”
    In those days, a lot of people felt that way, fearing broadcasts of games kept people away from the ballpark. It varied from city to city; for example, in Chicago, the White Sox and Cubs were always receptive to broadcasters (at one point in the early ’30s, eight of the nine Chicago-Gary, Ind. radio stations carried some or all of the games, each with their own announcers), whereas in New York, the three MLB teams had an unwritten agreement banning broadcasts. (General Mills, which sponsored baseball games on radio throughout much of the country in the middle to late 1930s, had to settle for sponsoring games of the Jersey City and Newark teams in the International League on a NYC station.) When Lee MacPhail came over to Brooklyn, he broke the agreement in 1939 and brought in a broadcaster who had worked for him in Cincinnati…a fellow named Red Barber. (Vin Scully can tell you all about him.)

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