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November 25, 1950. "Locker room gloom. Dejected high school football team in locker room at the Freeport Municipal Stadium after the first half." New York World Telegram & Sun photo by Walter Albertin. View full size.
None other than future award winning sports writer 16-year-old Dick Schaap covered that game for the Freeport, New York 'Leader', for whom he wrote a weekly sports column entitled 'Scanning the Sports Scene'. Schaap's story appears in the November 23, 1950 edition of 'The Leader'. According to Schaap, the game featured Freeport High School closing out their undefeated season against rival Baldwin High School 47-13 at Freeport Municipal Stadium. The uniforms of the dejected players are consistent with those of the Baldwin team shown in their high school yearbook of 1950, thus lending credence to the photo originating at the game Schaap covered for 'The Leader'. The only inconsistency here is that Schaap covered the game on November 18, 1950, and not on November 25, as the photo caption indicates. He clearly states that it was the last game of the season, so perhaps the photographer's caption was a week off. Freeport Municipal Stadium was demolished in 1989, having served as a football venue since the early 1930's.
Possibly the Baldwin (NY) High School Bruins losing to the undefeated Freeport (NY) High School Red Devils, 47-13, in the 1950 season finale.
Newspaper cover page here:
http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn95071064/1950-11-23/ed-1/seq-1/
The stadium had a football field surrounded by a car-racing track. Photo and comments here:
http://www.racerhub.com/forum/showthread.php?9774-Freeport-Aerial-Pictur...
http://www.racerhub.com/forum/attachment.php?s=1ec6df8670244414a0c2236c3...
(The newspaper is dated 11/23/50, but the Shorpy photo caption is dated 11/25/50. However, the newspaper was a community weekly, and the cover page story is about the season ending with Freeport undefeated, after "overwhelmingly defeating Baldwin", which would explain the dejection in the Shorpy photo. Much like modern-day weekly and monthly publications, the printed dates (and car model years) often don't match the real calendar dates. That is quite possible here, too.)
I grew up in Freeport, NY although was born in 1953. Went to a few high school games in 1968-1969 at Freeport Stadium and also used to enjoy going there for stock car races and demolition derby events around that same time. The place was a real relic with benches as seats and believe after they razed the place years ago a Pep Boys or something similar was erected where it once stood.
I'd be depressed too if I had to sit on the floor, they couldn't even afford benches in the locker room?
Last night with the Chicago Cubs.
Being blown-out after playing uninspired football for the first half, Coach just announced one mile of bear crawl drills on Monday.
Shouldn't the coach be in there inspiring confidence and telling them to "win one for the Gipper?"
but there obviously is "no joy in Mudville" at this halftime. Does anyone know the final score at the end? Hard to believe that these young players would be about 84 today.
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