THE 1930s: SPORTS: PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

Henry Armstrong won the world lightweight champion-ship on 17 August 1938 to add to his welterweight and featherweight titles; he was thus the first man to hold championships in three different weight divisions at once.

James "Cool Papa" Bell of the Pittsburgh Crawfords in the Negro Leagues from 1933-1937, called the fastest base runner in the history of baseball, stole 175 bases in 1933.

Middle-distance runner Bill Bonthron, one of the great milers of the 1930s, won the title Amateur Athlete of the Year in 1934, the same year he set a world record in the 1500-meter.

In 1935 Frank Boucher, center for the New York Rangers hockey team, won his seventh Lady Byng Memorial Trophy in eight years as the league's most gentlemanly player.

On 13 June 1935 James J. Braddock, a 10—1 underdog, defeated Max Baer for the heavyweight title in a fifteen-round decision before 35,000 fans at the Long Island City Bowl.

In 1937 and 1938 Don Budge won the U.S. Open and Wimbledon tennis championships; he led America to two Davis Cups those same years.

In 1933 and 1935-1938 Glenn Cunningham won the United States Championship in the mile run, repeatedly breaking the world record.

From 1933 to 1936 Dizzy Dean (baseball) won 102 Major League Baseball games, including 31 in 1934, when he was named most valuable player in the National League; his career ended in 1937 when he broke his toe in the All-Star Game.

New York Yankees catcher Bill Dickey hit over .300 every year except one throughout the 1930s.

Joe DiMaggio led the American League in home runs in 1937 and batting average (.381) in 1939, the year of his first MVP award. In the four years he played in the 1930s, he had already, as sportswriter Jimmy Cannon observed, made a reservation in Cooperstown.

Philadelphia Athletics power hitter Jimmie Foxx won the Triple Crown in 1934; he hit 58 home runs in 1932 and 48 in 1933, along with 163 RBI and a .356 batting average.

Former second baseman Frankie Frisch managed the Saint Louis Cardinals from 1933 to 1938, winning the world championship in 1934.

Josh Gibson won Negro Leagues home run titles in 1932, 1934, 1936, 1938, and 1939; he hit .440 in 1938, and once, during a Negro Leagues Day game in the decade, hit the ball completely out of Yankee Stadium.

New York Yankee pitcher Lefty Gomez led the American League in strikeouts, ERs, and wins in 1934 and again in 1937; he started four All-Star games through 1937 and won six World Series games without a loss.

Detroit Tiger first baseman Hank Greenberg was American League MVP in 1935; he challenged Babe Ruth's record with 58 home runs in 1938.

In 1930, when the average American League ERA was 4.97, Philadelphia Athletics pitcher Lefty Grove led the league with a 2.95 ERA, 209 strikeouts, and 28 wins, against only 5 losses.

Ralph Guldahl was National Open golf champion in 1937 and 1938, Masters winner in 1939, and Western Open Golf victor from 1936 to 1938.

Chicago Cubs catcher Gabby Hartnett was the best backstop in the National League in the 1930s; in 1938 he hit the "homer in the gloamin'" (the twilight) that broke a 5-5 tie with the Pirates and put the Cubs in the World Series, which they lost in four games.

In 1938 Mel Hein, center (and linebacker) for the New York Giants between 1931 and 1945, became the first and only offensive lineman to win the National Football League Most Valuable Player award; an all-pro for eight consecutive years, he perfected the art of dropping back to protect the quarterback.

Edward A. Hennig won the AAU Indian club swinging championship in 1904 and tied in 1911; he then came back to win again in 1933, 1936, 1937, and 1939, as well as seven times between 1940 and 1951.

Eleanor Holm, gold medal winner in the 100-meter backstroke at the 1932 Olympic Games, went into show business and married Billy Rose, former husband of Fanny Brice.

Carl Hubbell, screwball pitcher for the New York Giants, struck out "Murderers' Row" (Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Simmons, and Cronin) consecutively in the 1934 All-Star Game; in 1933 he pitched 46 scoreless innings and was voted National League Most Valuable Player, an award he won again in 1936.

Helen Jacobs was U.S. Open women's tennis champion from 1932 to 1935. She had a devastating chop shot but never beat her rival Helen Wills.

Irving Jaffee, winner of 1932 Olympic gold medals in the 5,000-and 10,000-meter speed skating events, had to pawn his medals during the Depression and was never able to recover them.

Howard Harding Jones, head football coach at the University of Southern California, won twenty-five consecutive games between 1931 and 1933 and led his team to Rose Bowl victories in 1930, 1932, 1933, and 1939.

Bob Kiphuth, Yale University swimming coach for thirty-five years, led his team to 447 victories and only 10 defeats, with a winning streak (163) that lasted from 1926 to 1937.

Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Chuck Klein, Sporting News National League player of the year in 1931 and 1932, was named the league's MVP in 1932 and won the Triple Crown in 1933, when he led the league in four other categories.

Elmer Layden, Notre Dame head coach and one of its legendary "Four Horsemen," won 40, lost 11, tied 2 games from 1934 to 1939 and helped restore the Fighting Irish to the greatness of the Rockne years.

Buck Leonard, first baseman for the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues, perennial East-West All-Star, and third-highest-paid player behind Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, hit .492 in 1939.

Helene Madison won three gold medals in the 1932 Summer Games, setting an Olympic record in the 100-meter freestyle and a world record in the 400-meter freestyle; she was the first woman to swim 100 yards in less than a minute.

In 1938 Alice Marble, U.S. Open tennis champion in 1936, 1938, and 1939, defeated Nancye Wynne of Australia in the shortest women's final on record (twenty-two minutes); Marble was ranked number one in the world between 1936 and 1940 and was the Wimbledon champ in 1939.

New York Yankee manager Joe McCarthy led his team to World Series championships in 1932 and 1936-1939.

Byron Nelson won the Masters golf tournament in 1937 and the U.S. Open title in 1939.

New York Giants right fielder Mel Ott led the league in home runs in 1932, 1934, 1936-1938 (and once more in 1942).

Race car driver Floyd Roberts won the Indianapolis 500 with a record-breaking 117.200 mph in 1938, the best finish for the decade and a record until 1948.

Gene Sarazen won each of the four major golf tournaments at least once in the 1930s.

Defenseman Eddie Shore of the Boston Bruins was named the National Hockey League MVP in 1933, 1935, 1936, 1938, and he made the league's all-star starting team seven times.

Helen Stephens, known as the "Missouri Express" and "the world's fastest woman," was a track star of the 1936 Olympics; her gold-medal-winning 11.5 in the 100-meter was unequaled until 1948 and remained a world record until Wilma Rudolph broke it in 1960.

Eddie Tolan set world and Olympic records for the 100-yard dash at 10.3 seconds and an Olympic record for the 200-meter dash at 21.2 seconds in the 1932 Olympics.

Virginia Van Wie won U.S. amateur golf titles in 1932, 1933, and 1934, the year she was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.

H. Ellworth Vines was U.S. Men's Open Singles champion, 1931 and 1932.

Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner finished his 1933-1938 coaching career at Temple University in Philadelphia; he first coached in 1895 at Georgia and then in the late 1920s and early 1930s at Stanford; his lifetime record was 313 wins, 106 losses, and 32 ties.

Kenny Washington lettered in baseball, track, football, and boxing at UCLA between 1936 and 1939; he was Pacific Coast League collegiate batting champion in 1938 and national leader in football for total offense in 1939; in a player poll to determine college all-stars he received the vote of all 103 players who ever opposed him, but, presumably because he was black, he was not named in any of the national all-star polls.

Orfa Washington, called "the black Alice Marble," won eight American Tennis Association titles between 1929 and 1937.

Byron "Whizzer" White, all-American halfback at the University of Colorado, was the first-round draft pick of Pittsburgh football Pirates in 1938; he led the NFL in rushing as a rookie and then studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford the next year; he played two seasons with the Detroit Lions before retiring to pursue a career in law; in 1962 he was named to the U.S. Supreme Court.