How an Announcer Earned His Pay

For the first half of Saturday's football game the announcer in the Stadium was perhaps the most popular fellow among the 12,500 faithful. Nearly everyone--including 5,000 Massachusetts rooters--cheered at what he said, unless it happened to be a Crimson score.

". . . and the Brooklyn Dodgers lead the New York Yankees, 4 to 8, after four innings. . . ." Roar.

"Here are a few half-time scores: Columbia is ahead of Princeton, 7 to 6. Wild cheering. "Yale trails Brown . . ." The noise drowned out the score. "Dartmouth is behind Holy Cross . . ." More cheering. "Colgate 14, Cornell 0." Just fine.

And so it went until late in the fourth quarter when he produced the only Crimson groans of the afternoon: "Final score: Yale 27, Brown 20. Princeton 20, Columbia 7."

If the game hadn't ended when it did, these announcements would have kept up the cheering, which was now coming from only one side of the field.

"Colgate 21, Cornell 6."

"Holy Cross 29, Dartmouth 21."

Last at night, to any empty horseshoe, he might also have relayed the final score from the Chocolate Bowl in Hersey, Pa.:

"Gettysburg Bullets 27, Bucknell 6."

These words were honey-coated to local football enthusiasts, who already had begun to speculate about the Crimson's remaining seven games long before the scoreboard read Harvard 60, Massachusetts 6.

The announcer was one of the last to leave Soldiers Field. He would be tired but not forgotten, for he had augured well for Crimson football fortunes.