Simmons to Take 26 Tigers to Ft. Wood

(Columbia Daily Tribune, April 1, 1954)

John (Hi) Simmons, University of Missouri baseball coach, probably heard somewhere that old military axiom that the general who wins is the one who gets there fustest with the mostest. Maybe that's why Simmons, opening his 1954 Tiger baseball campaign against the Ft. Leonard Wood Hilltoppers at the fort Saturday, is taking no less than 26 men.

Making this mass attack will be eight pitchers - Simmons modestly admits that none of them will work more than three innings - three catchers, eight outfielders, and seven infielders. Bert Beckmann, only letterman among his moundsmen, probably will get the starting assignment.

Other lettermen on the trip include Lee Wynn, Vic Swenholt, Jerry Schoonmaker, and Jim Doerr, outfielders; and Bob Schoonmaker, Buddy Cox and Dick Dickinson, infielders.

Others making the trip are:
Pitchers - Norman Stewart, Emil Kammer, Bob Bauman, Gene Gastineau, Joe Hansen, Ed Cook and Tom Saunders.
Catchers - George Gleason, Lloyd Elmore and Norman Pearl.
Outfielders - Same Sayers, Bob Musgrave, Lloyd Allen, and Gene Sally.
Infielders - Herb Morgan, Jack Gabler, Todd Sickel, and Dick Jensen

The Tigers will leave here for the fort by bus Saturday morning and will return Saturday night.

Simmons' men will meet the Hilltoppers for a second time here next Monday, when the soldiers come to Columbia for the opening game of the M.U. home season. The Missourians will meet their first collegiate foe when they are hosts to the University of Arkansas here Friday and Saturday next week.

M.U. plans for a four-game series with Tulsa at Tulsa April 19 and 20. Tulsa, because of a misunderstanding of some sort, scheduled Oklahoma A&M college for those dates. The Tigers will go through with their scheduled series with Oklahoma A&M April 16 and 17, but will come home from Tulsa instead of going to Tulsa, and will play a team from the Sedalia Air base here April 19 and 20.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: I know that last paragraph makes no sense at all, but that's the way it was written up in the Tribune, word for word. ~ Trripleplay)


Big Seven Baseball Champ Qualifies For NCAA Meet

OMAHA, March 31 (UP) - The Big Seven conference baseball champion will qualify for the National Collegiate Athletic association tournament here June 10-15 without engaging in a playoff.

That word came from A.J. Lewandowski, University of Nebraska business manager who directs the tournament. He said the NCAA had given approval to the placing of the Big Seven winner in the meet as representative of District 5.

If the Missouri Valley conference champion is from the South, he said, it will be placed in playoffs in District 6. If the conference winner is Detroit or St. Louis, it will play in District 4.