Column: Hilarity ensues

Don Cantrell

There is nothing like the rich laughter that roars out of a sports

newsroom when comedy is in high gear.

Yesteryear papers around the county all had their share of hilarity among

young and old.

One county sports writer named Tommy Enomoto, who was well-liked by all,

chose to grab his big camera on the field and beat the crowd out of the

huge parking lot one night. This, he figured, would give him fair time to

make the 11 p.m. deadline.

His photograph was perfect and right on time. His story, which he wrote

in 30 minutes, was also good. Only trouble was that the score was wrong.

He had left the game before a breakaway runner changed the score in the

final minute.

People framed the morning sports page and Enomoto chose not to leave a

game early after that sizzler, learning that anything can happen at any

time.

It was remindful of the picture someone took in ’48 of President-elect

Harry Truman holding a Chicago Tribune which claimed that Republican

candidate Tom Dewey beat him for the big title.

Another fellow who brought great amusement after one prep football game

on a Friday night back in the ‘60s was Bill Farr, who went on to draw

press attention as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times in a contempt of

court case.

Farr had an intellectual side and sometimes wrote at great length and

would lose track of time.

Unfortunately, he was a loser one night when it got past 11 p.m. It was

amusing then since no one phoned a field Teletype office to tell him to

stop writing. Hence, the staff left the story running and it never got in

the press room.

Some staffers laughed and told Farr the length was wonderful, that is,

for the next evening.

The positive thing is that Farr always knew how to go along with the

humor.

Another Friday night in the fall of 1955 found the late Daily Pilot

Editor Tom Keevil and reporter Bill Williams offering to take their big

4x5 cameras out to capture photos of the Orange Coast College football

team in its new stadium.

Keevil said both were delighted to conduct this project for the Pilot

sports section.

The sports editor was considerably dismayed later that night when the

pair returned with no prints worth saving and seemed more enthused about

heading across the street for a beer.

Interesting to note that the late Register Sports Editor Eddie West was a

one-time solid end for Stanford and looked forward to his writing career

in the late ‘20s.

One of his first jobs, since there was no TV in those days, was stepping

outside the old downtown office of the Register and putting numbers into

the woodblock innings above the building ledge. All could read the

baseball score that way from the street.

“Long John Silver” clearly brings a picture of a fish restaurant to most

people today, but in the ‘50s around the harbor area it was a name that

sportswriter Rod MacMillian used for a time in the old Newport-Balboa

News-Press.

There had been another sports writer before this corner at the old

Globe-Herald, but this was short-lived since he apparently was spending

more of his time trying to draw free grid tickets out of the colleges and

LA Rams.

Editor Keevil finally excused him to invest his attention in other

quarters.

Once a local fisherman wanted to make good friends with the Pilot and

tried to achieve that by bringing a huge trunk load of wet fishe and

dumping them near the back door. It was quite a smell, but good fish.