July 29, 1960 & July 29, 1985

Sponsored by Rasmussen College

50 Years Ago Today:

FOX CITIES FOXES

CEDAR RAPIDS BRAVES

PPD

The reason for the postponement? Let's go to the Wikipedia entry for the 1960 Canadian Football League Preseason....No...Really.

On July 29, the BC Lions played the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Part of the local appeal was the presence on three former University of Iowa stars, Kenny Ploen and Ray Jauch of the Blue Bombers, and Willie Fleming of the BC Lions.

See.  Perfectly normal.  I believe that that game would have been played at Kingston Stadium.  In 1960, Kingston Stadium and Veterans Memorial Stadium were separated by only a few feet and the parking lot probably would not be able to accommodate both games...Or, more likely, the folks from the Braves thought they couldn't compete with those former Hawkeyes.

The Foxes are 53-38, still in first place in the Three-I League and still 1.5 games up on Sioux City.

25 Years Ago Today:
..............................R H E
KENOSHA TWINS..204 400 400 - 14 9 0
APPLETON FOXES 300 000 010 -..4 6 3

ATTENDANCE: 1,441

Yeesh.

Gary Shriver did find something positive to write about in the Post-Crescent:

[T]he crowd of 1,441 pushed the Foxes' season attendance to 55,069, or 788 better than all of last season, when the team drew 54,281.  The Foxes still have 14 home dates  this season and have a chance to top 73,000 which would be the largest total at Goodland Field since the 1978 Midwest League champions brought in 94,730 fans.

The Foxes loss dropped their record to 65-37.  Their lead in the Northern Division of the Midwest League over Kenosha is 14 games.

Shriver adds a look at how some ex-Foxes are doing at other levels in his FOXES TALES at the end of the game story:

Several members of the 1984 championship team are having good seasons with Glens Falls of the Class AA Eastern League.  Mike Soper is hitting .297 with a league-leading 109 hits, Russ Morman is at .294 with 15 homers and 66 RBIs and Tom Moritz is at .268.  Pitcher Jim Hickey (5-4) has thrown complete games in his last 2 starts, a 1-hitter and a 5-hitter.

Ken Williams, who was with the Foxes in 1983 and part of 1984, is hitting .270 and has scored 69 runs, tops in the league.

Leo Garcia, a popular Foxes player in the 1982 championship year, is batting .278 with 2 homers for Denver, Cincinnati's AAA affiliate.