Fritsch: Rookie on the rise

Continued from previous week

That spring, Ted Fritsch hoped to sign on to play baseball with the Green Bay Bluejays — a minor league team maintained by the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers that played intermittently between 1940 and 1959 at Green Bay’s Joannes Park.

The team was the defending champion of the Wisconsin State Baseball League that year.
Taking time off from school in Stevens Point, he traveled to Green Bay to work out with the team and Manager Richard “Red” Smith.

Various newspapers reported that he had signed on with the minor league team, but by the end of May, he was back playing with the Mosinee Papermakers in the Valley baseball league.

No mention is made of Fritsch’s departure from the Bluejays — by him or the team — however, by then, sports columns were beginning to focus on the fall.

By early June 1942, Wisconsin newspapers were highlighting Fritsch as one of five new Packers players who would be starting with the team that fall, along with Fred Van Hull and Earl (Swede) Ohlgren from the University of Minnesota and Joe Krivonak from the University of South Carolina and Clarence Herndon from Nebraska.

As practice began for the Packers, Coach Curly Lambeau liked what he saw in Fritsch and the team’s backfield.

“Our backfield is the fastest in the history of the Green Bay Packers. It has all the speed and deception in the world,” Lambeau told the Press-Gazette, adding that the work of fullbacks Chuck Sample and Fritsch was “outstanding.”

Press-Gazette Sportswriter Ray Pagel agreed, stating that Fritsch was “showing up well for a rookie.”

And by the time they faced Brooklyn in a scrimmage in mid-August, Fritsch was ready to show what he had.

“Coach Curly Lambeau’s wish for a spirited, hard-fighting team this season, in order to help offset the loss of a wealth of veteran material to the armed services, seemed on the way toward realization… Coach Lambeau admitted he was pleased with the progress of the squad,” Pagel wrote.

“Every player participated with the exception of Tex Hinte, the new end from the University of Pittsburgh who arrived only Friday to sign his contract. Hinte was in uniform, however, and took part in the preliminary calisthenics.

“The score was a 21-to-21 deadlock between the Whites and Greens. Although there was some passing, the combination of a hard-rushing line by both teams and a wet, slippery ball resulted in a running game being featured.

“Andy Uram, now in this fifth season as a halfback for the Packers, plunged across the goal line twice for White touchdowns. But the most spectacular play was a 72-yard scoring sprint for the same team by Ted Fritsch, the promising rookie brought by backfield coach, Eddie Kotal, from the Central State Teachers College in Stevens Point.

To be continued